Category: TMS

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A pleasant Sunday…

Just a few odd-and-ends to report this week.


Sue Walker has been busy cleaning the seat covers on the cushions that Jason Sharpe removes from our D40LF.

Hubby Lawrence meanwhile has constructed a permanent solution to our problem of ventilation aboard #730 during the summer.

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On summer days, the interior is quite hot. To provide a cross-flow breeze, we generally open the emergency door. In the past we cordoned off the exit with a cone and fabric rope, Now we have a child’s gate. Lawrence modified it so that bolts extend from the gate into the body of #730, making a rigid and safe anchor.

Matthew is putting the finishing touches to a Grant Money Meter farebox to be gifted to Vancouver mayor, Ken Sims. Meanwhile, he is starting on restoring another farebox, but this one is slightly different to the ones we are familiar with.

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This one has a window to show the mechanism… the BC Hydro versions we have seen usually had a plate covering the aperture instead.

On March 10th, #4612 -driven by Trevor Batstone- visited Winston Churchill Secondary School. It was part of an end-of-term project by TMS Member Aden Wong.

During the couple of hours the coach was parked in front of the school, 155 students visited. Says Lawrence, who with Matthew, hosted: “We were well received and quite popular.”

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And, in closing, we’d like to mention Matthew’s YouTube playlist featuring our TMS buses. You can watch it at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8cGLI_p5qM&list=PLYKhZgSecot_UtYu1KHZeWo9hYNd9Q8s7

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Our New Board of Directors

At the TMS Annual General Meeting held in New Westminster, March 3rd, our new Board of Directors was elected. Pictured above, in this picture by Rhonda Larrabee, are (L to R) Jason Sharpe, Lawrence Walker, Michael Taylor-Noonan, Sue Walker, Bryan Larrabee, Milan Streit, Rob Chew and Angus McIntyre.

“I think this Board of Directors will do some good things and I’m proud to be a part of it.  For the first time in our history, we have elected a woman to the Board of Directors.  Special congratulations to Sue who has already made her mark on our organization and I know will help take us into the future.  

  

When I looked around the room last night (at the AGM) I saw a lot of young faces and cultural diversity and it gives me a real feeling of enthusiasm for the things that we can do together moving on.”

Bryan Larrabee, President

We have a number of “foreign” transit artefacts – this roll blind comes from Seattle.

Especially with such limited storage space as we have at Langley, we must sharply define our accession guidelines. Such items as this are being offered for sale. Here, Sue helps a customer inspect the item. Thankfully our parking lot was almost empty this day!

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A D40LF ‘re-branded’

Missing from our donated D40LF were any fleet name or other branding. BC Transit had removed these before we picked it up. The horizontal stripes along the bodywork remained, but there was space where the company logo had been on the nearside and front. Chris Cassidy stickhandled putting the TMS logo on the front dash. But the shape of the nearside space below the ‘belt line’ precluded doing the same there.

Our logo, designed by Mike Cui, included our name. Jason Sharpe had the idea of just using that text to fill the vacant space. He also that that we could use a reversed version of the logo on the rear panels, in the same fashion as West Vancouver Municipal Transit used a sailboat motif.

With help from myself and President Bryan Larrabee, we produced high quality drawings suitable for use as decals. In a strange twist we found that the hexadecimal ‘colour code’ of our blue TMS logo matched the blue of the existing stripe almost perfectly. According to the BC Transit graphic standards, it should have much darker. (Maybe the BC Transit colours were formalised after the stripe was applied, or the decal had darkened through exposure to the climate.)

When applying the rear decal, Jason noticed that it would be more attractive if the surplus black background was trimmed off – this he did with consummate care, and the results look fantastic.

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You’d be correct if you noticed the snow on the ground in these pictures. I took them on Tuesday, 2nd February at Cullen Diesel Power Ltd. on 192nd Street in Surrey. Bryan Larrabee drove #9753 there so they could perform a CVIP inspection and certification. While the bus was there, Cullen also examined the underside of the coach as part of our Preventive Maintenance program. We’re pleased to say we received good news on both!

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Photos from the Past

Those of us over a certain age will no doubt remember listening to our vinyl records and how much clearer digital CDs were (for good or bad!). The same holds true for photographs. Today’s digital photographs are so much more detailed and able to be tweaked to correct minor problems. Yesterday’s photos just can’t compare – especially those taken with consumer-grade cameras. Colour prints from the seventies and eighties are notoriously unstable. Add cheap camera optics, small image size, poor contrast range and bad lighting to the mix, and one could be forgiven asking whether its worth preserving some of the photos.

The answer is “yes”. No matter how much below the quality we expect nowadays, there is often detail in the images themselves that can only add to our knowledge of transit history. So, I have started a project to scan these images that have been donated to our library through the years. I’m placing them in their own gallery on our website, so viewers know we are preserving them for their historical content more than their photographic merit. Sometimes, the historical content may not be evident at the moment: perhaps some future archivist will discover a nugget of valuable information contained in them!

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We all know of the celebrations of the 100th Anniversary of transit – but what about the 90th?

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The “Bus” sign was not a decal?

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#2601 was fitted with a Brown-Boveri chopper control. Compare the “hump” between it and #2605

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Of course, some are “borderline!”. Maybe it is not worth keeping.

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A Big Announcement!

Well, this week, we have a “housekeeping” entry. But it’s big news!

We’re going on a Fan Trip! It’s aboard 1964 TDH4519 #4612. We’ll travel around Surrey and Delta, stopping for photo opportunities and some interesting points along the way. The route isn’t fully planned yet, but don’t let that stop you from reserving your seat!

The fan trip is open to all, at our regular price of $30 (Members) / $35 non-members. To provide maximum viewing experience, only the number of forward-facing seats will be available. Of course, you can sit anywhere you like, except for that one reserved seat in front. In addition, we’ll only fit four on the back bench – so that limits the seat spaces available to 30. This trip is sure to be popular – reservations are now available – BUT MEMBERS GET A SPECIAL ADVANCE BOOKING PERIOD. To reserve, you must log into Admidio first.

TMS – Admidio

Enter your credentials in the first panel. Forgotten your password? Click the link under the blue sign-in button. You’ll receive instructions at your registered email address. Forgotten your log-in? Changed email address? Send us an email: membership@transitmuseumsociety.org

Your browser must accept cookies in order for us to validate your membership.

Once logged in, select Web Links from the dark grey bar on the left. Click on the first link presented. You must sign-in again! Click Continue to reservations page under the TMS logo. (We’re investigating ways to make this process simpler!)

Non-members will be able to reserve any remaining seats beginning Monday, January 23rd.

The trip will depart from Scott Rd SkyTrain on Saturday, February 4th at 12 noon, The duration is approximately 3 hours.

Unsure of where to board at Scott Rd? We’ll email you details, explaining that and lots more, whether you travel by car, bus or SkyTrain. Watch your email (and junk inbox!) a few days before departure date.

We encourage you to pay for your ticket(s) after you make a reservation. (You can reserve tickets for a companion who isn’t a member). We accept credit cards, and also debit cards bearing the VISA or Mastercard logos. 

If you wish to pay onboard, please remember: for this tour we will only accept cash.