Classics (transit bus) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Classic is a bus developed by GM

General Motors Diesel Division

General Motors Diesel Division was a unit of General Motors and was a manufacturer of locomotives, transit buses and military products.The locomotive unit was acquired by private investors, the transit bus divisions were purchased by TMC in the U.S. and MCI in Canada, and the GM Defense unit was...

from its previous-generation New Look design. The design was originally intended solely for the Canadian market as an alternative to the unpopular RTS

Rapid Transit Series

The Rapid Transit Series bus is a long-running series of transit buses originally manufactured by General Motors and is currently produced by Millennium Transit Services as the RTS Legend. Millennium had produced the buses from 2006 until it shut down production in 2009, only to be bought back...

but ultimately the Classic, produced from 1982 to 1997, met with widespread success in both Canada and the United States. It was available primarily as a 40 foot (12.2m) long, 102 inch (2.6m) wide coach, although 16 60 foot (18.3 m) long articulated Classics were manufactured. The design was fairly conservative, yet contemporary and less controversial than the RTS.

History

When GMC in the United States decided to replace the New Look with the RTS

Rapid Transit Series

II series in 1977, they hoped that they would win over operators in both the US and Canada. But the design and the futuristic look turned off most Canadian transit operators. So in 1979 GM Canada's Transit division decided to continue producing New Looks until 1982, when it unveiled the Classic. Several orders for New Looks were still accepted, built and delivered until 1986 for U.S. properties, although the buses were made in Canada.

The Classic proved to be a hit among not only operators in Canada, but in the United States as well, where the Utah Transit Authority

Utah Transit Authority

The Utah Transit Authority operates a public transportation system throughout the Wasatch Front of Utah, United States. It operates fixed route buses, express buses, ski buses, three light rail lines , and a commuter rail line from Salt Lake City to Pleasant View, north of Ogden. UTA is based in...

would be the first US transit agency to buy the buses in 1984.

In 1987 GM sold the transit bus division to MCI

Motor Coach Industries

Motor Coach Industries International Inc. is an American bus manufacturer based in Schaumburg, Illinois, and is a leading participant in the North American coach bus industry. It has various operating subsidiaries:...

and TMC

Transportation Manufacturing Corporation

Transportation Manufacturing Corporation was a bus manufacturer based in Roswell, New Mexico.The company was formed in 1974 by Greyhound Bus Lines to manufacture Motor Coach Industries vehicles...

. By 1993 the bus division changed hands again, this time going to NovaBus. During the two transitions the Classics continued to be built until NovaBus ceased production on the coaches in 1997, as most agencies were preferring the new low-floor LFS model. The last ever Classics built were in Canada, in 1997, for STO

Société de transport de l'Outaouais

Société de transport de l'Outaouais is the transit service of the Outaouais region of Quebec. It operates public transit routes in Gatineau, Quebec, including the Hull, Aylmer, Gatineau, Buckingham and Masson-Angers sectors, plus limited service to suburban communities such as Chelsea and...

in Gatineau

Gatineau

Gatineau is a city in western Quebec, Canada. It is the fourth largest city in the province. It is located on the northern banks of the Ottawa River, immediately across from Ottawa, Ontario, and together they form Canada's National Capital Region. Ottawa and Gatineau comprise a single Census...

, Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

.

NovaBus also assembled Classics in the US in 1995 and 1996 from its now-defunct New York state plant. This version is used in Buffalo, Connecticut, Rochester, the suburbs of Chicago (Pace

Pace (transit)

Pace is the suburban bus division of the Regional Transportation Authority in the Chicago metropolitan area. It was created in 1983 by the RTA Act, which established the formula that provides funding to CTA, Metra and Pace. In 2010, Pace had 35.077 million riders. Pace's headquarters are in...

), and Pittsburgh, which was the last US transit agency to acquire Classics. These agencies are slowly retiring the American versions but some have been refurbished and rebuilt by third-party distributors.

