We now have for your perusal a fleet snapshot of all NJT-owned units as of January 1, 2002. This list was recently published in Motor Coach Today.

Coach USA Status Clarification

Dear Mr. Mackey,

Please may I be permitted to explain through your excellent Fan Pages the
situation at Coach USA.

Our founder and CEO of the Stagecoach Group is currently reviewing all
businesses in the Coach USA family nationwide. He has already announced the
impending sale of our New England Region to Peter Pan.

The North East Region, (which operates around 10 Companies in New York and
New Jersey), is is not currently for sale. Your readers will have observed
the success of our Grayline sightseeing double decker buses and the
re-branding and recent improvements in service to the Newark Airport
Express.

A great deal of work is going on behind the scenes to introduce further
exciting innovations which will improve our scheduled line coach services
and make passengers more aware of what we have to offer them.

So far as the exchange of routes between Coach USA and Academy is
concerned, I assure your readers that this was a regional decision which
makes perfect business sense and has nothing to do with the larger review
to which I referred above.
Shortly, Suburban will transfer route 9 to Academy and Academy will
transfer the former Funaway Atlantic City line runs to Leisure Line in
Paramus.There will also be some other minor swaps of trips.

I do hope this clarifies the situation.

Yours sincerely,
Roger Bowker


Roger W Bowker
Senior Vice President
North East Region
Coach USA

Academy Wins Suburban's Half Of Rt 139 - Temporarily

Academy Lines will begin offering Rt 139 service to Port Authority on December 30, 2002. Suburban Trails will cease operating this route tomorrow.

Academy's role as co-operator of the 139 won't last long. According to a report in today's Asbury Park Press, NJT will become sole operator of Rt 139 in five years (late 2007/early 2008). Additionally, Suburban Trails will take over Academy's Wall Street service, with NJ Transit also having the option to offer service to downtown NYC for the first time ever. However, NJT is taking a wait and see attitude toward Wall Street, understandably fueled by the loss of many jobs in lower Manhattan since the tragedies of September 11, 2001.

Very Very Few MC9's Left! Take Pictures NOW!

At this writing only 31 of the 1114 MC9's are left in service in NJT paint. Howell Garage has the last three MC9A's, 6102-6104. These were the first three non-demo MC9's delivered to NJT, serial numbers CP037499-37501. Howell also has these MC9B's left: 5001, 5035, 5090, 5135, 5147, 5150, 5155, 5157, 5163-5164, and 5167.

Egg Harbor's remaining MC9B's run mostly 559 service from Lakewood to Atlantic City, so look for 'em on Route 9. They are 5045, 5100, 5113-5122, 5124, 5128, 5161, 5368 and 5373

Coach USA Prepares NJ Exit; Sale Of Some Assets To Academy Imminent

If you read the item below, we opined that Academy may be interested in helping Coach USA close up shop in NJ. According to an item on a Yahoo! group, Academy and Coach have agreed for Academy to purchase Suburban Trails, Short Line and parts of Community Coach and Cape Transit (Adventure Trails). Academy is already a presence in Atlantic City, operating some of the casino employee shuttle routes (using, among others, its fleet of 1989 MC-9's, among the last of that model ever produced) as well as up and down the Route 9 corridor (Wall Street service).

Also, with a transit strike looming in New York, there is talk that the number of cars that are being allowed into NYC during rush hours will be drastically reduced, with no less than four in a car at peak times. It is likely that NJT will add extra service, whether rail or bus, into the city to alleviate the situation. (Of course, how you get around once in the city is up to you - good luck finding a cab!)

On December 15, 2002, Suburban Trails will cease service on Rt 139, which is co-operated by NJT and Suburban. Yet to be determined is if NJT will operate this route alone or some successor company taking over Suburban's interest in the route.

