When you realize that you got dumped for being autistic…
6 minute read
December 16, 2024, 8:47 AM
It’s funny what kinds of things cross your mind sometimes. I was preparing some material for my photo site, which is work of a more “mechanical” nature, i.e. it doesn’t require much in the way of thinking. When I’m doing this kind of work, my mind has space to wander. And for some reason, in this instance, my mind went to the relationship that I had with a girl named Sarah Chegash back in 1998. We were both 17, and we both worked at CFW Information Services doing directory assistance. We went to different schools, so we only ever saw each other at work. She started there in the summer of 1998, after I had been working there about a year, and we really hit it off. We chatted a lot, and we would give each other smiles from across the room. It was really cute. We started dating in November of that year, but it only lasted a few weeks before she dumped me, and then she quit her job at CFW not long after our relationship ended.
When we were dating, it was not exactly the easiest thing ever. I suppose that I got too caught up in my own head about it, putting too much emphasis on the idea that it was a “date” and how to behave on account of that, and not about just enjoying the time with this person who had clearly shown an interest in me. “Highly nervous” would be putting it lightly. And she was trying to put the moves on me from time to time, but I was too uptight to actually respond or otherwise participate. I was like, I know that she is doing something that indicates interest, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to respond to this. That said, because I had no idea how to respond, I did not reciprocate. All I knew is that was a very awkward situation, and I felt very uncomfortable, not so much because of what she was doing, but because I was totally clueless on what I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to respond.
Meanwhile, what we did on our first date was so stereotypically me. We went up to the DC area and took the Metro from Vienna to Pentagon City, where we fully explored Pentagon City Mall. My first time transferring between the Orange Line and the Blue Line at Rosslyn was on that date. We had a good time, and I got to hit a few nerd goals, even if the time was a bit awkward overall. But getting on the train and being able to be a little nerdy about it at least made me feel slightly more comfortable.
Continue reading…Categories: Autism, Schumin Web meta, WMATA, Work
A visit to New Jersey and Long Island…
32 minute read
September 21, 2024, 3:34 PM
From September 12-14, Elyse and I, along with our friend Kyle, took a weekend trip up to North Jersey and Long Island. This trip was designed as a bunch of different things that we wanted to do in the same general area, mashed together into one trip. Elyse wanted to see the American Dream shopping mall, and I wanted to see it again when I didn’t have COVID. So that was our first day. I wanted to see what Long Island was about, plus see one of the last remaining Kmart stores in the country, which is out in Bridgehampton, New York, so we went out to the end of Long Island on the middle day. Then the third day was a bus show in Howell Township, which we all wanted to see, and then we went through Philadelphia on the way home to photograph the SS United States for what might be the last time. Our hotel was a Hampton Inn in Staten Island, intended to be kind of midway between these three very diverse locations. This trip, in the form that it took, was relatively quickly planned. The only constant here was the bus show, as that was the primary driver of our making the trip in the first place, and then we just added on the rest to make a weekend out of it. The original plan, had the oil pump not quit on us, was to take 3426 on this trip and display it at the bus show. With the bus, we would have still done American Dream and the bus show, but we would have stayed closer to Howell, and Long Island would have been replaced with the Jersey shore (since I didn’t want to drive a bus all the way out to the end of Long Island). I’ll say this: as much fun as it would have been for this to be a bus trip, I’m glad that we ended up doing it in the HR-V. There will be other bus events, but this just worked out well as a car trip.
Going up, I certainly demonstrated my New Jersey cred in the car. In other words, pay no attention to that Maryland license plate. I am originally from New Jersey, and I know how to drive like I’m from New Jersey, a place where signs and pavement markings are just suggestions, and you have to keep up with the big dogs in order to get where you’re going. If it tells you anything, prior to leaving the house, I posted on Facebook, “Going up to New Jersey today for the weekend, and thinking about how people up there drive like they’re from New Jersey. Then I was like, ‘Wait a minute… *I’m* from New Jersey!’ So I’ll be driving amongst my peers, despite my Maryland license plate.” We took the Turnpike from the bottom all the way to exit 16W, and I handled it like a champ.
