Good old 504 bus

Another strange and utterly predictable bus-dream this morning.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) 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.
So I have bus-dreams.
I was driving good old 504 bus, my all-time favorite.
Our company had at least 75 500-series buses, perhaps 76.
They were numbered 501 through 576 or 577.
They were made by Flxible, and were basic buses, which is why I liked ‘em.
They were extremely hard to cripple — break down.
A GM bus might throw up a “lo-oil” or “hot-engine” light, and shut everything down.
In which case you were stranded with a bus-load of angry passengers, incensed they couldn’t get home.
A 500 might throw up a red trouble-light, but it kept goin’.
You could run with low oil or water until an on-the-road mechanic topped it up.
And there was a pretty good chance the sensor that triggered that trouble-light was wonky.
Which was especially frustrating with a GM bus. (Crippled by a wonky sensor.)
I’ve heard opposite opinions about the Flxible 500s, that they rode hard and caused back problems.
They also were leaners; they didn’t have the roll-resistance of a GM bus.
But I always preferred a 500 over a GM bus, mainly because they were so hard to cripple.
I’ve ridden bus myself, and if there was one thing I hated as a passenger, it was my bus breaking down.
That always effected my bus-driving. (We weren’t crippling if I could help it!)
501 though 506 and 570 (or was it 571) through 576 (or 577) were “soft-seaters.”
They had cushioned seats.
Everything else were city buses; they had hard plastic seats reinforced with fiberglass.
501 through 506 had three-speed over-the-road transmissions. Everything else was two-speed, governed to 55 mph tops.
The top gear of a two-speed was direct; full revs at 55 mph.
So 504 was the three-speed over-the-road tranny, but a very strong 6-71 V6 engine.
It was probably re-engined, so 504 was faster than many of our over-the-road 400-series GM buses with 8-71 V8 engines.
Most bus-drivers preferred a 400, so 504 was easy to get.
Due an over-the-road Park-and-Ride bus in the afternoon, I’d come through the barns and look for 504.
Quite often it was buried in the middle of a long line of buses.
I’d have to extract it, but usually I could.
That meant moving buses to get 504, but they always gave it to me when I asked for it.
Sometimes 504 was at the rear of a lane, so I had to back it out of the barns.
But 504 was a great ride. 60-70 mph in the passing-lane on the expressway.
(It was no fun driving bus unless you could boom-and-zoom at least once per day!)
And 501 through 506 were also air-conditioned, but that didn’t slow 504 any.
571 through 576 (or 577) weren’t air-conditioned, and their two-speed trannies limited you to the slow-lane on the expressway.
So I always looked for 504, and usually got it.
I said 504 was the one I was making payments on.
My dream had good old 504, a Park-and-Ride in the dark into the boonies.
It was bad weather, and vision was marginal.
There were no street-lights in the boonies, so all you had were your headlights, which usually weren’t very good.
It got so about all I could see was the right side of the road, right in front of me.
Even that disappeared, so I was driving on where I knew the curves were.
Very frightening!
But I knew it was just a dream.
Then what usually happens in these dreams, what bus-drivers (at least me) feared most, happened: I drove into a cul-de-sac, a road with no exit except reverse out.
We were prohibited from backing, so had to get the assistance of a road-supervisor, who then implied you were stupid.
There was also the possibility your passengers might go ballistic, and mug you.
But this was a Park-and-Ride. Park-and-Ride passengers were usually above that, and they always loved me because I was so dependable.
I.e. They were with me.
Things were closing in.
Everywhere I looked there was not enough clearance to pass a bus, so I got off to look around.
As often happens in these dreams, I noticed an exit opening up.
I could escape without reversing — no road-supervisor.
(Who knows how many times I actually reversed without a road-supervisor? —Although usually not far.)
Escape-route located I began waking up.
504 only crippled on me once. A fitting came loose on its tranny and dumped ATF (Automatic-Transmission-Fluid) all over a parking-lot out in the boonies.
The on-the-road mechanic had to drive all the way out there, with Quik-Dry, but fixed it right there.
I completed my run, but a half-hour late.

• I had a stroke 18 years ago, from which I pretty much recovered.
• “GM” is General Motors.
• “Tranny” equals transmission.
• “6-71s” are six cylinders of 71 cubic-inches displacement per cylinder; “8-71” are eight cylinders of the same cylinder displacement. —Our engines were diesel, made by Allison.
• “Park-and-Rides” were trips from suburban or rural end-points, usually through Park-and-Ride parking-lots, where passengers would park their cars, for a bus-ride to-or-from work in Rochester.
• “The barns” are at 1372 East Main St. in Rochester, large sheds for storing buses inside. An operations administration building was attached. We bus-drivers always said we were working out of “the barns.”
• A “road-supervisor” was an official of the company that rode around in a supervisor-car, supervised bus-drivers, and settled arguments with bus-passengers. They also attended bus accidents.