With this week's announcement of Coach USA beginning to fold its US operations at the behest of its corporate parent Stagecoach, there is a strong possibility that the New Jersey properties of Coach - which include Suburban, Community Coach, Hudson Transit (Short Line), Hudson Bus (Red & Tan), Rockland Coaches (Red & Tan), amd Leisure Time Tours (Leisure Line) - may have a potential buyer in the already-massive Academy Lines. A similar deal was struck last week with Peter Pan Bus Lines picking up all of Coach USA's significant New England operations including Bonanza, Maine Line, Arrow Line, Pawtuxet Valley and Coach USA Boston.

Just a note on the item below: at the moment, Chet Furmanek still owns Y-710, but he is looking for a buyer for it and several other buses. A while back he sold his company, Central Jersey Bus, to Stout's Charter Service, and is in the process of selling all his historic buses. I think he's down to his last eight or so. The hobby is extremely grateful to have had Chet actively involved in procuring and restoring buses. I hope that whoever buys Y-710 (and he's already got several prospects lined up) follows through on Chet's wish to ultimately restore it back into Public Service livery.

Here's former NJT unit Y-710, which was seen in the movie "Forrest Gump". If you look to the right of Tom Hanks' head, you can clearly see the painted-out NJT stripes at the top of this bus. Y-710 is a 1967 GM SDM-5302, serial number 1029.

The Motor Bus Society web site is now back up.

This seems like a good place to note that the Motor Bus Society website is presently down. Will advise when it's back up.

When was this ever a rarity? Perhaps never. I saw 6184 - that's right, a MC-9A - pulling down the 559 in Toms River this morning.

Next update will feature a few tweaks to the MCI-D roster. We solved the problem with 8269 and have some new units yet to come from our pals at MCI.

New stuff coming: by tonight or tomorrow, we should have all the 6100 series serials nailed down and on the page, plus some of the odds-and-ends type stuff we haven't had in the past. By the time we all go back to school after the Columbus Day holiday, the only hole left in the Roster will be the 2000-series Flxibles.

More new D4500's to Coach USA/Leisure Time Tours, 8802-8805, per Trevor Logan.

8560-8562 D4500 Trans-Bridge Lines 3P055356-55357, 3P055359
3P055358 is a MCI demo. Permanent correction soon to come.

DeCamp Bus Lines has just gotten some new D4500's. 8441 and 8450 are 2003 buses carrying serials 3P055366 and 3P055375 respectively (which I think gives DeCamp exactly 50 units from NJT). Thanks to Bobby of the Vinmen Yahoo Group for the report. Charlie Bailey has since given me the latest delivery info which is now on the Roster pages.

Also, the serial number for bus 4004 is 2P055086 (thanks to Al Reinschmidt). No builders plate was observed on the Neoplan 9501.

Check out Trevor Logan's Transitalk page for the two new prototypes - Neoplan artic 9501 and MCI D4000H 4004. (We'll get pix of em soon.) Both buses feature Cesar Vergara's wildest paint designs yet. The MCI has "It's Electric!" written on the beltline at the rear of the bus.

Four of today's buses are now in the Gallery: AL5058, 606, 7077 and 8321.

Here are the display units from today's Hoboken Festival.

AL5058 - NJT Access Link/Atlantic Paratrans - 2002 Ford/Startrans - Serial 2HA35979
L627 - PSCT/NJT - 1957 GM PD-4104 - Serial 2281
E313 - PSCT - 1951 GM TDH-4509 - Serial 1901
606 - NJT Red & Tan Tours - 2001 Blue Bird Transhuttle - Serial 1F201415
2564 - NJT - 2000 Nova Bus T60206 - Serial YR834654
7077 - NJT - 2000 MCI 102D3 - Serial YP053261
1922 - NJT - 2002 Roadeo Winner Ed Negron - 1994 Flxible 40102-6C8 - Serial RD104661
7777 - NJT - 2002 Roadeo Winner Al Laning - 2001 MCI D4000 - Serial 1P053685
8321 - NJT - 2002 Roadeo Winner Joe Grandioso - 2002 MCI D4500 - Serial 2P055237
NJT Police Bus - 1981 Flxible 40102-6-1 - Serial BD093977 (orig. PA1158)

Pictures as soon as they come out of the Mrs.' camera.

