I always enjoy seeing vintage buses and other mass transportation equipment in their natural habitat framed in an interesting historical setting, so here are just some random pics scoured from the Internet from the decade of the ‘40’s, ‘50’s and ’60’s…
A nice color photo of LA, sometime in the early to mid-’50s. Not only three GM Old Looks in different colors, but a neat SoCal custom too…
(Editor’s Update: this is actually a restored bus shot in recent years)
I think we can imagine who got the worst of things here…
Ever change out pistons on a DD 6-71?
Old Look at a stop in the LA area in the ’60’s…
(Editor’s Update : From a comment: The photo of the GM PD-4101 bus burning is actually one of Freedom Ride buses which was bombed near Anniston, Alabama in 1961.
Pre-war Ford Bus in Philadelphia in the early ’50’s…
Hollywood and Vine, where stars are born, mid-’50’s (’57 Olds being advertised)…
Steam and Diesel – Camden NJ, 1947…the bus looks like a Mack…
During the war, there was not only Rosie the Riveter, but also Mary the Mechanic…
Early attempt at air conditioning on a transit bus – NYC Old Look, late ’50’s…(this bus has been preserved and is part of NY MTA’s historical fleet).
Heading downtown in the late ’40’s…in their Sunday finest…
Very rare GM Old Look trolley bus in the late-40’s…most trolley buses were built by Marmon-Herrington, Pullman, ACF-Brill, St Louis Car Company, and Flxible/Twin Coach.
Driver Changeover – “OK, Fred, let me clear out the fare box and she’s all yours”…
Post-war ACF-Brill Trolley Bus in Philadelphia…early ’60’s…
Western Flyer “Canuck” Intercity coach circa 1955…
NYC Jamaica Bus Lines Old Look suburban model (no rear door), late ’50’s…
“That gentlemen, is a clean exhaust”…one of Pacific Electric’s 1940 White 788 models…
Pittsburgh PCC clearing the underpass on an overcast winter day; early ’60’s…
And lastly, a rare color photo of NYC’s most well-known bus driver…
Thank you for the photos and the interesting/funny comments! I had never heard of the Pacific Electrics White 788 model. Is it electric? 🙂
I loved them all. That one on fire looks dramatic – it is kind of hard to figure how a fire that bad gets started in a bus – I wouldn’t think there is that much in the way of combustible material inside.
Are we sure that third shot is vintage? The sidewalk pavers had me questioning it, then I saw what looks like an Econoline from the late 90s way in the background. In any case, the photographer did a nice job.
Nice catch. There May also be a Ford Escape taxi back there
The bus license plate is modern as well.
Good eye, I didn’t even notice with the black and white photo!
The NYC Transit district has a number of restored buses; this looks to be one of them.
I wonder if they keep some old buses around for TV and movie filming.
They put them on display every summer in my neighborhood, although I expect this year may be different.
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/journeytojustice/2018/05/14/week-civil-rights-history-may-14-through-20/607385002/
A White mob disabled the bus, beat the people on board, and burned the bus to the ground J P Cavanaugh.
Pic #5…
“You’re bolting up the exhaust manifold this time!”
I worked for Greyhound, 1974-1977. First month I worked in the engine shop. worked with lead mechanic overhauling a 8v71 in a GMC 4903 coach belonging to Zephyr Coach Lines, unit #70. Zephyr was a small regional line based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Greyhound did the maintenance and serviced the coaches.
I was assigned to reinstall the exhaust. The muffler was located behind the engine between the engine and drive axle. The original black hole. It had to be the dirtiest job I ever tackled. This was pretty unusual work for the engine department. At that time if a coach needed engine work the engine was just replaced. We usually had 3-4 power packs sitting in inventory. You would simply pull the engine/transmission “pallet” out, steam clean the chassis and install new pallet. The bus would normally be down 2-3 days. Greyhound was somewhat advanced in those days compared to the trucking industry with tracking service and maintenance work and scheduled inspections to keep the buses running. The one area they fell down on was engine tune ups. It was pretty rare to see anyone set valves, injector rack, injector height or RPM governors. As long as the engine ran OK it stayed in the bus until oil usage hit 125 miles per quart. Lots of engines surpassed 500k miles, some even 750k. This was at a time when 200-250k was good for truck engines. I remember during a job interview after my Greyhound years being questioned about my engine experience.
Did I have any experience working o Detroit diesel engines?
They expected any engine I overhauled to last at least 200k miles.
I was kinda laughing inside when I heard this. My schooling and my work experience was almost entirely Detroit diesels and you want the engines to last 200k miles, yea I think that’s doable. Of course how long the engines lasted had little to do with the overhaul, maintenance was the key to make them go the distance.
The final twist of fate was I eventually went to work for the General Motors Truck and Coach Division. I was hired because of my coach experience and Detroit diesel experience. Ironically I never ended working on a coach again.
I did spend years working on those Detroits, right up thru the end of the 2-strokes.
“The original black hole” That’s funny – and fitting.
OBH
No doubt CCers have worked on some inaccessible dirty stuff, but it’s guaranteed, nothing compares to the misery found at OBH. LoL
It’s said that there’s a starter motor at the bottom of OBH, but nobody has actually ever seen it.
The RH valve cover, that’s the OBH’s event horizon, where the inescapable space-time warp begins.
