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Hello to 2025!

Happy New Year to all our members and supporters!

As we begin the new year, we’d like to just explain what has happened to the blog posts you may wish to re-read. As a Society, our mission is “preservation.” Sometimes the Internet can be quite the reverse — posts can disappear. (Though, I suspect those posts you regret may still be available deep inside the Goggle servers!) Because our blog posts often contain information which should be retained, every year we archive them and place them in our online library called TOPICS. There they are searchable, backed up, and always available. (You can search using the term ‘blog’.)

May 2025 be all you wish it to be!

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Ho Ho Holiday Lunch

Bryan Larrabee, President, Transit Museum Society

A Visit From Santa and Mrs. Claus

This week we were invited to attend the Richmond Transit Centre (RTC) Holiday lunch, so Angus, Lawrence, Matthew and I took #4612 to join the festivities.  We were treated to a full turkey dinner and met many of the RTC operators, mechanics and staff.  Lawrence fixed up the story boards and put them in the bus and we gave tours.  A nice surprise was a visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus.

It was an honour and a pleasure to be invited and of course our 1964 GM Fishbowl (#4612) was a big hit.  We took the opportunity to photograph some of the remaining 9 Orions as well as one of the Santa Buses. 

Of course Angus McIntyre knew nearly everyone and posed for several pictures himself.

Lots of transit talk and comparison of the Fishbowl with the current fleet.  The non-ergonomic driver’s area drew a lot of comments especially from operators wondering what it must have been like to have no power steering, no adjustable steering wheel and seat.  The advertisements in the bus were popular and Angus was more than willing to talk about driving in the old days.

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Flyer fits in a Ford

Writes Sue Walker, our Sales Manager:

“There was a gentleman that came by our Langley shop yesterday to pickup the last two bench seats removed from our D40LF during Jason Sharpe’s refresh project. He is doing a project of his own, but his involves a 1921 Ford Model T Runabout. The seats fit perfectly into the car. He was so impressed with what we do and who we are, that he gave us a small donation.” Definitely not OEM!

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All Aboard

for what was our last big event of the year. 

Sue Walker

We all had a great time! We had some special guests visit us… 

Sandra MacDonald and Fred Bradley and his wife Sue Bradley from The Sunshine Coast. Sandra and Fred have corresponded on line many times but had never met until the train show.  They had a great chat. John Streit from CKNW radio also paid us a visit. He was there in a professional capacity: he did a great news report about the train show. This was also seen on Global News. 

Our sales team also did a fantastic job in chatting with people and doing sales. The final tally was over $1000 in sales!  We tried a new idea to make some mugs with the same art work as Lawrence’s prints of the buses.. it was a fantastic hit. We even sold a early 1900’s train switch lantern. Our Social Media person (Stephen Goodman) did a fantastic job in covering all the different areas of the Train show. I think we got a lot of exposure by being near the miniature train. Many people were taking pictures of our beautiful 4612 fishbowl bus.

I would like to thank  all the members and guests that took the time to volunteer and visit us at our booth  representing  the Transit Museum Society.