Categories: DASH, New Jersey, New York, New York City, New York Subway, NJ Transit, Philadelphia, Retail, Ships, Transit, Travel
A proper visit to Charleston…
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.
Categories: Converted buildings, Fire alarms, Netculture, New Flyer D35HF, North Carolina, Photography, Retail, Roads, Ships, South Carolina, Transit, Travel
“Autism acceptance” means all autistic people…
9 minute read
April 23, 2024, 10:20 AM
For those not aware, April has been designated as Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month. I tend to fall more on the “acceptance” side of things, since it’s not so much about making people aware about autism and autistic people as it is to accept us for who we are, and for them to not infantilize or otherwise behave patronizingly towards us. I also feel as though there are a lot of misconceptions about autism, and the activities that various organizations have put on in recognition of autism have not done anything to help dispel these misconceptions. The biggest thing that I’ve noticed is that the focus is often entirely on children, which makes me think that too many people seem to believe that autism is something that just affects children, and that it’s not something that adults also deal with. In other words, autistic children are all well and good and all, but they eventually grow up to become autistic adults. Autism is not something that you outgrow as you get older. You don’t just stop being autistic once you reach adulthood. Autistic people may become very adept at hiding it, also known as “masking”, as they get older, but beneath it all, they’re still autistic.
That said, I take great issue with people’s focusing solely on children when discussing autism, because it is a lifelong condition. In my case, I am very high-functioning, and so while growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, my autism went undiagnosed. That meant that I got no autism-specific support as a child and as a teen. That’s not the fault of anything specific to my situation, though, since autism wasn’t as well understood back then, and high-functioning cases like mine weren’t typically diagnosed. I admit that I have mixed feelings on that, as I’ve heard about some of the interventions and other alleged “help” for autistic people at the time. So while it might have been helpful for me to have had some autism-related support, remembering the ham-handed way that the school tried to address my toe walking when I was in kindergarten, I don’t necessarily know if I would trust them to help me out with that.
A very transit-themed weekend…
14 minute read
April 11, 2024, 11:57 PM
On March 28 and 29, I had two very distinct transit-themed adventures. One day was a bus adventure, and the other was rail-related.
The bus adventure came first, on Thursday, March 28. That one has some background to it. First of all, every year for the past several years, I have had what I call a “tax party” with my friend Matthew, where we get together and we take care of our various taxes. Generally speaking, we go somewhere to eat, and then I sit down with the computer and do my own taxes, I do Matthew’s taxes, and I do Elyse’s taxes. This year, the tax party was done in two stages, as Matthew had to cancel at the last minute due to something unforeseen coming up, so I did the taxes for Elyse and me on the original date back in February (where I owed a ton of money because of my photography earnings), and then rescheduled with Matthew for a later date, impressing on him that he really shouldn’t postpone again, since the due date for taxes is a hard date, and you really don’t want to be a last-minute filer if you can avoid it. So we planned the date, and that was that. Now Matthew is also a bit of a transit enthusiast, and has pursued some opportunities in the transit field, but has always gotten cold feet when it came to the thought of actually operating a bus.
Now, along with Elyse, I am also on the board of directors for Commonwealth Coach & Trolley, which is a bus museum based in Roanoke, Virginia. Many of us on the board are in the DC area, and some of our vehicles do stay up in the DC area for various reasons. So I pitched the idea to have a small outreach event, taking a bus out for a spin and going to visit Matthew in that. So Elyse and I went down to where the bus was kept, parked the HR-V, and took out the bus. The bus that we had was former Fairfax Connector bus 7754, a 1991 Orion I, which we tend to call MATT, which stands for “Mobile Accessible Travel Training”. As I understand it, this bus originally operated as a regular Fairfax bus, and then was converted to a training vehicle to help older adults and people with disabilities learn to use public transit. I’m not exactly sure how it all worked, but it was fitted with some extra doodads like TV monitors, and has a desk with a swivel seat in the back of it, while the area forward of the rear door has updated seats.