Just got back from Hoboken Festival. Besides the advertised units, NJT also had on display an Access Link bus, the historic E313 and L627 units from Public Service, the three Roadeo winners' units, CNG bus 7077, and one of the 30-foot Novas. Pictures and more specific information later.

Don't forget, everyone, tomorrow is the Try Transit Festival in Hoboken. This year, Try Transit combines with the Hoboken Music & Art Festival to provide continuous musical entertainment on three stages located along Washington Street, headlined by the Tom Tom Club (members of Talking Heads) at 4:45 p.m. on the First Street Stage. Bus fans will want to stick close to Hoboken Terminal where at least a new MCI D-series Cruiser will be on display along with a now-retired Newark City Subway PCC car. It runs from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. - come on out!

Also, check out the D series roster. Some new private carrier D4500's have been delivered including the first new cruiser deliveries for Coach USA/Hudson Bus Transportation (Short Line).

Cesar Vergara, who as Chief Designer for NJ Transit is the only such person in that capacity for a transit agency, is profiled in the October 2002 Trains magazine. His work as an industrial designer harkens back to the days of Raymond Loewy, who created memorable railroad pieces (the GG-1 electric) and buses (GM's PD4501 "Scenicruiser" for Greyhound). Vergara designed the General Electric Genesis locomotives and as chief designer for NJT, holds sway over all aspects of the company's design components, from the rolling stock to the stations (hey, Cesar, how about freshening up those staid looking schedules?). The article makes note of Vergara's disdain for the long-standing NJT chevron ("ached of 1979... it looked like John Travolta designed it") and his attempts to put a fresh image on NJT's livery ("...are orange, magenta and blue bad colors for a transit agency? Absolutely not...they needed to be revisited"). Shown in the article is a new 4600-series ALP-46 electric locomotive that features a modified NJT logo, elongated to the length of the locomotive, but as a narrow strip with the colors separated by moire lines and retaining the 55-degree angles of the original logo.

Got a nice report from Meadowlands Garage that new MCI D4500's 8230-8245 have been delivered. Also, the 2600 series Nova Bus units are now in the process of being rehabbed.

Richard Sachs reports that the last four MC-9's out of Oradell Garage were retired this weekend. 6362, 6366, 6447 and 6475. Oradell now has only D4000's.

NJ Transit Press Release detailing fall service adjustments on bus lines and a list of routes which will now feature Super Cruisers (or D4500's).

Well, Somebody Bought It!

This eBay auction is actually for an early model MCI Cruiser (NOT a 1987 model as advertised, as it is clearly an MC-9A with the smaller destination sign), ex PA NY/NJ-Rockland Coaches. It does not run, is apparently missing engine and transmission, and most of its windows. Closing price: $201.00, and worth every penny, I'm sure. I do not know which bus this is. It also appears that there is another NJT bus alongside of it.

19 Hurt in NJT Bus Crash

Bus 1441 was involved in an accident in Newark on Sunday when a stolen van driving the wrong way Avon Avenue crashed into it head on. Nineteen people (including a passenger in the van) sustained minor injuries described as "bumps and bruises". The driver of the stolen van was arrested and charged with burglary, possession of burglary tools, receiving stolen property and motor vehicle violations.

Charlie Bailey is in the process of compiling the VINS of the 3rd series of MCI cruisers. He has also sent along information on the missing 6800's that we have been lacking forever here as well as more background on Buses 1-10 (Which, by the way, are not active buses - I put them in bold to call attention to them, and now it appears that they're on the current roster). We now have the complete info for all 88 of the 6800 buses, from 6800 to 6887 inclusive. Look for this info to be memorialized in the Roster section real soon.

Meanwhile, we have given you more information on the MC8's that NJT acquired at the outset, now in Roster.

We fixed some incorrect serials on the 6000 series page, with respect to the 1969 MC7's picked up from Eastern Greyhound Lines. Thanks to Jim Bowman of the VINMen group for having an accurate 1969 delivery list to double check the serials.

Five of the 9200 series Volvos have gone to Virginia Overland. The buses, 9215, 9217, 9218, 9219 and 9229, will retain their NJT fleet numbers. Thanks to Charlie Bailey for winnowing out this info.

