October Photos from Jerusalem

[WMATAGMOAGH]

Seeing as October just ended, it seems like a good time to share some of the recent photos I've taken in Jerusalem.  I had plenty of opportunities to go busfanning due to an abundance of free time, and trying to hunt down the new MAN NF-363F artics was a great excuse to go fanning more than I usually do.

Here are my October 12 photos, taken from an attempt to find the new artics that proved to be unsuccessful since they weren't running that day (it seems as if they were removed from service following testing, which included revenue runs, and then formally entered service the next week).  However, plenty of other goodies were to be found:







Does anyone else think it is somewhat ominous that the text below the windshield on the artic in this photo has a Hebrew phrase that essentially translates to "knock on wood"?






Bus cutting off the taxi, the photo doesn't really do the scene justice since you can't hear the honking horns of the vehicles as they try to beat each other out to the merge point:








Sorry for the poor quality of this photo, but I didn't realize what was coming at me quickly enough: I believe this is the only intercity Egged bus to have orange LED signs (there is an intracity bus with orange LED signage in Jerusalem as well, but as you'll notice once I post the new MAN artic photos, or if you've seen the ones I've already posted, they went with the green LED flipdot signs on those buses, and not a newer type of LED display):



Other operators besides Egged:











More to come...

[WMATAGMOAGH]

In mid-October, Egged, the Jerusalem Municipality, and the Israeli Transportation Ministry officially launched service on the new MAN NG-363F buses that will operate on the BRT routes in Jerusalem following the opening of the light rail and associated bus reroutings (4 of those routes are already in service, two more will start when the light rail starts).  I had gone out a week earlier in an attempt to find them (I also missed riding one by about 60 seconds or so due to a don't walk signal during the revenue service testing phase) and was unsuccessful, but this time, one pulled up to the stop where I was waiting and plenty of others were in service.  These buses have 4 doors (though boarding is only permitted at the front door) and supposedly have automated stop announcements, but one bus I rode didn't have them working and the other didn't seem to have the system installed at all.  They also feature strip maps that show the routes the buses operate on.  I haven't been on them since so I have yet to see the announcement feature actually work.  Quite a few passengers noticed these buses were new and commented on them.  Supposedly, 10 were in service then and more will be added to service until all 150 arrive, but since they don't seem to be numbered sequentially, it is hard for me to get a sense of how many are actually in service.  Anyway, here are my photos from that day of those buses and others as well:





























This Connex operated bus is sporting a wrap advertising the night line services that operate on Thursdays and Saturdays, and also daily during the summer months.  Some Egged buses also have this wrap but I have yet to get a photo of it:


Still more to come...

[WMATAGMOAGH]

Here is the last set of photos from October.

The back story to these photos is that last Tuesday, October 26, I had time to go out and photograph things, so I did so.  That's it.  I had a few spots in mind that I wanted to try, and ended up using totally different ones in the end, but I think the results came out well.  What do you all think?















Bus used on the tourist route that makes a 2 hour loop around Jerusalem with convertible roof (they used to have buses with a closed upper deck as they were originally delivered for use on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv line that they used in winter and modified buses of the same type with an open roof on the top deck for summer use):






Armored, bomb resistant bus used on routes that operate in the West Bank:




That's all for now!