Categories: Alexandria, Driving, Fairfax County, Loudoun County, Matthew, Transit, Washington DC, WMATA
Playing with the AI image generator…
22 minute read
October 27, 2023, 10:02 AM
Recently, a friend of mine posted some computer generated images from the Bing Image Creator, which uses the DALL-E system as its base. I enjoyed their posts, so I decided to take it for a spin myself with subjects that were more relevant to me. My first idea was to have it generate me. The way I saw it, ChatGPT kinda sorta knew who I was, so it seemed reasonable to see if Bing Image Creator could perform similarly.
The first prompt that I gave it was “Ben Schumin in Washington, DC” and this is what it produced:
Categories: Afton Mountain, Artificial intelligence, Baltimore, Fire alarms, Honda HR-V (2018), JMU, Kia Soul, Mercury Sable, Stuarts Draft, Today's Special, Toyota Previa, Washington DC, WMATA
I can’t believe that we went to South Carolina…
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.
Categories: New Flyer D35HF, South Carolina, Transit, Travel
Two stories about Woomy…
3 minute read
September 8, 2023, 11:33 PM
Recently, while we were driving home from shopping, Elyse asked ChatGPT to tell her a story about everyone’s favorite orange curmudgeon: Woomy. I don’t know what the exact parameters that she gave it were, but it came up with decent enough material to come up with something at least somewhat heartwarming. Check these out:
In the heart of Alexandria, Virginia, there lived a curmudgeonly orange octopus named Woomy. Every day, rain or shine, Woomy would climb aboard the DASH bus, his tentacles a tangle of frustration. He’d grumble and grouse about the noise, the crowds, and the whole human world around him.
Passengers would stare, amused by this unexpected commuter. Woomy’s sour expression became a familiar sight, and people began sharing stories of his antics. But despite the attention, Woomy remained steadfast in his curmudgeonly ways.
One winter’s day, as snow painted the city white, a young child with curious eyes got on the bus. Ignoring the stares, the child approached Woomy, offering a small, hand-knit scarf. Woomy’s eyes widened, his expression softening just a bit. He accepted the scarf with a tentative tentacle.
Categories: Alexandria, Artificial intelligence, DASH, Woomy
Toronto was fun, and flying… wasn’t bad.
34 minute read
August 11, 2023, 8:09 PM
So the trip to Toronto that I discussed in my earlier Journal entry about going flying again was a whole lot of fun. I did not know that one could pack that much fun into three short days. Seriously, this was a really fun weekend trip, where we got to spend time with friends and see lots of interesting things.
First, though, let’s address the elephant in the room: yes, I went through with it and went flying, and no, I didn’t die. I don’t know if I would necessarily characterize flying as “enjoyable”, but it was at least relatively painless. This trip was in part a test to see how well I would tolerate flying, with one of two possible results: either my horizons would be expanded greatly, or I would never fly again. Fortunately, it was the former, as I think that my being much more mature since the last time I flew, plus my doing a little bit of research did me well. I also had Elyse with me, who is something of a seasoned flyer and knew what we needed to do, so I just had to do as I was told. We took public transit from the house to Dulles, via the 58 bus, the Red Line, and the Silver Line. Then security at Dulles was relatively straightforward, throwing all of our stuff on a conveyor belt and running it through this massive machine. Though I did roll my eyes at having to take my shoes off – but I wore flip-flops on purpose in order to expedite that process. Once we got through security, it was just a matter of waiting until our plane arrived and then it was time to board and depart. This whole airport thing was totally new to me, so I was just sort of taking it in. I’d never been past the main atrium at Dulles before, so there was lots to see. We took the air train to our terminal, which was pretty straightforward, but seeing as it was fully enclosed, it was no fun for fanning, since there was no real angle to get a photo of the vehicles. Though with its being fully automated, there was no cab, which meant that you got a great view of the roadway ahead.
