I wonder what happened with Ride-On’s bus #5718. It’s a 1999 Orion V, and it sported a few unusual features for my commute this morning. For one thing, it sported no stop annunciator – the device that announces the stops. “Georgia Avenue and Glenallan Avenue. Georgia Avenue and Epping Road.” And “Stop requested!” Ride-On put stop annunciators on just about all of their buses last November and December. How did this one get missed? Of course, not that I mind not having to hear that voice sometimes. It’s too loud on Ride-On buses. Then this bus also had no advertising along the ceiling, unlike most Ride-On buses.
And to top it all off, what is wrong with this picture?
That’s right – no farebox. What the heck? I’ve seen buses where the farebox is malfunctioning, but this is ridiculous. Of course, on the plus side, I got to ride free this morning.
Still, that’s weird. I wonder what happened to 5718, and why they put it out in this condition. Considering it’s a 1999 bus (so by no means new) and that it has no farebox, stop annunciator, or advertising, I’d guess that it’s been out of service for some reason or another for the better part of a year at least. I wonder what happened. Might need to do a little investigating…
Meanwhile, another costume update for you. Take a look:
As you can see, I painted above the “door”, and also drew in the windows with a marker. I wonder if my windows aren’t too CAF-like, though. The Bredas have a thin black border around the front windows, and the CAFs have a much wider border around the windows. Of course, the border around my windows is black, and you’d be hard pressed to find a CAF car with black frames around the windows anymore, considering that the paint has worn off on a lot of them. Still, I wonder if I didn’t inadvertently make it too wide.
So now I have to paint in the windows, which I will do as a light blue, paint the aluminum parts the proper gray, and then join the parts together. Still, when doing Metro stuff, expect to need a lot of brown paint, as you can see.
All I have to say is, I’d better win this blasted costume contest at work, considering all the work I’ve put into this…