Jump to content

Does anyone remember GMC RTS-03's in NYC?


Green Lines 96

Recommended Posts


The 1000s were mainstays on the Q35---as 8-cylinder buses, they sounded deeper. They didn't disappear until the MTA took over Green Lines, and even 1012 survived until Varsity Bus closed.

 

BTW, Avis at JFK ran 35-foot RTS-03s until 2003 (retrofitted with square backs); they were retired when AirTrain JFK opened. Hertz ran 40' slope-backs at JFK at well, but Gilligs had already replaced them when AirTrain JFK opened.

Edited by aemoreira81
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since maybe 2012, I haven't seen 1012 on Google maps. As well as Command Bus 351. I always seen the 10xx buses for q8, q9, q10, q37 but this was after the Orion's came.

 

I have no idea when the 3xx-1 and 63x-1 buses were pulled from service but 630-1 was kept until 2000 and had a black stripe so no one thought the bus passed the stop purposely. There is an image that you can see part of 630-1 next to 1001 & 1004 while scrapped.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I rode them all the time on the Q35. The 1000s the 300s and 630s. I'm sure they were ordered off the road before the MTA took over. They did sound quite different than 6 cyl RTS's. Plus they were a whole lot faster. 

 

They had been retired from about 2000, but I suspect that the O5s took most of them off the road before. These buses had V8 engines (8V71).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When the Orions 5501-5544 came in 1997-1998, 1001, 1003-1015 were all still in service.  Not sure what happened to 1002?  1001, 1003-1015 were taken out of service mainly by TMC RTS-06 from Queens Surface 1143-1149 and the rest of the DOT ordered Orions from WMATA from Queens Surface 5545-5550.  I am not sure when the borrowed RTS-03's from Jamaica Bus and Triboro left but 630-1 was kept as a transfer bus for parts between both the Far Rockaway yard and JFK yard.  It was painted with a black stripe so people at the bus stop wouldn't think that the bus passed them.  I would assume that some of the borrowed RTS-03's were kept until 5501-5544 came.  On a forum post titled RTS slantbacks (I think) from talk.nycsubway.org from 1998, someone said "they passed by NIMCO and seen an RTS-03 from GREEN Line probably out of the Rockaway Garage".  They didn't say the number of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...
  • 2 months later...
  • 3 years later...
On 1/26/2013 at 1:47 PM, Far Rock Depot said:

I rode every single -03 Green Lines had back when i moved to Queens in 1990! Ah, memories....

1002 had a "smaller'' A/C added similar to what Westchester county had on theirs. A pic is hard to find but I can say the A/C unit were not a s wide as the width of the bus. They were a few inches short on either side. You can see that the original design was a slope and the A/C was added on,

 

Pics of this are very hard to find...

Well, 6 years later and I finally found one. 

Green Bus Lines 1979 GMC RTS-03, 1002

Taken in 1985. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/7/2019 at 7:26 AM, Chris Alleyne said:

NICE bonus with 10001 in the background! lol

Yes, A nice picture. I have found a few others of 10001 when it was brand new in 85. As well as a rare pic of Jamaica Bus RTS-03 in 1987 that looks like it has the AC Unit already too. I even found more of the Jamaica Bus ones at Green Lines with the -1 on it. I still have yet to find any of Triboro RTS-03's at GBL.

It's funny, over the past 4 or 5 years there have been many early 90's and late 80's NYCDOT Bus photos turning up. Mostly on ebay I find them, long after I started this thread when the only photos i had access to were the ones on bustalk and wished for more GMC RTS-03 photos online and there was no hope for them ever. It's like they were hearing me out there. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Green Lines 96 said:

Yes, A nice picture. I have found a few others of 10001 when it was brand new in 85. As well as a rare pic of Jamaica Bus RTS-03 in 1987 that looks like it has the AC Unit already too. I even found more of the Jamaica Bus ones at Green Lines with the -1 on it. I still have yet to find any of Triboro RTS-03's at GBL.

