I’ve been a bus nut since I was a kid.  Our family never once owned a car, in fact, neither of my parents ever had a driver’s license.  Buses were our main source of transportation in Sherbrooke, Quebec and every time we moved to a new city, we learned the transit system.  When I was a broke student attending college, I even learned how to cheat the system. 🙂

Years later, now with my automobile, I still take the time to use the transit system in cities that my wife and I visit all over the country.  We’re not as crazy as some of our transit-enthusiastic friends who vacation just to ride transit buses.

In the late 1990s, I joined the Transit Museum Society to learn more about buses and, hopefully, one day own one myself. 

In 2008, I finally realized my dream, as Rhonda and I bought a 1970 converted GM PD-4108 Buffalo-style highway coach. We owned that bus for 11 years and drove it all over western Canada and the U.S.A. with our dog Zeke. We made lasting friendships with many people at bus rallies and had great memories over those years. We readily admit that our bus was a “money pit,” but we knew that when we purchased it.  

I learned a lot about the 2-stroke Detroit Diesel engines, but my mechanical skills were limited. As it became more difficult to find mechanical help on the road, we knew it was time to let it go. Today, our beloved coach is owned by a mechanic in Northern Alberta who plans to travel extensively in retirement. Meanwhile, I have stayed on as a member of the Transit Museum and was elected President in 2022.

We are a non-profit Transit Museum that collects, catalogs and displays artifacts and memorabilia related to Transit in British Columbia. We also keep and maintain a collection of vintage buses with a history of service, especially in the Vancouver area. We became a non-profit society in 1986.

We don’t have a museum that people can visit. The only opportunity people have to view our collection is to visit our mobile museum, a 1957 General Motors “Old Look” bus.  It has display cases with eye-catching exhibits and an audio-visual presentation of film and video showcasing the history of transit.  

The mobile museum goes out to between 25 and 30 community events yearly, including Car Free Days and all 15 days of the Pacific National Exhibition Fair.  We installed an electronic “people counter,” and it’s not unusual for 2,000 to 5,000 people to walk through our displays each day at these events.  We think it shows that people do indeed care about museums, and we have found that by bringing the museum out to the community, more people have access to our cause.

The mobile museum is always free. We have a team of volunteer hosts who explain exhibits and help elderly people on and off the bus. Another team of volunteers maintains our displays and updates the audiovisual presentations. Our organization is composed of 100% volunteers. From our drivers to our hosts, librarians, mechanics, bookkeepers, and Board of Directors, not one person gets paid.

Time to Retire the Old Mobile Museum

The engine and transmission on our 1957 Museum Bus are worn out. The bus still looks great from the outside, but rebuilding the old Detroit Diesel engine is too expensive, and parts are hard to find. Even if we could rebuild the engine, we have no place to do it. We would like to keep the bus intact with all the active displays and save it for a future museum as a static display.  In the meantime, we continue to use this bus as we send it out to community events, hoping it will last.

We are embarking on a new era as we prepare to build a second mobile museum. We own a 1982 General Motors “New Look” bus that we would like to use as a platform to build a new Mobile Museum.  The bus is a good candidate as it’s mechanically sound, but is over 40 years old and will require some restoration.  The bus is wider and longer than our current museum bus and will give us more room for interactive displays.  

The GM “New Look” buses were the workhorses for most transit systems in North America, especially in British Columbia. Today, most people identify that bus as the one they took to work or school. The “New Look” buses started disappearing off the streets at the turn of the millennium as they were retired.  

Wait a minute!  Why is the museum converting a relatively rare bus?  We get this question often as some of our members wanted that bus to remain intact.  However, we already own a beautifully restored 1964 “New Look” bus that is the pride of our collection.  The 1982 “New Look” was doomed to long-term storage unless we could use it for something else.  Like a new mobile museum!

We have started by removing the seating and interior. To enhance the experience, we will build display cabinets, upgrade lighting, install an audiovisual system, and install interactive displays. 

We especially wanted to move away from the old fossil fuel generators we relied on with our original Museum Bus.  Battery power expertise has advanced considerably in recent years, and we can power the internal lighting, audiovisual, and interactive displays with new battery technology.

In the meantime, our shop crew has started a mechanical assessment. Although we have an inventory of bus parts, they are putting together a “wish list” of items we will need to restore the bus fully. We are limited in what we can do as we have no lifts or heavy-duty equipment, so the task is to identify issues and present a plan of action to the Board of Directors.

Finding the money to accomplish this project is another problem. We have been appealing for donations and have applied for grants from organizations that support museums and heritage projects. Financial constraints will mean that we are facing a longer timeframe for completion.

This project will ensure the long-term existence of the Transit Museum. Our old mobile museum bus has lasted 44 years with only one renovation. Can we look forward to another 44 years?

If you are interested in donating to the project or simply becoming a member, visit TransitMuseumSociety.org.