The oldest bus you've been on?

[Joel Up Front]

For me, it was an old Orion V CNG on LI Bus, #1431. I'd gotten this particular bus and B/O for three days in a row while my college classes were in session. I was glad that she at least made the trip between Roosevelt Field and Hempstead, and then going back to RF rather than just going to Hempstead and putting the bus out of service and backing out in front of people waiting for an N16 going to Baldwin..

 

I hate those old Orion Vs from '97. Out of the 103 that were bought for LI Bus, only 22 remain in service - most of these are probably rotting in Eastchester now what with the Orion VII CNGs (which have the ride quality of a shopping cart, not compared to my favorite O5s from the turn of the millenium) slowly taking over. I've only ever seen two of them on the N16 route.

 

I also remember sitting on an either one of those Orion Vs from '97 or another one from '98, on an N31 in Hempstead a few months back, struggling to open one of the annoying sliding windows on those things, and looking like a complete dumbass trying to slide that little lock back to open it. I gave up and instead enjoyed the breeze coming from the open windows by the frontmost seats when the bus got moving.

[Infamous85]

Some old fishbowl-esque bus in the 90's, I just remember it was silver.

 

What I can remember as far as MTA buses go are the old RTSs with no muffler at the top, the same for the JBL RTSs and skinny ones too. I do remember seeing an MTA fishbowl bus when I was little but I didn't ride it, when were they retired?

[Nova RTS 9147]

NYBS fishbowl and (NYCT) fishbowls while they were still running.

[EE Broadway Local]

GMC Old Look on the M10. West 88th Street and CPW Summer 1972.

[hoodciti]

I remember riding the Flxibles Old Looks and New Looks as a young child. I hated the Flxibles because they didnt have A/C from what i remember.

I also remember beeline's RTS-03's and I remember Queen Surfaces Flxible Metros.

[S78 via Hylan]

Orion 5.501# 128

[nycbusfan]

The oldest bus I have ever rode was Fifth Ave. Coach 1263 which is part of the museum fleet back in 2007.

[Trainmaster5]

I've ridden all of them, from the B35 Church Ave trolley, B45, B47, B48, and B65 electrics, fishbowls , Flxibles , to today's latest and greatest. If you want to explore the city you have to ride a bus and this is coming from a guy who loves riding the rails.

[LRG]

The oldest bus I've ever been on was an MCI Classic from Green Lines in 2004. I rode it on the Q6.

[Kingsbridge Bus]

The oldest bus I've been on was those RTS that got retired last year.

[SoSpectacular]

Oldest bus I've been on was a 1975 Flxible New Look and boy does that baby sound nice!

 

And @ the OP = I grew up with those 1997 Orion V CNGs, there are really about 40 or so left but they're split between the Mitchel Field and Rockville Centre depots. I remember when they were brand spanking new! I'd just moved to Flushing and Long Island Bus was getting rid of their old equipment such as the Orion V diesels and their older Flxibles. Man, nothing will ever compare to the beasts that were the Cummins L10G engines those buses rocked. I'm trying to get my final rides in on those before they all kick the bucket next year, and I see you've mentioned 1431! That's one of the best sounding ones out there! 1476, 1478 and 1481 are the ones I'm looking out for right now!

[Joel Up Front]

I found a site with a giant repository of old MSBA (LIB's "proper" name, so to speak) buses - among other things, I saw an old RTS (?!) in LIB livery, the 165th Street Terminal in Jamaica in '78, and some nice photos of old Orion Vs from the early 1990s in Hempstead.

 

Anyone KNOW when that Jamaica terminal was built, by the way?

[Eric B]

At least the Museum 1956 GM Old Look on its 6-9-96 fantrip. Irmemmber seeing Old Looks somewhere when I was really young, but not entirely sure about riding them. I must have been on them when my mother took me to nursey school (and I demanded to be in the front as she recalls). FLA and Crosstown would have still had a few in the late '60's, right?

[bknightshadow45]

GMC Fishbowls that ran in the early 1990s on some Fresh Pond routes in 1995.

[R10 2952]

The oldest buses I ever rode on in NY were the 1986 GMC RTS buses that belonged to Triboro Coach, Jamaica Bus, and Green Lines. (Outside of NY, the oldest buses I've rode on are/were Ikarus 280.26 buses from 1981-84 that ran in Poland.)

[Joel Up Front]

Doesn't help that all the old Orion Vs from the early '90s are off the road and will likely only see service if there's a shortage... between LIB's TWO garages. And with all the cancellations, there's probably a SURPLUS of the things - wouldn't be surprised if I saw a few in the city.

 

And those were all retired by the time I'd first climbed on a bus in 2008.

[St Louis Car 09]

1986 GMC RTS(triboro coach)

GMC fishbowl (sometime around 1990)

[Fresh Pond]

Wirelessly posted via (Mozilla/5.0 (Danger hiptop 4.6; U; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050920)

 

The oldest that I can remember was one of the last 43xx RTS buses that was out of Flatbush before it was retired...I used to catch it like once a week on the B46

 

Now I guess it would have to be those CNG's that used to be at Gleason but they're at CP now

[Q43LTD]

1986 gmc RTS for me. I also rode the fishbowl classics. I rode another old bus until it was retired in 1999, but I can't think of the model

[Pu3rToRoCk8947]

I remember riding on GMC New Looks on the B1/4 routes in Brooklyn around the mid 80's,before most of them were rebuilt and Blitzed afterwards

I also remember some private bus company called Apple Metro Express that operated around Brooklyn back in the day,around early 90's i believe and they had GMC Old and New Looks too

[Eric B]

No old looks; just mainly Flxibles, and on the old Department of Labor shuttles, fishbowls.

[Green Lines 96]

The oldest bus I ever rode were Green Lines 1979 GMC RTS 03's back in the late 90's but when they were Retrofitted with Square Back and got Sliding Windows. They used to be slope back but I wasn't alive yet to see them as slope backs.

[R188 7857]

RTS Slopeback (GMC)

[MHV9218]

Please, watch the Nazi Banksters Crimes Ripple Effect at http://jforjustice.co.uk/banksters

[Melvin]

80's "GMC rts