Express Bus Service To Complement Metrorail

[Perry]

When I was writing my response I had PRTC in my mind because those things really are a waste for the amount of time people are on them, but for capacity they require less fleet too.  For the most part people board at the park and ride lots closest to the highways and some only have a 30-40 minute trip.  It was something though to hear complaints from people who were used to those and then an Orion would show up on the route.  It was kind of funny to hear them moan and groan about it. I used to always assign a Gillig to the first Manassas trip of the evening because it was tied into a couple of Metro Direct routes after it.  But for capacity purposes I would look at some Lake Ridge trips and Dale City ones and put those smaller buses.  The 57 seaters do have their place though with PRTC.

[Tristan]

Capacity is the benefit I guess.  If we could get more seats in the luggage bays, then we're aces.  I'd be pissed if one of those raggedy Orions showed up on my route too, at least send me a Gillig, come on Perry!!!

[79MetroExtraMD]

Capacity is the benefit I guess.  If we could get more seats in the luggage bays, then we're aces.  I'd be pissed if one of those raggedy Orions showed up on my route too, at least send me a Gillig, come on Perry!!!

I second that after a little incident I was in last year going up 95. I stray away from their Orion Vs after that. I haven't ridden any of the Phantoms yet.

[Tristan]

Never in my life thought I'd take a Phantom over a V but PRTC's Vs are just a bad batch!

[Perry]

Yeah the Orions went downhill really quickly.  Running them on Cross County and the Franconia-Springfield Metro Direct really took its toll on them.

[Tristan]

Good point, Perry; to be fair, it should be noted that the Orions face an entirely different duty cycle from any other piece of PRTC equipment, perhaps sans the Phantoms -- frequent, constant, relatively late service with some local and some highway mileage, versus the LFs which just don't get ridden severely (well, but not hard), and the MCIs that have the most gravy job of all, some doing...what, Perry, a max of 3-5 trips a day with a good break in the middle?

I wonder if they are maintained on a different schedule from the other buses?  A part or process that's good for 30,000 miles on a commuter coach might only last 20,000 on a transit bus.

[Perry]

Exactly, Tristan.  The MCI's would do 1 to 2 trips in the AM, come back to the garage where they could get some TLC during the downtime and then head back up and do a couple more trips in the PM.  Only a few actually run more than 4 or 5 hours straight at a time.

I tried to rotate the Orions and Phantom's as best I could and the last few picks I was there had the Phantom's on the PWMD and relegated the Orions to the West Falls route and Cross County.  The rotten kids on the Cross County is why they didn't see Phantoms more often.  They tore those buses up something fierce, so unfortunately I felt inclined not to put a newer bus on there.

Good question with the service.  I'm not sure what their schedules were.  The MCI's were constantly in the shop but that's because there were just so many and they could do all the PM's during the mid-day.  The Orions were I guess handled over the weekends, so they got abused big time and racked up some heavy mileage pretty quickly.

[Tristan]

If we could only convey that logic to the dinks at WMATA...

"What are we going to do with our new 5000-series railcars?"
>"Let's put them on the green line!!!"

Six years later
"What are we going to do with our stupendous new silver New Flyer redesigned hybrid buses?"
>"Let's give them to Landover!"

The next month
"What are we going to do with our beautiful new 6000-series railcars?"
>"Let's put them on the green line!!!"

The next year
"What are we going to do with our wonderful new artics?"
>"Let's put them on the X2!!!"

WMATA!!!!!

[WES]

You might have to add in the Neos in with that what were they thinking, putting them in Northern.

Give Landover some  credit, they do a pretty decent job of cleaning up the graffiti that the thug-wannabes inflict on them.  Of course there are some things that even they can't fix, they do have back up spit guards.

Just think, if WMATA buys all new CNG buses for the new Southeastern, then that's when the fun will really begin.

[Tristan]

They should give those people exactly what crap they want -- put the Orion VIIs down there and give me the new stuff.

[NewFlyer9736BCT]

The thing about the low-floor suburban-seating buses is that if someone has a heavy luggage, it's convenient with the fact that the bus is low-floor, but how would that person lift that heavy luggage over their heads and put it in the overhead baggage area? I always wondered about this, I mean the current B30 buses are not low-floor but seem to have easier luggage storage.

Also, although the 5000s and 6000s are seen a lot on the green line, to me they seem to be on every line EXCEPT for the Red Line (which happens to be my line >_>) I know the red line has them but it's a lot harder to find.

[WMATAGMOAGH]

The thing about the low-floor suburban-seating buses is that if someone has a heavy luggage, it's convenient with the fact that the bus is low-floor, but how would that person lift that heavy luggage over their heads and put it in the overhead baggage area? I always wondered about this, I mean the current B30 buses are not low-floor but seem to have easier luggage storage.

Also, although the 5000s and 6000s are seen a lot on the green line, to me they seem to be on every line EXCEPT for the Red Line (which happens to be my line >_>) I know the red line has them but it's a lot harder to find.

Don't complain, I believe the Rohrs are still more reliable than the Alstoms, and I think the 5000s are the worst cars in the fleet.  If the other 4 lines want them, let them have them.  I'm quite content with our lot right now.