My thanks to Thomas Leung of
Toronto for sending me the above photographs of the newly acquired Enviro500s
for Ontario's inter-city bus service GO (Government of Ontario) Transit.
He has also provided the following interesting information about these
buses:
Delivered in April 2008
Seats 78 people; 46 on the upper level and
32 on the lower.
First left-hand drive single-door version
in North America (I believe the other ones, namely Seattle, Vancouver and
Las Vegas have double-doors)
Length: 13m
Engine: Cummins
'To prepare for the introduction of double decker
buses, GO worked with the Ministry of Transportation, all road and fire
departments from the regional and local governments along the proposed
routes, representatives from 407 ETR, and the Ontario Provincial Police.'
'Selected routes for the double deckers
have been thoroughly studied to ensure height clearance.'
It currently services the York University-407
Express-Mississauga / Oakville routes which a single journey can take up
to 1.5 hours (travelling mostly on a 100-km/hour highway).
Fun facts: I've asked a GO Transit driver
about these new buses and he told me that because of the height restrictions
on road in Ontario, the buses are all GPS equipped and if the bus goes
off route, the engine will be automatically stopped. As a result, it only
service the 407 Express routes in the Greater Toronto Area. And because
of the smaller fuel tank comparing with the ones that MCI Motorcoaches
have (range is 1100 km vs. 700 km), on several occasions the buses ran
out of fuel and had to halt back to to depot.
Stephen Cho has provided
the following update
They are not the first
left hand drive Single Door Enviro 500, San Francisco already has 3 operated
by Grosvenor Buses Lines on the Gray Line tour to replace the ECW Leyland
Olympian.
They are the first
12.8m Enviro500, and they are the first to have Allison Transmissions instead
of Voiths or ZFs
Vancouver never have
double decker on normal regular buses, thats BC Transit in Victoria instead. |