NJT disposed of 126 surplus buses on July 17th at auction. Among the buses auctioned were 57 of the 3000-3280 series Flxible, 47 3500 series Flxible, 18 9200 series Volvo artics, and the following: 2277, 5137, 5282 and 6173.

Trevor Logan, who besides being the webmaster of www.transitalk.org is an employee of Rockland Coaches, has given us an update on the D4000/D4500 situation.

7401-7418 are D4000s and are at Meadowlands
7419 is a D4500 and is at Howell
7420-7465 are D4500s and are split with Howell and Meadowlands
7466-7488 are D4000s and are currently in the acceptance lot
7504 Remains To Be Seen

7505-8115 are D4000s, you have everything basically right but here are your gap fillers, 7618-7673 are at Wayne, 7664-7722 are at Oradell, 7723-7750 are sitting down at the Acceptance Lot, 7759 is at Ironbound, Oradell has 7770-7782, 7783-88 are at Egg Harbor. Wayne also has 7880-7905. 8025 is also now a Wayne Resident.

There is no 8201 or 8203.

8205-8225 are D4500s and are at Howell
8271-8292 are D4000s and are at Wayne
8293-8322 are D4500s and are split between Wayne & Howell

8704-8759 are D4000s at Lakeland
8760-87xx are D4500s for Lakeland at the Acceptance Lot

Academy's D4000s are now as high as 8627!

Thanks Trevor. We will formally update these pages very soon.

Conversion of the Gallery pages has begun. Don't expect overnight changes to this section. I did get rid of some of the ugly looking chainlink fence shots of Novas as promised but I did find a couple of pictures to add, including one bus that is slightly misnumbered. Some of the file locations have changed, so make sure you reload the Gallery page so everything links correctly.

Today's Bergen Record has an op-ed piece about noise problems with the new MCI cruiser buses. The article notes that NJT is going to be sending one of those buses back to MCI for further research and testing.

I hope you like the new look of the site. I was just intending to add a Blog to the site, but somehow I got ambitious and decided to make the Blogger page the new Index page and use that as a template to update the rest of the site. Since the use of the NJT logo is still in question (the logo itself being a big question, as NJT decides if they want to still use the stripes or go with the arcs as on the new MCI's - the Bus Roadeo staff shirts for this year used the arcs), I just went with the colors.

Another thing to do: get more accurate pictures to go with the individual roster pages. It makes no sense to have a list of serials for Nova Buses and have an MCI D4500 illustrated... [Done 7/20/2002 --DM]

Now that we've totally redone the roster pages, the next things we need to change are the gallery pages. Since they're in two different formats, we have to go in and change them pretty much by hand. In the process I may weed out some of the older photos which were newsworthy but not much to look at now (such as the sneaky-peek shots of just-delivered Novas taken from behind a chain link fence at Ferry Street).

The 1994 fleet snapshot (which hasn't had the new coat of paint yet) has moved to a location off the Garages page.

Since the Blog has worked so well on the main page, we are going to be introducing it on the NJT page (as well as others on the davemackey.com family of sites) so we can have a record of updates, changes to the sites, and news of keen bus sightings.

I am in the process of joining the VINMen group at Yahoo. It is an invitation-only group of those who track serial numbers on buses and coaches. It has 62 members and I can imagine who some of them are from my travels around cyberspace. I can't think of another facet of the automotive hobby where you can conceivably track the entire production runs of a company (such as Nova Bus or New Flyer). And when you add in the fact that there is historical significance to this hobby, then that makes it all the more worthwhile to be able to host this storehouse of data on my site. Between the Public Service and NJT sites, we house this empirical data for literally thousands of vehicles that operated in this type of service in New Jersey, from the very beginnings of bus transportation in our state.

That said, I hope to very soon be able to complete the NJT Roster on this site. We are missing a few little pieces of data here and there and I am hopeful that by the time September 3 rolls around and I am summoned back to the classroom (I am a music teacher for Toms River Regional Schools), we will be able to advertise the complete NJT roster!