A fun weekend where no photography goals were met…
13 minute read
June 29, 2023, 8:44 AM
From June 21-23, Elyse and I made a weekend trip to Virginia, but instead of centering on Staunton like we usually do, we centered on Roanoke (but don’t worry – we still saw my parents in Stuarts Draft). We had planned this trip largely as a photography outing, and then the weather didn’t cooperate. It was raining continuously almost the entire time, which made for a more difficult drive than I would have liked, but the trip was worth it. I guess that you could say that while we didn’t necessarily do much in the way as far as photography, we laid the groundwork for future trips by identifying potential subjects. I didn’t want to lay groundwork for the future this time around, as I really wanted to bring home the goods, but such is what happens when the weather doesn’t cooperate. I brought my DSLR and my drone on this trip, but neither one of them ever left their respective carrier.
The plan was to drive down from the DC area to Lynchburg via US 29, spend the afternoon and early evening of the first day in Lynchburg, and then head over to Roanoke, where we were staying at the Hampton Inn located downtown (the one built on top of a city parking garage). Then we would spend the entire second day in Roanoke, largely with Commonwealth Coach & Trolley, which is a bus museum that Elyse and I both serve on the board of. Then on the last day, we would head up to Staunton and Waynesboro, where I had some things that I wanted to get over there, before going over to see my parents. What ended up happening was pretty similar to plan, but not quite. Our departure was delayed, because we already knew that much of the day would be a rainout. The drive down to Charlottesville was fine, making one stop for food at the third (Bealeton) Sheetz. We made a brief stop at Barracks Road in Charlottesville, and then we were back on the road. It started raining harder once we cleared Charlottesville, and we saw three different accidents between Charlottesville and Amherst where people had clearly wiped out after driving faster than conditions allowed. One of those accidents was a police car, which was clearly totaled in its accident. We took it slowly, especially since I didn’t have that much experience taking the new HR-V in driving rain like this before, plus I wasn’t as familiar with the stretch of 29 from Charlottesville to Lynchburg (particularly from I-64 to VA 151) as I am with 29 north of Charlottesville.
Categories: Friends, Honda HR-V (2023), Lynchburg, Roanoke, Staunton, Stuarts Draft, Transit, Travel
A weekend in New York…
32 minute read
April 26, 2023, 8:33 PM
From April 12-14, Elyse and I took a little weekend trip to New York City. This was the new HR-V’s first road trip, and what better place to go to than New York, I suppose. It was definitely a different experience than the Soul’s first road trip, which was the trip home from Staunton the day after I bought it, as well as the original HR-V’s first road trip, which was a day trip to Philadelphia.
With this trip, I was looking forward to seeing how the new HR-V did on a long trip with the various smart features that it has built into it, such as the adaptive cruise control and the lane watch system. I had tested these things on my commutes to and from work on various occasions on a somewhat limited basis, but I hadn’t done a long drive with them yet. The good news was that these systems worked quite well together on our trip, which we took largely via I-95 and the New Jersey Turnpike. I think that this was probably the least stressful drive on I-95 that I’ve ever had, as the cruise control maintained a safe distance from the cars ahead of me, and it maintained my lane quite well, following the various curves in the road. That put me, as the driver, in something of a more “strategic” role, as I was responsible for navigating and making lane changes and such, as well as watching out for any hazards, but the car largely drove itself. I wouldn’t use these systems on city streets, but for a road trip on freeways, it was great. The thing to remember, though, is that these are driver assist features. This is not self-driving, and should not be confused with that. This does not absolve the driver from the responsibility of driving at the proper speed for conditions, and it also does not mean that you can kick back and play on your phone behind the wheel. Not at all – you’re still very much in charge, even if this does automate certain parts of it.
The trip up was fairly uneventful. We had to detour onto Route 1 from White Marsh to Joppa in order to avoid a backup, and there was a construction project on the Delaware Memorial Bridge, which had a direct connection to the Turnpike that crossed us over to the southbound span. Additionally, Maryland House, one of the two full-service travel plazas on I-95 in Maryland, was closed for emergency plumbing repairs. And then, of course, when driving on the New Jersey Turnpike, the speed limit signs are merely suggestions. Just keep up with traffic, and you will be fine. And if traffic is going 20 over the speed limit in a work zone, you’re going 20 over in a work zone, too. Otherwise, you become a hazard to traffic. Then upon arrival in the New York area, we got on I-278, where we followed roughly the same route that we did in our impromptu 2017 trip to New York, but in reverse. We parked on the street in front of our hotel, the Aloft, got checked in and brought all of our stuff up, and then I took the HR-V to its own hotel, which was on the next block over.
