2703 replies to this topic

[Orion V]

Why do they use the 60-BRT buses for the regular Orange coloured routes? This doesn't distinguish them from the Silver Orange line BRT buses. In fact, I see the 60-BRT model painted in all 4 of their liveries which means they use this model for all their bus routes? I initially thought they used the BRT for their BRT route while regular routes use regular artics.

[HoustonMETROFan]

Orion V, on Oct 7 2008, 02:07 PM, said:

Why do they use the 60-BRT buses for the regular Orange coloured routes? This doesn't distinguish them from the Silver Orange line BRT buses. In fact, I see the 60-BRT model painted in all 4 of their liveries which means they use this model for all their bus routes? I initially thought they used the BRT for their BRT route while regular routes use regular artics.

While I can't answer that question, what I can tell you is that since I have yet to see a fully painted 60-BRT bus in the Metro Express "Business Blue" scheme, those models are only painted in THREE liveries---not four.

Metro Local 60-BRT buses are painted orange (which Metro dubs "California Poppy").
Metro Rapid 60-BRT buses are painted "Rapid Red."
Metro Liner 60-BRT buses are painted in a two-tone silver paint scheme with orange "Metro Liner" text.

[ADB]

LA Metro probably believes more into the BRT service than the styling of the bus. For example if they used a New Flyer D60LF instead of a NABI 60-BRT, not much would be different. Also they probably want to standardize, since the only artic NABI now offers is 60-BRT.

[general682002]

A. Badaraco, on Oct 7 2008, 05:29 PM, said:

LA Metro probably believes more into the BRT service than the styling of the bus. For example if they used a New Flyer D60LF instead of a NABI 60-BRT, not much would be different. Also they probably want to standardize, since the only artic NABI now offers is 60-BRT.

Keep that in mind that LACMTA is CNG land and it has to be CNG!

[ADB]

general682002, on Oct 7 2008, 09:06 PM, said:

Keep that in mind that LACMTA is CNG land and it has to be CNG!

Oh yes that's right too. No diesel for Southern California, so again NABI got the order for the gasoline electric hybrid 60-BRTs as well as CNG 60-BRTs.

[R. McConnell]

Orion V, on Oct 7 2008, 12:07 PM, said:

Why do they use the 60-BRT buses for the regular Orange coloured routes? This doesn't distinguish them from the Silver Orange line BRT buses. In fact, I see the 60-BRT model painted in all 4 of their liveries which means they use this model for all their bus routes? I initially thought they used the BRT for their BRT route while regular routes use regular artics.

The 60-BRT is used on a number of Metro Rapid routes, a few Metro Locals, and the Metro Orange Line. The "BRT" in the name doesn't have anything to do with the service it provides.

Also, the 60-BRTs are only found in Local, Rapid and Liner paint schemes -- there aren't any in Metro Express colors (now that would look nice, though...)

LACMTA doesn't have any gasoline-electric hybrid 60-BRTs on order -- they're all CNG. However, LACMTA will take delivery of ~16 gasoline-electric 42-BRTs as well as 800+ Metro 45Cs.

[ADB]

The Port of Authority, on Oct 8 2008, 03:27 AM, said:

LACMTA doesn't have any gasoline-electric hybrid 60-BRTs on order -- they're all CNG. However, LACMTA will take delivery of ~16 gasoline-electric 42-BRTs as well as 800+ Metro 45Cs.

Sorry, my bad. I confused the two BRT orders.

Do you know what scheme the Metro 45Cs will be in. I saw a photo in Metro Magazine of a partially complete one in the California Popy scheme.

[Orion V]

A. Badaraco, on Oct 8 2008, 06:39 AM, said:

Sorry, my bad. I confused the two BRT orders.

Do you know what scheme the Metro 45Cs will be in. I saw a photo in Metro Magazine of a partially complete one in the California Popy scheme.

The red coloured one is shown on wiki.

[ADB]

Orion V, on Oct 8 2008, 08:04 AM, said:

The red coloured one is shown on wiki.

Yeah that's the older batch, which are all in the Rapid Red scheme. I was asking about this current batch.

[Mr. Engineer]

A. Badaraco, on Oct 8 2008, 06:39 AM, said:

Sorry, my bad. I confused the two BRT orders.

Do you know what scheme the Metro 45Cs will be in. I saw a photo in Metro Magazine of a partially complete one in the California Popy scheme.

There is a completed one on display at APTA. Its in the orange scheme. The pics are in the APTA thread in the up coming events section.

[R. McConnell]

A. Badaraco, on Oct 8 2008, 03:39 AM, said:

Sorry, my bad. I confused the two BRT orders.

Do you know what scheme the Metro 45Cs will be in. I saw a photo in Metro Magazine of a partially complete one in the California Popy scheme.

Most will probably be in orange, although there could be some in red as well to replace the older Rapid NABI 40-LFWs (when that happens far in the future.)

Would be nice to see one in Metro Express livery...

[Ztonyg]

I was in LA over this past weekend and dediced to do some transit fanning. Unforuntately, I wasn't able to track down a NABI 42BRT. Here are some photos I was able to take though. Enjoy!

Some from Saturday:

























The WORST Bus Model Ever:









Some from yesterday:

[EBL]

^ Nice! And thanks! I wish I'd have taken pictures of RTD buses back in the '70s and '80s.

I'd like to see any pictures of the MTA Express buses, which are painted blue. There aren't that many, I don't think.

[R. McConnell]

EBL, on Jul 27 2009, 10:12 PM, said:

I'd like to see any pictures of the MTA Express buses, which are painted blue. There aren't that many, I don't think.

Eric

The only routes that use the blue Metro Express buses are 450x and 577x, which use New Flyer C40LFs and NABI 40-LFWs respectively:

[EBL]

I wonder if anyone's ever gotten those confused with Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus, even though they're not the same shade of blue. Seems like a strange color choice to me. Maybe green would have been better, unless some other agency uses green (Torrance? Culver City? Gardena?).

[Ztonyg]

EBL, on Jul 27 2009, 10:23 PM, said:

I wonder if anyone's ever gotten those confused with Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus, even though they're not the same shade of blue. Seems like a strange color choice to me. Maybe green would have been better, unless some other agency uses green (Torrance? Culver City? Gardena?).

Culver City uses green Buses:





Santa Monica's blue is more like "sky blue":

[EBL]

Honestly, the all-white with gold stripe Metro paint job worked just fine. Now that they still have those, along with the poppy Locals, red Rapids, blue Expresses, and silver Orange Line BRTs, Metro has the most messed up color array of vehicles that I know of. Orange Line buses that are silver?

This reminds me of back in the '70s when they were running the GM Old Looks that still had the 1950s MTA color scheme of green/dark green/white, the all white with a light green stripe, the yellow/white/champagne of RTD, some all white Old Looks, and some peach and cream Old Looks that they got from Georgia.

Interesting, indeed...

[TheAverageJoe]

EBL, on Jul 28 2009, 06:23 AM, said:

I wonder if anyone's ever gotten those confused with Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus, even though they're not the same shade of blue. Seems like a strange color choice to me. Maybe green would have been better, unless some other agency uses green (Torrance? Culver City? Gardena?).

It looks more closer to Edmonton then Santa Monica

[ieko]

Can't really confuse the Metro Express buses with the Big Blue Bus because they essentially never cross paths.

Torrance Transit btw will be transitioning from red stripes to Green, Blue, and Bronze soon.

[R. McConnell]

ieko, on Jul 28 2009, 09:48 AM, said:

Torrance Transit btw will be transitioning from red stripes to Green, Blue, and Bronze soon.

That's too bad, I liked the red stripes.