Bus Photo of the Month: February 2022

Posted on February 1, 2022 by Oren

New Flyer D60LFR 3314

Location: Forbes Avenue at Bellefield Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA
Operator of Vehicle: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
Date of Photo: November 27, 2015

After a sinkhole swallowed a Port Authority bus in Pittsburgh in October 2019, you’d think it would be a long time before surreal images of a Pittsburgh bus would appear across the Internet. Yet just a shade over two years later, such images can be found all over the Internet again. This time, the Fern Hollow Bridge that carried Forbes Avenue over a ravine in Frick Park collapsed shortly before rush hour last Friday, January 28. Thankfully, no one was killed, as there were several cars on the bridge when it fell. Following three days of planning, yesterday afternoon, the bus was removed from the bottom of the ravine in an operation that took about 20 minutes to complete. If you haven’t seen the photos of cranes holding the bus up in midair, you have to see them to believe it.

I do not have any photos of either the bus involved in this incident or the 2019 sinkhole incident, but I do have photos of the same type of bus on a similar route. The Port Authority’s articulated buses are currently all New Flyer D60LFRs and New Flyer XD60s. The former model was involved in Friday’s bridge collapse and is pictured here.

For more photos of the Port Authority of Allegheny County’s New Flyer DE60LFR Buses, please click here.

Enough Teases, Here’s What’s New and Updated for the Start of 2021!

Posted on February 1, 2021 by Oren

Anyone who knows where I’ve traveled or has visited the site with some frequency over the years may have noticed that the Bus Photo of the Month for January 2021 was from a city that had not been included on Oren’s Transit Page before, and that I’ve been highlighting a number of new website sections over the past few weeks.

The biggest and most noteworthy additions are the brand new sections for Baltimore, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, and Austin. As I noted in a recent post, there was a certain amount of irony to the fact I grew up 40 miles from Baltimore and am an avid Orioles fan, yet the city had not been featured on this site until recently. Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, and Austin were destinations that I traveled to in late 2019 and early 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic, and I am thankful to have had the opportunity to make those trips when I did.

I also took advantage of some time I had recently to move some photos that had been on the Uncaptioned Photos page for quite awhile and put them in more appropriate places on the website, most notably, the photos of the Pikes Peak Cog Railway now have their own page. Perhaps you found the new material on your own, but if not, here is the full listing of where new photos were recently added to the site, with new sections highlighted in bold and italics.

United States

Bus Photo of the Month: December 2020

Posted on December 2, 2020 by Oren

Gillig Advantage 6325

Location: Stanwix Street at Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA
Operator of Vehicle: Port Authority of Allegheny County
Date of Photo: December 1, 2019

You’ve probably heard this before, but we are supposed to be preparing for a holiday season like no other this year. However, a number of transit agencies are planning to go ahead with celebrating the Christmas season this year as they usually do or with some modifications in place. For example, the CTA Holiday Train and CTA Holiday Bus will operate in Chicago but without passengers. MDOT MTA’s Holiday Bus will be operating as usual, and per tradition, anyone who manages to catch it will get a free ride. However, some traditions are on pause this year, such as the New York City Transit’s operation of its vintage train along 6th Avenue.

In Pittsburgh, the Port Authority of Allegheny County has had a custom of decorating several buses for Christmas (and occasionally for other holidays as well), and one of those decorated buses is featured here. The wreath and candy canes on the bike rack and the reindeer horns on the rear view mirrors aren’t the only decorations, the rear of the bus and the interior are decked out as well (see below). However, it appears Pittsburgh’s holiday custom is among those that will not be observed this year.

Do you have any favorite holiday traditions that are observed by a specific transit agency? Share them in the comments below.

For more photos of Port Authority of Allegheny County buses, please click here.

Rail Photo of the Month: July 2020

Posted on July 2, 2020 by Oren

Siemens SD-400 4251

Location: Station Square, Pittsburgh, PA
Operator of Vehicle: Port Authority of Allegheny County
Date of Photo: November 29, 2019

There are a number of noteworthy items of interest for a transit enthusiast in Pittsburgh, one of which is the Mount Washington Transit Tunnel. Following the removal of buses from the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, the Mount Washington Transit Tunnel became the only transit tunnel in the United States to serve both buses and light rail trains, though the Mount Washington Transit Tunnel does not have any intermediate stations (whereas the Seattle tunnel did). The tunnel opened in 1904, significantly improving access from the south to Downtown Pittsburgh by allowing transit vehicles to avoid the hilly topography on Mount Washington. The natural geography and convergence of several transit lines made South Hills Junction a logical point for a tunnel to Downtown to be built. In 1977, the South Busway, the first of Pittsburgh’s three busways, opened; this bus corridor ends at South Hills Junction and then the buses continue through the tunnel to Downtown. At the north end, the tunnel originally allowed streetcars to proceed in to downtown via the Smithfield Street Bridge, and buses still do this today. PCC Streetcars have solely used the Panhandle Bridge to cross the Monongahela River since 1985 (the PCC streetcars were mostly replaced by modern light rail vehicles in 1987).