It's funny, over the past 4 or 5 years there have been many early 90's and late 80's NYCDOT Bus photos turning up. Mostly on ebay I find them, long after I started this thread when the only photos i had access to were the ones on bustalk and wished for more GMC RTS-03 photos online and there was no hope for them ever. It's like they were hearing me out there. 

I wished their was more photos of NYC transit vehicles from the 90s period online lol. There's only handful of NYC bus pics online from the 90, starting in the mid 2000s there was an photography boom in this hobby where everyone and their mother started photographing buses (and trains). Even on the subway side there's hardly any 90s photos compared to the mid 2000s onwards. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Chris Alleyne said:

I guess the 90s was considered a bland era for some reason transit-wise.

I don't think that's the reason, even the rare R110s there's barely any photos of them in service. Same goes for the 80s when the R62/A and R68/A when they was brand new. 

 

 

Alot of fanners today have media content of the various X model NF buses even though they all the look the same with minor differences. The New Flyer buses are the new RTS in terms of dominating the fleet.

 

 

Also Jamaica bus operated Gumman buses well into the 90s and yet no photos of them right before retirement.

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, trainfan22 said:

No idea, I never got to Jamaica Bus service area when they was running, everywhere else, before my time lol.

 

17 hours ago, Chris Alleyne said:

Do you know how many Grumman buses that the privates had ordered? Around 50? PS, I always though of the Orion VII as the "new" RTS's.

 

18 hours ago, trainfan22 said:

Also Jamaica bus operated Gumman buses well into the 90s and yet no photos of them right before retirement.

Well, the big reason there are more 2000's photos uploaded is because Digital Cameras of course. It's much easier to use digital cameras as opposed to running out of film and going to the store to develop the photos. There were loads of late 90's GBL pics online back in 2001-2004 or so before many of the pages (which a lot were under geocities, tripod, etc.) were taken down.

Using internet archive I can find the pages such as transit world, transit gallery, the original bustalk.net, etc. I can even see descriptions but no pictures were saved sadly. Just a red x. 

For example, on transitgallery I see there was an image of Green Lines 631-1 & 1009 on the Q21A taken in 1991 but it doesn't load. Plus various fishbowls, etc. 

Speaking of Jamaica Bus Grummans, J found a few pics of them along with some of these Green Lines RTS-03's. As well as fishbowls taken in the early 1990's in service with the final JBL Red, Tan, & Brown Scheme. 

Both the Jamaica Bus Grummans and Green Lines own 1979 RTS 1001-1015 lasted until 2000 when Queens Surface gave them TMC RTS-06 Buses and the 6 Orion V's. Command also gave them 96 inch GMC RTS-06's as well. Jamaica bus 3865 came from that set of replacements so Jamaica bus doesn't have a bus of its own in museum bus. But it makes sense since it was the last bus they got.

As for Green Lines grummans, and the ones from Triboro, Its rare to find pics of those. Triboro even gave GBL their Grummans and there are no pics at all. Their grummans however were pulled around the time of the TMC RTS-06 in 1994. The latest pic of a GBL grumman i can find is from 1990. 

Edited by Green Lines 96
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...

Update, I recently found another image where I can see the front of Green Lines 1002 which was taken in 1990, it has the 1 big Green Stripe paint that the RTS-04's had. Also I saw a pic of 632-1 in the 2000 Motor Coach Age GBL Issue, it just had a standard 1 big stripe scheme in the same style of the RTS-04's as well. 

Also, in a 1995 pic of an RTS-04 I found, there was an unknown RTS with a really thin green stripe which apparently was 1001 (info given to me by former GBL drivers I asked somewhere). I know that one ultimately ended up with the 2 stripe GBL paint scheme in the end but I'm curious about the 1 thin stripe paint it got. It appeared similar to some of the Fishbowls in the low 900 series with just 1 thin stripe that just looked like an early version of the 2 stripe paint scheme. Anyone know when 1001 got that paint scheme and when it changed? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.