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18 minute read

September 10, 2024, 3:36 PM

Recently, Elyse and I, along with our friend Kyle, made a trip to Charleston, South Carolina on something of a bus adventure.

However, before I get into the actual story, I have some updates for you, since it’s been a while since anything was discussed about the bus situation.  Remember back in October, when Elyse, Montigue, and I went down to Charleston in the HR-V in order to pick up former CARTA bus 3426, a 1996 New Flyer D35HF, which we were then going to swap with Trevor Logan for an Orion V?  Since then, things have changed quite a bit.  First, the New Flyer needed a lot of work in order to be healthy, including a new transmission, which was more than Trevor was willing to commit to, and so he ultimately discontinued his efforts in restoring the bus.  That made all of us sad, because we all wanted to see that bus restored and preserved, and didn’t want to see such a unique model go to scrap.  Additionally, at the same time, I was having problems getting insurance for the Orion V, which was former Westchester County Bee-Line bus 700.  That was a 2006 model, which was too recent to qualify for historic vehicle insurance (i.e. Hagerty), plus most of the other insurance companies balked at giving me insurance because of the two recent accidents that I was involved in with the old HR-V and with the new HR-V.  I really resented that, because in both of those cases, I was ruled to not be at fault, i.e. I am a very safe driver, but they were holding it against me anyway, like it’s my fault that some idiot in a Nissan Pathfinder ran a red light at high speed and plowed into me.  In any event, that problem with insurance caused delays in my taking possession of the bus, since I really couldn’t do anything with it until I was able to get it insured.  So that’s where things stood for a while.

Then in April, when Elyse and I made our pleasure trip to Charleston, recall that the first thing that we did upon arrival in the Charleston area was to check up on 3426 at General Diesel‘s facility.  We were pleased to see that it was still there, and at that time, I remarked, “The estimates have come back in, and while everything wrong with it can be fixed, it’s going to cost a big chunk of change to do.  Whether that happens, however, is not up to me.  But we at least wanted to say hello.”  That was the end of our bus involvement for that trip, because other than Elyse’s riding around on various CARTA routes, there were no bus activities planned.  But that visit set off a light bulb in my head.  I knew roughly how much it would cost to repair 3426.  I also knew that I could afford to have those repairs made.  Because of all of the hassle with insurance and whatnot regarding the Orion V, I had also soured a bit on that bus, since I was facing roadblocks to even get into the game.  By comparison, insurance for an historic vehicle would have been a snap.  To qualify as historic requires that the vehicle be 25 or more model years old, and a 2006 Orion V wouldn’t hit that threshold until 2031, which, for our planning purposes, might as well be forever.  So the idea was, why don’t we undo our trade, and let Trevor keep the Orion V, which was former Bee-Line 700, and I would take over former CARTA 3426?

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Categories: CFW, New Flyer D35HF, North Carolina, South Carolina, Travel

28 minute read

May 9, 2024, 10:14 AM

From April 17-19, Elyse and I made a weekend trip down to Charleston, South Carolina.  It’s funny how this worked out.  After our visit to Charleston last October, we both were left wanting more.  We saw lots of potential in Charleston, and wanted to go back, but we weren’t sure whether we wanted to drive back again, vs. flying.  Charleston is eight hours away, which is quite a long haul, and it’s almost entirely through rural areas once you get out of the DC region.  In other words, not very exciting.  But then when we looked at airfare, we realized that it was really expensive, and that with all of the goings-on at the airport plus multiple flights, we wouldn’t save any time compared to driving, plus we would be limited as to what we could bring with us, and would probably need to rent a car down there.  All of that said, that pushed me into driving territory, because then we could bring whatever we wanted, go on our own schedule, and have fun on the way down and back.  Plus then we would have the HR-V in Charleston.

On the southbound leg, I tried to keep the trip as close to all-business as I could.  I only planned on making four stops: one in the Richmond area, one in Skippers, Virginia (the last Virginia exit on I-95), one somewhere in North Carolina, and then one at the Buc-ee’s in Florence, South Carolina.  That would get us to Charleston at a somewhat reasonable hour as long as we kept to it.

Richmond was intended primarily as a food stop.  My original idea was to stop at the Sheetz at the Atlee exit, and do Sheetz, and I pitched that to Elyse a few days prior to our trip.  It’s funny – when I pitched the idea, Elyse’s response was something to the effect of, “When were you going to tell me about this?” and my response was simply, “What does this look like?”  Elyse said that she didn’t want to do Sheetz, because we always do Sheetz, and then suggested we find a barbecue place.  I was like, “You had me at barbecue.”  Looking it up, I found two places that weren’t too far off of I-95.  One was a place called Q Barbeque up in Glen Allen, and then the other one was Oak & Apple right in downtown.  I chose Oak & Apple, because it was right in downtown Richmond, and closer to the freeway.  More or less get off of the exit, go like two blocks, and boom, there it is.

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Categories: Converted buildings, Fire alarms, Netculture, New Flyer D35HF, North Carolina, Photography, Retail, Roads, Ships, South Carolina, Transit, Travel

18 minute read

October 13, 2023, 5:51 PM

First of all, I have some news for you: I bought a bus.  Elyse had been trying to talk me into buying a bus for a while, and I had consistently said no.  But then one came up on GovDeals, which is a website where public agencies sell surplus property, that had promise, and I said okay.  This unit was a New Flyer D35HF from CARTA, which is the transit agency serving Charleston, South Carolina.  If this sounds familiar, “Biscuit” at Commonwealth Coach is another unit from the same agency, and is the same model of bus.  I won the auction for a surprisingly low amount, as we paid nearly twice as much to get “Biscuit” for Commonwealth Coach.  We then immediately made a deal with Trevor Logan, a fellow transit enthusiast in the DC area who runs the TTMG website, to trade this bus for an Orion V that he owns after he expressed his thoughts about the significance of the unit.  It worked out quite well, because while Elyse and I simply wanted a bus to have as a fun vehicle of sorts to take places and show off, Trevor wanted to fully restore and preserve the bus for sentimental reasons, as he had a close relative who worked for CARTA some years ago, and that relative had operated this specific unit.  So swapping made everyone happy, as Elyse and I would get a bus to have fun with, and Trevor got something of great personal significance that he would restore.

With that said, buying a bus from a transit agency in South Carolina meant going down to South Carolina to retrieve it, because these auctions are typically as-is-where-is, i.e. the agency provides little to no assistance with the removal of the item.  I wanted to line up this pickup trip with a three-day weekend that I had later in the month, but unfortunately, with deadlines for removal and such, it couldn’t wait.  So I would spend October 5-6 traveling down to Charleston and back with Elyse and our friend Montigue to retrieve this vintage bus.  The whole week prior to our heading down, I was saying to myself, “I can’t believe that I’m going to South Carolina.”  Then on the way down, I was like, “I can’t believe that we’re on our way to South Carolina.”  And then once we were there, I was saying, “I can’t believe that we’re in South Carolina.”  Seriously.  This was not something that I had anticipated doing this year.

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Categories: New Flyer D35HF, South Carolina, Transit, Travel