Needless to say, it is quite fascinating merely to watch the buses and trains enter and leave the transit tunnel at either end, and riding through the tunnel is quite the experience as well!

For more photos of the Pittsburgh Light Rail, please click here.

Revisiting 2019 With New Photos on Oren’s Transit Page

Posted on July 1, 2020 by Oren

The age of Coronavirus may not be good for traveling, but it is good for emptying out the “photo queue” of pictures I would like to post and share here on my site. With this update, I believe that nearly all the transit photos I took during 2019 and intended to post to Oren’s Transit Page are in fact posted!

Last March, I was able to attend Orioles spring training in Sarasota, and also spent time in Tampa on that trip as well. I had never been to the west coast of Florida before so it was interesting to see what the transit operations on the Florida Suncoast are like. With this site update, you can too, as there are over 30 photos from this area now on the site! You can find the new galleries for HART (including the TECO Streetcar Line), PSTA, MCAT, and SCAT in the Tampa & Florida Suncoast section. (How’s that for some agency alphabet soup?)

In June, a planned trip to Boston became a road trip due to a flight cancelled following thunderstorms. Since our return trip was on my birthday, Mrs. Oren’s Transit Page indulged me and permitted a stop at the Shore Line Trolley Museum in East Haven, CT. (We had lunch at a favorite restaurant of hers in New Haven as well).

Throughout the summer, many transit fans’ attention was turned to Alexandria, VA, where DASH acquired Neoplan articulated buses from Bee Line in Westchester County, NY in order to supplement service during WMATA’s Platform Improvement Project on the Blue and Yellow Lines. WMATA, DASH, and contracted tour bus operators operated the various bus bridges that replaced Metrorail service. I ventured out one day to photograph the shuttle buses and ride one of the former Bee Line Neoplans, and those photos are also now online. While this may be the “highlight” of the newest additions to the site from the DC area, there are a total of 15 new DASH photos, 6 new ART photos, and over 50 new WMATA photos.

Finally, in November, I was in Pittsburgh for the second time (my first trip was in 2015). I didn’t take as many transit rides while I was there as I had planned, but I did take about 50 photos of PAT buses and light rail vehicles that are now on the website, including some of their buses decorated for the Christmas holiday season and the Monongahela Incline, which I rode for the first time.

You may have noticed that I wrote that nearly all the photos from 2019 are now online, so you may also be wondering what is still to come. In August, I visited both Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, so photos of the transit operations in those places (did you know the National Park Service operates a fleet of New Flyer C40LF and C40LFR buses on the South Rim of the canyon?), as well as many photos from a city taken over the course of many years that you would have expected to be on my site already in light of its proximity to Oren’s Transit Page Headquarters will be in the next site update. Stay tuned!

Here is the complete list of pages with new photos in this update:

Bus Photo of the Month: September 2017

Posted on September 2, 2017 by Oren

Gillig Phantom 482

Gillig Advantage 482

Location: Smithfield Street at 5th Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA
Operator of Vehicle: Mid Mon Valley Transit Authority (MMVTA)
Date of Photo: November 27, 2015

The Port Authority isn’t the only bus operator in Pittsburgh. There are some other operators in the area, and this month features another one of those operators. Among its routes are commuter services from Washington County, Westmoreland County, and Fayette County to and from Pittsburgh. And just like PAT, their buses have a colorful flair to them.

For more photos of Pittsburgh’s buses, please click here.

Bus Photo of the Month: July 2016

Posted on July 2, 2016 by Oren

Neoplan AN460 3112

Location: Fifth Avenue at University Place, Pittsburgh, PA
Operator of Vehicle: Port Authority of Allegheny County
Date of Photo: November 27, 2015

Over the years, Pittsburgh’s buses have had varied liveries. For example, in the current fleet, you can find buses painted green, red, dark blue, light blue, silver, and gold. However, the Neoplan AN460s in the Port Authority of Allegheny County fleet have an added touch to them, featuring Burma Shave style poetry. For example, this bus says “This big shiny bus / Is really no riddle / But it sure is odd / How it bends in the middle.” If you are used to a standard livery being used across an entire fleet, it is quite fascinating to stand on a Pittsburgh street corner and see what color the next bus to come along is. The poetry wraps on the buses that have it is certainly an added bonus!

For more photos of PAT buses, please click here.

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