We may have just unkowingly uncovered Deadly Sin #35.
CC’s previous gaze towards OBH.
xr7, for me, such stories are gold. The rest of us theorize about how stuff actually worked. Brilliant.
And Jimdandy, what is OBH?
Agreed. Great stuff xr7; thanks.
OBH = Original Black Hole
OBH – First recognized and appropriately named by CC’s xr7, the hidden nearly impossible to access space on the front side of a transverse engine in GM coach; especially so with Vee engine. OBH and components therein are heavily shielded from the outside world by extremely limited access and a protective “cake mix” of leaked engine oil and accumulated road grime.
Despite OBH being so inhospitable some critical components are located there and must occasionally be accessed.
The photo of the bus burning is actually one of Freedom Ride busses which was bombed near Anniston, Alabama in 1961.
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/today-in-labor-history-freedom-riders-attacked-in-alabama/
Cool. Photo #17 location is Assiniboine Park Conservatory building in Winnipeg, one block and one bridge across the Assiniboine River from our first house in Winnipeg.
Winnipeg Transit didn’t start phasing out the GM Old Look models until the late 70’s early 80’s, replaced by New Flyers.
Excellent stuff, Mr B.
In the Mary Mechanic photo, is that a transverse flathead V8 in the back of the bus?
Yes, a Ford, which was a rather popular little bus in the late ’30s early’40s. There’s a green on a few shots up.
I imagine that these flatheads demanded a fair bit of ministration from Mary Mechanic to stay happy.
Excellent research and comments. Impressive so many of these early designs remained in service well into the 70s and 80s. I recall a small fleet of Flxible Clippers were used as airport shuttle buses to the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa until the mid 70s.
The yellow/orange RTD old look buses in LA were still plying the streets for a number of years after I moved there in 1977. I’m guessing some of them lasted into the next decade. Very hard to kill, which is why it killed all of its competitors.
During the first energy crisis in ’74, PAT Transit in Pittsburgh acquired a number of surplus old look buses from Southern California, which ran in their home colors until being repainted in the current PAT color block livery used on streetcars. The new looks stayed with their gray and white liveries until the survivors were replaced with the red white and black of the new Neoplans in the 1980s.
While this is a good post for the most part some editing needs to be done. This photo is from the 21st Century not the mid-20th Century.
https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/3995125d1d27ca3283aec2404d4c95c7.jpg?ssl=1
Also, the bus on fire is from the days of Freedom Riders and shouldn’t be posted without an explanation.
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/journeytojustice/2018/05/14/week-civil-rights-history-may-14-through-20/607385002/
In the first photo I’m amazed how worn out the paint on the Black car is.
I’ve updated the post. Thanks.
Love the loco and bus with snow and smoke. It’s a triangle of fuels. Coal, diesel, hi-octane.
Yes!
The second Los Angeles Photo is from a very particular point in time. The red and silver bus is in Pacific Electric livery. P.E. had been taken over by Metropolitan Coach Lines in 1953. Metropolitan never got around to painted all the P.E. coaches their own two-tone green and white livery which is seen on the coach beyond the P.E. one. The ‘fruit salad’ GM Old Look in the foreground belonged to Los Angeles Transit Lines, the successor to the Los Angeles Railway. In 1958 both Metropolitan Coach Lines and Los Angeles Transit Lines were municipalized under the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority. The significance to all of this is contrary to urban myth, both of L.A.’s streetcar companies had extensive motor coach operations long before G.M., Standard Oil, and Firestone Tire allegedly conspired to remove light rail from L.A.’s streets. In fact, most of Pacific Electric’s bus fleet was comprised of Whites like the 788 in the other picture. G.M., Standard Oil, and Firestone Tire likely did conspire to a certain extent to promote motor coaches over streetcars in a broad sense, but by the late 50’s most streetcar systems were failing, both privately owned and public.
I thought the Green/Green/White livery came with the LAMTA?
And you’re right about LA and buses over streetcars, and in many other cities. Lots of pressure to remove streetcars from busy streets, aided by a switch to one way streets in many downtowns.
Texaco was the evil oil company in the conspiracy theory as repeated by my elders back then. Did all those GM buses have Firestone tires? Just asking.
What I do remember are the two tone green MTA trolley busses running in downtown LA.
I’m thinking that LA photo is at least from 1958, with the light & dark green and white LA MTA bus in the background, along with one of each of its predecessors for company: a yellow, green, and white LA Transit Lines (ex LA Railways) and a red, silver, and orange Metropolitan Coach Lines (ex Pacitic Electric.) Pretty cool shot to get all three in the picture.
The GM Trolleybus and the Mack in Camden are both from the Public Service Transportation Company, which once covered most of New Jersey. The trolleybus is actually a hybrid gas-electric all service vehicle – you can see the radiator outlet at the rear. PSTC introduced the first ones in 1935, and they ran until going to full diesel buses in 1948.
My most vivid memory of buses of this vintage is how miserable it was to be stuck behind one of them breathing in that sulfurous diesel exhaust. Imagine the local nursing home serving baked beans for supper on Saturday night and at one single point in time all of the residents pass gas. Yes it was that bad.
Thats why the coaches had the exhaust on the drivers side of the bus so they didn’t blast the people curbside. Later they moved exhaust top side to get it away from everyone.