Categories: Driving, Family, Honda HR-V (2023), New York City, New York Subway, Photography, Travel
Going to the auto show…
7 minute read
January 27, 2023, 9:08 AM
On Thursday, January 26, Elyse, my friend Matthew, and I went to the Washington Auto Show at the Washington Convention Center. This was Matthew’s first time ever going to the auto show, and the first time that Elyse and I had been since 2020. Overall, I was less than impressed this time around, but I am not entirely willing to ding the entities involved with putting on the show for it, as I suspect that the ongoing semiconductor shortage is likely to blame for the weak showing at the auto show. This is the same reason that my new HR-V is taking so long. And I get it: if they can’t get cars out to paying customers in a reasonable time, it’s hard to justify pulling units out of circulation for demo purposes. Because of this, the event space was a lot smaller than it usually is, with large sections of the upper and lower event halls’ being sectioned off with curtains. I got the distinct feeling when I came in that the space was smaller, and it turned out that my feeling was right. On the plus side, though, one of my big peeves about the auto show in past years was gone, as we didn’t have to wend our way through the convention center’s lobby through a gauntlet of sponsors hawking their products and services that have absolutely nothing to do with cars before getting to the show floor. All that gauntlet of sponsors ever managed to do was piss me off before I ever got started. So good riddance to them, and hopefully they don’t come back in future years. This year, we just came in and went right into the event.
This year, I wanted to go to the auto show in order to check out electric cars. Recalling my day test driving electric cars in Frederick last spring, I wanted to see what the various manufacturers’ offerings were like. I still am in the market for an electric car in addition to the HR-V, but following my October 2022 accident in the original HR-V, this has been put on hold for a while. Following my visit to the auto show, I still got the sense, as was the case last spring, that the electric vehicle market has not yet “arrived”. Automakers are still going for overly futuristic designs for their electric models to showcase that they’re something different, and a lot of brands still don’t have an entry in the electric market as of yet. I have said before that I will know that the electric vehicle market has “arrived” when automakers start rolling out electric vehicles with conventional design. For instance, I’ll know that it’s “arrived” when Honda starts making an electric version of the CR-V that is otherwise exactly the same design as the regular CR-V. In other words, it’s first and foremost a CR-V, and it just happens to be electric. Not this whole, “Woooooooo, look at me, I’m electric!” kind of style that we’re seeing now.
Categories: Honda HR-V (2023), Matthew, Washington DC, WMATA
You’re taking me for a ride…
11 minute read
December 23, 2022, 12:57 PM
On Friday, November 18, Elyse and I went out to Ashburn for a ride on the new Silver Line extension. This was the conclusion of a long-awaited public works project, bringing the Metro Silver Line out to its intended western terminus in Ashburn, Virginia. You may recall that I did a similar adventure with my friend Matthew on the Silver Line when it opened in 2014. I couldn’t attend the opening day events because I had to work, but Elyse did. She managed to get a ticket to the VIP event by asking nicely, much like I did in 2014, and she had a blast. She got to meet Metro General Manager Randy Clarke, and even got to sound the horn on a 7000-Series railcar.