NFTA Metro (Buffalo), CT Transit, Metro Transit (Halifax), STO, RTC (Quebec City), Societe Transport de Montreal, and Port Authority of Allegheny County are still running Novabus Classics, however there are fewer and fewer left. It is expected that all but Buffalo's will be retired at the end of December 2011 due to increasing maintenance costs, a lack of parts for the coaches, and the agenices' plans to go to a low-floor bus fleet. Meanwhile, other transit agencies like Regina Transit

Regina Transit

Regina Transit is the public transportation agency operated by the city of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. It is the oldest public transit system in Saskatchewan and has been city-owned since its inception.-History:...

have begun purchasing used Classics due to rising costs and lack of funding for acquiring newer buses.

Models

The model designations used for Classics consisted of two letters followed by a series of five numbers then another letter. The only versions built were the TC40-102A, TC40-102N and the TC60-102N. All were equipped with an automatic transmission. (Some TC40-102As without center doors have been erroneously identified as SC40-102As, but a true Suburban version would have had a lowered center aisle and underfloor baggage compartments.)

Series	Type	Length	-	Width	Air conditioning
T = transit bus Transit bus A transit bus , also known as a commuter bus, city bus, or public bus, is a bus used for short-distance public transport purposes... When first introduced, a suburban (S) version was rumoured to be planned.	A = articulated C = Classic	40 = 40 feet (12.2 m) 60 = 60 feet (18.3 m) Design work was started on a 35 feet (10.7 m) version, but none were produced.	-	102 = 102 inches (2.6 m)	A = air conditioned N = non-air conditioned

The 60-foot version was not introduced until 1992, after MCI

Motor Coach Industries

took over production of the Classic design, and only 16 of these articulated bus

Articulated bus

An articulated bus is an articulated vehicle used in public transportation. It is usually a single-deck design, and comprises two rigid sections linked by a pivoting joint...

es were ever built (14 for Metro Transit

Metro Transit (Halifax)

Metro Transit is a Canadian public transport agency operating buses and ferries in Nova Scotia's Halifax Regional Municipality .Owned by the HRM, Metro Transit's operations area is the urban core in the western part of the municipality, namely the Halifax and Dartmouth Metropolitan Areas, along...

in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and two to Réseau de transport de la Capitale

Réseau de transport de la Capitale

The Réseau de transport de la Capitale was established in 2002 with the merger of Société de transport de la Communauté urbaine de Québec and la Société de transport de Québec to provide urban public transit services in the Quebec City area....

(RTC) in Quebec City, Quebec. NovaBus discontinued the 60-foot articulated version when it took over production from MCI in 1993. This bus is not to be confused with the New Look TA60-102N, a 60-foot articulated version of the New Look manufactured by GMC

GMC (General Motors division)

GMC is a manufacturer of trucks, vans, military vehicles, and SUVs marketed in North America and the Middle East by General Motors Company. In January 2007, GMC was GM's second-largest-selling North American vehicle division after Chevrolet, ahead of Pontiac....

in 1982, which had the body of a New Look but the front end of a Classic, which allowed for a wider front entrance.

Seating capacity ranged from 39 to 52, and included wheelchair lifts which were optional for Canadian operators but was a requirement for American operators, which had to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is a law that was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1990. It was signed into law on July 26, 1990, by President George H. W. Bush, and later amended with changes effective January 1, 2009....

.

There were many optional feature in the Classics, among them were the rear exit doors. Most orders were the wide-door versions, but a narrow single-stream door was also available. Another modification during its run was the size of the front destination sign window. A taller and wider version was offered from 1990 as more transit systems specified larger electronic destination signs. (The major exception was Montreal, as MCI and NovaBus built an "M-version"—for Montreal—which retained the narrow destination sign windows, and was ordered primarily by properties in the Montreal area.

In its 15 years of production, a 35-foot long or a 96-inch wide version of the Classic was never made. However, GM, MCI and NovaBus did build a commuter version with all forward-facing seats and without a rear exit.

Currently Dupont Industries, a Quebec City-based company, is refurbishing and rebuilding retired Classics into trolley-like sightseeing buses. Dupont's refurbished Classic is called a Dupont Cartier.

Manufacturers

Company	Years built	Models
GMDD	1982–1987	TC40-102A TC40-102N TA60-102N
MCI	1987–1993	TC40-102A TC40-102N TC60-102N
NovaBus	1993–1997	TC40-102A TC40-102N TC60-102N
Dupont Industries	2007 - Current	"Cartier" (rebuilt GM, MCI and NovaBus Classics)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.