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SCT new buses?


1995 Orion V CNG

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There was never a mention of how many buses Suffolk were to get, just that money would be giving by the state so that Suffolk could buy new buses.  25 though would be to much if they were planing on just replacing the Orions and 2000 Phantoms as there are only 11 Orion V's left and 5 2000 Phantoms. (Unless you count 2003 that burned in 2010)  That equals out 16 buses that needs replacing, and with no major service expansions as of yet, there is currently no need for an extra 9 buses. Not to mention that only two of the three companies (remember Twin Forks Transit is the legal contract holder of the routes Sunrise and HJ operate) have the buses that you mentioned. Seems kind of redundent to replace buses that only two companies have instead of waiting until a major service expansion so that way all three companies could get the new buses, besides replacing the older ones. (Which wouldn't be that far off if the County thinks that the limited Sunday Service was a success.)

 

As far as I heard there hasn't been no movement on getting new buses, or at least not at the present time. 

 

Seeing as Suffolk's numbering system is now using the last two digits of the year the buses are ordered/arrive in, which is now includes Para Transit buses, it's possible that Suffolk won't be getting new buses this year since the 14xx numbering has already been used for new Para Transit buses. 

 

My guess would be that Suffolk will make the 11 1999 Orions (Mostly at Suffolk Bus Corp) and the 5 Gillig Phantom Subrbans (all at Suffolk Bus) last until one of them reaches 14 years old. (That's what they did with the 1996 Gillig phantoms and the 1991 Gillig's before them) Since as of now there hasn't been any major service changes that would require more buses and Service hasn't been largely effected by the use of the older buses. The 2000 Phantoms are normally only used on the S110 and the most of the 1999 Orion's at Suffolk Bus Corp are used on the 7D/E (9932-9933,9935,9939) and the rest are used as spares and the two at EBT are spares. 

 

The only current Suffolk Transit rumors I've heard about recently has been a rumor that two routes maybe going from EBT to SBC in Janurary. As I said to that rumor is the same I'll say to this question. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. 

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There was never a mention of how many buses Suffolk were to get, just that money would be giving by the state so that Suffolk could buy new buses.  25 though would be to much if they were planing on just replacing the Orions and 2000 Phantoms as there are only 11 Orion V's left and 5 2000 Phantoms. (Unless you count 2003 that burned in 2010)  That equals out 16 buses that needs replacing, and with no major service expansions as of yet, there is currently no need for an extra 9 buses. Not to mention that only two of the three companies (remember Twin Forks Transit is the legal contract holder of the routes Sunrise and HJ operate) have the buses that you mentioned. Seems kind of redundent to replace buses that only two companies have instead of waiting until a major service expansion so that way all three companies could get the new buses, besides replacing the older ones. (Which wouldn't be that far off if the County thinks that the limited Sunday Service was a success.)

 

As far as I heard there hasn't been no movement on getting new buses, or at least not at the present time. 

 

Seeing as Suffolk's numbering system is now using the last two digits of the year the buses are ordered/arrive in, which is now includes Para Transit buses, it's possible that Suffolk won't be getting new buses this year since the 14xx numbering has already been used for new Para Transit buses. 

 

My guess would be that Suffolk will make the 11 1999 Orions (Mostly at Suffolk Bus Corp) and the 5 Gillig Phantom Subrbans (all at Suffolk Bus) last until one of them reaches 14 years old. (That's what they did with the 1996 Gillig phantoms and the 1991 Gillig's before them) Since as of now there hasn't been any major service changes that would require more buses and Service hasn't been largely effected by the use of the older buses. The 2000 Phantoms are normally only used on the S110 and the most of the 1999 Orion's at Suffolk Bus Corp are used on the 7D/E (9932-9933,9935,9939) and the rest are used as spares and the two at EBT are spares. 

 

The only current Suffolk Transit rumors I've heard about recently has been a rumor that two routes maybe going from EBT to SBC in Janurary. As I said to that rumor is the same I'll say to this question. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. 

Ok, thanks! BTW, do you know when SCT retired their 1993 Flexible Metro Ds?

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Ok, thanks! BTW, do you know when SCT retired their 1993 Flexible Metro Ds?

 

They were retired in 2005, along with the 1991 Phantoms and three 1987 Phantoms. The '93 Flex's  were the last buses to be retired exactly at 12 years.  (The 1997 Phantoms were retired 13 years and the bulk of the Orion V's were retired a 11 years.) Also the '93 Flex's were the first buses ordered in the numbering scheme with the first two digits of the bus number being the year the bus was ordered/arrived.

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I just shocked that they retired most of the Orion V so early. 

 

I was as well, but I guess since they ordered 82 buses and there weren't going to be any new service expansions, they felt that it would have been better off to acution them off for scrap. Also since Orion had discontinued the V model, they probably thought that it would be better not to have to pay for the raising costs of the parts. Not to mention that high floor buses are making their way out of the market. No matter which way you look at it, the retirement of most of the Orion V's was probably done in some short cost measure. Which isn't a suprise because them implimenting the new bidding process to bring down cost of the system, retiring buses because of the cost it would take to operate them isn't such a stretch.

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I was as well, but I guess since they ordered 82 buses and there weren't going to be any new service expansions, they felt that it would have been better off to acution them off for scrap. Also since Orion had discontinued the V model, they probably thought that it would be better not to have to pay for the raising costs of the parts. Not to mention that high floor buses are making their way out of the market. No matter which way you look at it, the retirement of most of the Orion V's was probably done in some short cost measure. Which isn't a suprise because them implimenting the new bidding process to bring down cost of the system, retiring buses because of the cost it would take to operate them isn't such a stretch.

Yeah, but isn't 12 years of age the minimum to retire a bus with federal money (which I'm 70% sure that these buses were brought from).

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Yeah, but isn't 12 years of age the minimum to retire a bus with federal money (which I'm 70% sure that these buses were brought from).

 

I'm not sure if the 1999 Orion V's  were brought from Federal money, I was a kid when they were brought and didn't really think about the buses. Besides I wasn't a big fan of the Orion V's back then. The 2010 Orion VII's were brought with Federal Money though, soon to be former Repesentive Tim Bishop helped with that (and I'm suprised he made no mention during the election. I guess he assumed that the riding public in his district doesn't vote), so my guess would be even if the Orion V's were brought with Fed money it maynot have been a problem.

 

Besides from my understanding Suffolk kept the Orion V's that had the fewest miliage on them, so my guess is that they were retired due to miliage and not age. From what I was told the 99xx's at CBS had nearly 500,000 miles on them, and that 9908 was the only one that wasn't because it had been assigned to their low miliage routes (S56, and S76) after the 2005 Phantoms came in, and if I recall it had been OSS a few times. 

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Yeah, but isn't 12 years of age the minimum to retire a bus with federal money (which I'm 70% sure that these buses were brought from).

 

They can be retired before 12 years just have to remain on the property for 12 years before being sold off other wise they have to replay federal funds back.

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They can be retired before 12 years just have to remain on the property for 12 years before being sold off other wise they have to replay federal funds back.

 

I thought it was 12 years or 500,000 miles which ever came first? 

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That im not sure of.

 

Okay. I wasn't sure since for some reason I seemed to recall most of the stuff about the money used for the Orion VII's going towards replacing older buses that had 500,000 miles then age. However that could be an error in memory on my part.

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