For this adventure, our day started out with an open house event at the Dulles rail yard, which guided our plans to an extent. Driving over, we listened to “Escapee” by Architecture in Helsinki, which Metro had used for a promotional video for the opening of the first part of the Silver Line. For the first ride on the extension, that seemed fitting. At Dulles yard, we got a tour of the new facility and had a catered lunch. The new facility was quite nice, and we both commented that it looked more like a community college building than a train depot. Lunch was from Panera, we got Silver Line t-shirts, I got my Silver Line pennant to go with the one from 2014, and we also got a special Silver Line cookie:
Categories: Airplanes, Fairfax County, Loudoun County, WMATA
A trip to New Jersey with Elyse and Woomy…
17 minute read
August 14, 2022, 7:57 PM
On Thursday, July 28, Elyse and I took a trip up to New Jersey. The main purpose of the trip was to visit the Scrub Daddy headquarters in Pennsauken, where the company has a retail store. Then we built a day around this in order to justify the trip. We were no stranger to Scrub Daddy by any means, as we had previously stopped by their facility on the last day of our Atlantic City trip back in January, just to see where it was. I remember how excited Elyse was during that visit to Scrub Daddy’s headquarters, and on that occasion, we just photographed the outside of the building, since the retail store wasn’t ready yet. I could only imagine how excited Elyse would be going in and actually seeing the place.
We left the house around 10:00 AM, and got as far as Delaware House by noon. This was to be our potty stop on the way up. Elyse noticed an Edwards Integrity on the outside of the facility, and got some photos of it:
Categories: Companies, Elyse, New Jersey, PATCO, Philadelphia, Products, Roads, Ships, Travel, Woomy
Saying goodbye to the Orion V…
9 minute read
July 5, 2022, 11:15 AM
On Friday, July 1, Elyse and I went on a transit adventure, going down to Alexandria to attend the ceremonial final trip of the DASH Orion buses. For those not familiar, DASH is one of the local transit agencies in the DC region, serving Alexandria, Virginia alongside Metrobus. The Orion V is a model of high-floor transit bus manufactured by Orion Bus Industries from 1989 to 2009. Orion itself went out of business in 2013 when parent company Daimler mostly exited the bus market in North America (save for selling Setra motorcoaches), and New Flyer, another bus manufacturer, bought Orion’s aftermarket parts business. Long story short, Orion has been gone for a while, and even the newest high-floor buses are now reaching retirement age. DASH, meanwhile, had been operating Orion buses since its founding in 1984, initially operating the Orion I model, and later the Orion V. So this event marked the close of an era in DASH’s history, as these were their last Orion buses in service. DASH’s fleet now consists mostly of Gillig and New Flyer vehicles. DASH was also the last agency in the region that still operated the Orion V in service, which closes a chapter in the DC region in general as well. Metro and Fairfax Connector still operate the later Orion VII model in revenue service, but that is a low-floor bus, and is a very different design than the Orion V.
As far as the Orion V itself goes, that is a pretty solid bus. Most agencies in the area operated them at some point or other. I’ve photographed Orion Vs operated by Metro, Ride On, DASH, and Fairfax Connector. I’ve operated Orion Vs plenty of times, and they’re a lot of fun once you get the hang of them. I found them to be very difficult to handle as a new operator in a training environment because they were a bit bouncier than the low-floor buses, as well as more sensitive in the steering, but once I was out of training and operating on my own, I was able to get the hang of driving them, and had tons of fun with them, to the point where I looked forward to being assigned one. If the number started with a “21”, I was a happy guy. I especially liked to take them on runs that had big deadheading (running without passengers) segments – especially on the freeway. I remember doing a run a few times where the last revenue trip ended up at Prince George’s Plaza station, and I had to deadhead from there all the way back to Rockville, where the bus division was located. I would take East-West Highway (MD 410) over to Baltimore Avenue (US 1), and then take that up to the Beltway. Taking an Orion V on the Beltway late at night was a lot of fun. I just had to remember to limit my enjoyment to about 60 mph in order to keep myself out of trouble. After all, our buses had DriveCams on them, and those puppies were sensitive. I was delighted when I got to take an Orion V out for a spin again in 2018 when a friend who helped run a bus museum was visiting. I got settled in that seat, and it felt like old times again, after I had not operated an Orion V in a little more than two years at that point – ever since I left the bus in order to do trains. I took my friend, along with Elyse, on a proper adventure in that bus, going over a few routes from my time as a bus operator, and showing it off a little bit. A good time was definitely had by all.
Categories: Alexandria, DASH