Saturday, January 06, 2007

new buses going into service

On December 8, 2005, the MBTA Board of Directors approved a contract with the New Flyer Bus Company of Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada for 155 low-floor diesel buses for delivery in late 2006/early 2007. These buses are now arriving at about 6 vehicles per week are are being assigned to the Charlestown garage. Of note these buses have three security cameras installed. Riders on the following routes may see the buses in the near future.

Charlestown-Charlestown district
89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94-(evening and weekends), 95-(evening and weekends), 96-(evening and weekends), 97-(weekends), 99-(evening and weekends), 100-(evening and weekends), 101, 104, 105-(weekends), 106, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 132-(Saturday), 134-(evening and weekends), 136-(evening and Saturday), 137-(evening and Saturday), 194, 325, 326, 352, 355, 411-(Saturday), 430-(evening and Saturday), 9301, 9302, 9303, 9304
Charlestown-Bennett/Somerville district
62, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 70A, 71-(Sunday), 73-(Sunday), 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 350, 351




On December 7, 2006, the MBTA Board of Directors approved a contract to exercise an option with New Flyer for an additional 155 buses, to be delivered between October 2007 and April 2008. The total number of New Flyer buses under the original contract and the option combined will be 310.

With the arrival of the new buses the T will be able to rehab a number of the older RTS buses in the fleet with some expected to be in service as late as 2012. What remains to be seen is what kind of problems the T will have in the future with the 298 buses that were manufactured by Neoplan which went out of business in the United States one year ago and parts may become a major headache.
The Neoplan buses the T is currently running are

  • Diesel 40-footers #0401-0593
  • CNG-powered 60-foot artics #1001-1044 (in heavy use on the #39)
  • Diesel-electric dual-mode 60-foot artics #1101-1132 (Silver Line Waterfront and Airport)
  • Trackless trolleys #4101-4128 (North Cambridge-Watertown-Waverley)

The entire T vehicle roster can be found at NETransit site.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Rode an #88 bus Friday night and upon entering, it actually had a "new bus smell" (someone else commented about it too). After sitting down, I noticed cameras on the ceiling.

Anonymous said...

The T managers who chose to install security cameras on buses should be forced to install webcams in their offices. If they can spy on us, we should be allowed to spy on them.

Rob said...

The New Flyers look great--at least their route signs aren't permanently broken yet.

Since the Neoplans were German designs built under license in Colorado, wouldn't the MBTA be able to get body parts from Neoplan in Germany? The engines and transmissions should be supported by their respective manufacturers.

Rob said...

Update: the Neoplans actually have Cat engines, so we shouldn't need to worry about those.