Artics

(“arr-ticks”)


An “Artic.” (Photo by BobbaLew)

Over 16&1/2 years of driving bus, I liked driving the artics (pictured above) most of all.
From 1977 to 1993 I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.
In my humble opinion, the artics were the best-riding bus we had.
Other buses often accelerated better, but might ride like lumber-wagons.
436-bus was especially strong. I used to say it was the one I’d wanna steal.
It went like stink, but was all wonky when I got it.
I wrote it up for worn suspension-bushings, and thereby got the driver who usually had it all bent-outta-shape.
436 was still a beast after it was fixed, but was no longer the regular assignment on that driver’s run.
It became part of the Park-and-Ride rotation.
Anything else I could floor through an expressway flyover.
But not 436.
It was too strong — it woulda spun into the boonies.
Our 400-series Park-and-Ride buses were 8-71 unturbocharged V8 motors with a three-speed automatic tranny.

GM fishbowl (not RTS).

They were fishbowls, but soft seats and no standee windows; i.e. suburban Park-and-Ride buses.
The artics were not GM.
They were M-A-N, a German design.
But they were manufactured here is the USA under license.
Articulated meant the bus was hinged in the middle; two bus segments with an accordion bellows between.
I.e. One driver for a bus 60 feet long.
The front segment had the motor under the floor; the rear segment was a trailer.
The idea was to combine two bus-runs into one, but it wasn’t that successful.
Those two bus-runs might carry 60 people, and I started out with that, but ended up with about 30 after five months.
I was leaving about 10 minutes earlier than the Fairport bus-run, and picking up the East Rochester bus-passengers about 10 minutes later.
You also had to make allowances with an artic.
They were so heavy and slow ya had to start accelerating through a traffic-light before the light changed.
You also had to drive slowly over dips lest the whole bus start pogoing, center (hinge) up while each extremity bounced down.
Another hairball was the trailer steering. Turn a tight corner, and the trailer steered out and sideswiped anything in the adjacent lane.
I saw it happen once; the bus-driver didn’t even know she’d hit anything.
Transit management forbade sharp right turns with an artic, but that didn’t cover everything.
Better was the bus-driver being aware. Ya didn’t start a corner until all adjacent traffic cleared.
And then there was traction on wet and snow-covered pavement.
Wet was okay, but on snow-covered pavement the drive-wheels would start spinning.
The heavy motor-weight wasn’t over the drive-wheels like on regular buses.
I remember my first time with a city-bus in 18-inch-deep snow.
The thing kept going, and the back-end was baldies.
I was amazed.
But not an artic.
Management tried snow-tires at first, our first use of snow-tires.
Didn’t work.
Management then tried retractible chain-wheels, that spun chains under the drive-wheels.
That worked, but only three buses had them.
I arranged with the morning “train-out” man, for one of those buses for my run.
I had a steep hill to climb, a private road, that was never salted or plowed.
The worst problem, although supposedly, because I never had it, was braking.
The artics had some gizmo for additional braking, that when activated (a toggle-switch) apparently put additional braking (electronic or hydraulic; whatever) into the drive-wheels.
Transit management would come on the radio all-call, and tell us all to switch off that additional braking if the pavement was wet.
Use your brakes hard enough, and I suppose that could lock your drive-wheels; sending you sliding.
That never happened to me — I wasn’t using the brakes hard enough.
Other bus-drivers suggested using your rear-door interlocks to stop your bus.
I tried that once, and what it did was lock the bus’ rear-end.
Not this kid!
What I was doing was allowing engine compression to decelerate my bus; braking was only additional — and marginal.
Same with the artics; although I also dutifully switched off that additional braking when commanded.
But I didn’t have to.
I loved the artics.
Best ride was mornings from far-out Hamlin.
Toward Rochester, and then get on Interstate-390, head for the passing-lane, and hammer-down.
An artic would cruise at 60 or so.
Hammer-down all the way into Rochester, about 7-10 miles.
I was supposed to loop in the parking-lot of the Hamlin town offices, but one morning it had snowed quite a bit, so huge plows were clearing the parking-lot.
They had built up a huge ten-foot berm, so I had no place to turn.
And I couldn’t back; ya don’t back an artic.
So I just aimed 90 degrees at the berm, and drove right through it! Head-on; just blasted it.
We didn’t ride up on the snow; just plowed right through it.
An artic was heavy enough ya could.

• “Park-and-Rides” were trips from suburban end-points, usually through Park-and-Ride parking-lots, where passengers would park their cars, for a bus-ride to work in Rochester.
• “8-71” is eight cylinders, 71 cubic inches displacement per cylinder.
• “Tranny” is transmission.
• “GM” is General Motors — they had bus-manufacture.
• “M-A-N” is Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg.
• “Fairport” is a suburb east of Rochester; “East Rochester” another suburb to the east of Rochester, but closer than Fairport. —Both suburbs were served by the same bus-line, so that a bus in from Fairport could serve East Rochester on the way in. Previous to artics, each suburb was served by its own Park-and-Ride.
• “Baldies” are bald tires — no tread.
• RE: “Retractible chain-wheels.....” —The chains weren’t actually on the tires; they were on retractible chain-wheels that slung the chains under the tires. A toggle-switch would put the chain-wheels down, and start them rotating.
• The “‘train-out’ man” was the employee that assigned buses. —Each bus-run was called a “train;” language from trolley days.
• RE: “Interlocks.....” —When you activated a door, the nearest brakes would set into a parking-mode. Most city-buses had “rear-door interlocks;” quite a few also had “front-door interlocks.” The fronts apparently activated only the front brakes, and the rear the rear brakes.
• “Hamlin” was a rural farm-town far west of Rochester, perhaps 20+ miles out.
• “Interstate-390” is the main interstate into Rochester from the south, and then it wraps around the west side of Rochester to where it ends.