D. DeLarge

Regular Brampton 40' units would be numbered xx01+ Zum 40' units would be xx50+ Zum 60' artics xx75+

Probably one of the former 4 mobile COVID VAX units they had at Wonderland and Emily Carr SS.

531 in service on the 165 this morning, may be its first day back in service.

Dusting off this thread... Going off information from old UCRS newsletters published in the 60's, I've created an Expo Express page on the Wiki, including fleet roster info and car numbers. Any information on the fleet has been pretty elusive to find in the past due to their short service lives and lack of good roster-like photos (ironic how they spent way more time in storage waiting for a buyer that never came than in actual revenue service). Expo Express - CPTDB Wiki

I don't recall them rejecting it due to lower ridership projections, although that could have been part of the conclusion to keep it as a BRT at the time. Back in the mayor Linda Jeffrey days, city council wanted it, but couldn't settle on the routing so turned down building the Gateway to downtown portion. Later, they took up wanting it again, and continued debating the routing, and ended up spending so much time flip-flopping over it all that the original funding (provincial?) that had been allocated for it was gone. The main problem was there was a major debate about the routing, since going up Main St. would have went through the "Heritage district" stretch between Nanwood & Wellington, and would have either needed widening (cutting into existing residential properties) or constrained the lanes on Main. There was vocal residential opposition to all this (including former Premier Bill Davis, who lived in one of the houses along that stretch, and opposed it). Along with the Main St. routing. alternate routings up Kennedy and McLaughlin were proposed to the city, and even routing it up the parkland ravine along the Etobicoke Creek (West Branch) north of Nanwood (probably not a wise idea since that low area along the Etobicoke Creek could be subject to flooding issues). Tunneling part of the stretch was also proposed, although due to the cost and funding issues it wasn't considered the most feasible option at the time.

Wherever it went, GO 2549 (D4500CT) was back running around Toronto by at least last week, and looking fresh.

The letters you see in Transsee in front of fleet numbers are holdovers from the old contractors that operated parts of YRT for years, they were just never updated or changed. C = Can-Ar (Southwest) M = Miller (Southeast) F = First Student (North) V = Veolia Transportation (VIVA BRT operations)

More specifically, three 1996 New Flyer D40LF's (9638-9640) delivered and put into service in early 1996 (there's a Brampton Guardian news clipping somewhere of the rollout), followed by five 1996 Orion VI (9641-9645) delivered in mid/late-1996. There were often capacity issues with the limited seating low-floor buses operating on some busier routes (1A/1B Queen come to mind, which often ran with Orion I/V instead of newer VI's as the older Orions had more seats and standee room), and no explicit move towards full accessibility, which probably lead to the decision to order the Orion V's in 1999 & 2001 along with used ex-SMMBL fishbowls at the same time (five ex-GO D40 Suburbans were picked up for use on the 77 Highway 7 too). In the mid-2000's Brampton started designating certain routes as accessible, which was the beginning of the end of the high floors.

During rush hour on Highway 7, crowds and crowds of riders get off Brampton and Zum buses at Hwy 7 and The Gore Rd to transfer to other routes to get to those residential areas to the north. If YRT could route the 361 up The Gore Rd. (or even along Hwy 50), they'd guaranteed get ridership, but since that's technically Brampton it's probably off the table. At any rate, it's well-served already as there's a number of Brampton routes running in that area that correct to Highway 7, so presumably anyone coming from there going to the subway would take a local Brampton route and transfer to the Zum 501 (or 501C).

TTC was running a number of shuttles around the York University campus on Sunday to shuttle patrons to the National Bank Open tennis event at Sobeys Stadium. Units observed include 7965, 8110, and 8913 (not too common to see a 7900 running around York U these days).

For the last few years now, the 462 was supposed to be permanently discontinued at the end of each school year, but it kept coming back the next school year.

Shades of CP buying all those 5400's come to mind...BT 5447 sounds like a good number for the artic.

That was a common transit shelter design back in the 70's/80's, one could still find them into the 2000's on some agencies (doubtful many exist now). There were 3-panel (shown) and smaller 2-panel ones. You may be able to gauge the dimensions better from some old streetview imagery: https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.7336209,-79.7188971,3a,46.5y,145.44h,75.2t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sgrusLJeVzCRrorDGoRcZdg!2e0!5s20090701T000000!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.7339833,-79.739572,3a,74.1y,226.61h,76t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1soPzi78n_t4qSZyGB2mTTuw!2e0!5s20090601T000000!7i13312!8i6656

There should be at least 8 units in total that were converted into VAX buses, also including 2438, 2447, and another unknown unit (the website usually showed a max of 8 locations on busy days, thus, there has to have been at least 8 converted).

A source mentioned on the weekend that this week will probably be the last that the GO VAX buses will be operating. Checking the online schedule, there appears to be no more dates being added after March 31st.