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RTSes at the end of the line


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The RTS bus has been a controversial one for the TTC. They only ever got 52 and the TTC never took them the way agencies like New York did. The buses have not operated on weekends for many years and there is talk of accelerating their retirement following the Pan Am Games due to low reliability. The 9400 series Orion Vs are also supposed to retire at that time so it'll be interesting to see what one sticks around.

 

So far, 17 of the RTSes have been retired. Besides 7205, all of them had not seen in service in a long time (7240 has not operated since the summer of 2011), and they had been lounging around the garage for ages. They finally pulled the plug on them recently and moved them to a field adjacent to Mount Dennis garage. When I heard of this, I immediately decided to go and photograph what I could.

 

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Toronto Transit Commission Nova Bus RTS buses - 01 by t6a5iii, on Flickr

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Toronto Transit Commission Nova Bus RTS buses - 02 by t6a5iii, on Flickr

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Toronto Transit Commission Nova Bus RTS buses - 03 by t6a5iii, on Flickr

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Toronto Transit Commission Nova Bus RTS buses - 04 by t6a5iii, on Flickr

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Such a shame, I know the TTC wanted them out long ago ever since they had those problems with the front doors randomly opening during speeds between 25-45MPH. They were never a fan of the WFDs.

 

The WFD thing is not the only thing that made them unpopular. In a post on the CPTDB recently, a driver had this to say about the RTS:

 

"

The 7200's are terrible buses as far as operators are concerned.  Terrible seating alignment by the time you finished your shift you end up with some sort of back pain.  Horrible acceleration and slow doors you had to operate the rear doors manually.  If you run the AC (assuming its working) the bus becomes a slug resulting in check eng warnings and intermittent shut downs.  Operating the wheelchair ramp was like operating NASA equipment, no one ever remembers how and most of the time it hardly worked. The only good thing about the RTS was - nothing haha.

 

Of course this is just an operators opinion, I havent driven an RTS in a few years now.  Maybe the rebuilt has made them better but I doubt it.  The sooner their gone the happier operators will be.

 

Sorry fan boys I know they might be fun to ride and cool to look at but they are the suck."

 

I'll admit that I was not a fan of the RTS for the longest time but they're beginning to grow on me, haha. I don't like them as much as Orion Vs, but they are pretty cool buses. Did New York's RTSes ever have any issues similar to the ones described above?

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The WFD thing is not the only thing that made them unpopular. In a post on the CPTDB recently, a driver had this to say about the RTS:

 

"

The 7200's are terrible buses as far as operators are concerned.  Terrible seating alignment by the time you finished your shift you end up with some sort of back pain.  Horrible acceleration and slow doors you had to operate the rear doors manually.  If you run the AC (assuming its working) the bus becomes a slug resulting in check eng warnings and intermittent shut downs.  Operating the wheelchair ramp was like operating NASA equipment, no one ever remembers how and most of the time it hardly worked. The only good thing about the RTS was - nothing haha.

 

Of course this is just an operators opinion, I havent driven an RTS in a few years now.  Maybe the rebuilt has made them better but I doubt it.  The sooner their gone the happier operators will be.

 

Sorry fan boys I know they might be fun to ride and cool to look at but they are the suck."

 

I'll admit that I was not a fan of the RTS for the longest time but they're beginning to grow on me, haha. I don't like them as much as Orion Vs, but they are pretty cool buses. Did New York's RTSes ever have any issues similar to the ones described above?

 

As a rider, I can't say. The doors on ours aren't slow at all. Not sure about the rest of those issues.

 

I wonder how they spec'd those buses. I wonder if there's any sheets around.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The WFD thing is not the only thing that made them unpopular. In a post on the CPTDB recently, a driver had this to say about the RTS:

 

"

The 7200's are terrible buses as far as operators are concerned.  Terrible seating alignment by the time you finished your shift you end up with some sort of back pain.  Horrible acceleration and slow doors you had to operate the rear doors manually.  If you run the AC (assuming its working) the bus becomes a slug resulting in check eng warnings and intermittent shut downs.  Operating the wheelchair ramp was like operating NASA equipment, no one ever remembers how and most of the time it hardly worked. The only good thing about the RTS was - nothing haha.

 

Of course this is just an operators opinion, I havent driven an RTS in a few years now.  Maybe the rebuilt has made them better but I doubt it.  The sooner their gone the happier operators will be.

 

Sorry fan boys I know they might be fun to ride and cool to look at but they are the suck."

 

I'll admit that I was not a fan of the RTS for the longest time but they're beginning to grow on me, haha. I don't like them as much as Orion Vs, but they are pretty cool buses. Did New York's RTSes ever have any issues similar to the ones described above?

Wow... Looks like the TTC and it's bus operators didn't really care about the buses like the  (MTA) did. Also looks like as if the transit commission really didn't want the RTSes in the first place. :( And it even asks you a question: "Why did the TTC buy the buses in the first place?"

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David Gunn was head of the TTC at the time, and he was familiar with the bus from his years in New York.

 

Also, the TTC couldn't really know if they were any good or not. They purchased hybrids, which turned our to be a huge failure, but there's no way they could have known that without actually buying them.

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David Gunn was head of the TTC at the time, and he was familiar with the bus from his years in New York.

 

Also, the TTC couldn't really know if they were any good or not. They purchased hybrids, which turned our to be a huge failure, but there's no way they could have known that without actually buying them.

 

He wanted Classics for this order but Nova had already discontinued them so they got RTS. Also TTC was so short buses they got these and the D40LF's as two orders as Mr Gunn wanted compared to one larger order as the city wanted.

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He wanted Classics for this order but Nova had already discontinued them so they got RTS. Also TTC was so short buses they got these and the D40LF's as two orders as Mr Gunn wanted compared to one larger order as the city wanted.

 

According to the CPTDB wiki, it was the 7000 series Orion Vs that were ordered in place of the Classic, because Ontario and Quebec were forbidden to sell buses to one another (?). The page on the RTS says:

 

"The TTC had already substituted half of a 100 unit order for the Orion VI with lift-equipped Orion Vs in order to expedite delivery. Instead of ordering 100 more Orion VIs, the TTC placed an order for the RTS; a bus that General Manage David Gunn knew well from his term in New York. However Nova could not meet the delivery schedule as promised. The order was amended to 52 buses and the TTC purchased 51 buses from New Flyer."

 

Apparently the deal between the two provinces no longer applied here.

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