GM Destination Signs - How They Work
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ต.ค. 2024
- I take a look at the process a transit company would go through to select destination signs for their fleet. Also I take show the differences between the GM Old Look and New Look bus destination sign systems.
As a kid, I knew some of the drivers. Sometimes they would let me change the sign on the side of the bus, when we got to the end of the line, or when the bus was going out of service. On a few occasions, the driver would even go by my house on his way to the bus garage!
We own a coach/motorhome conversion. Towards the end of its working life, it had names of local schools and colleges on the blinds. I made a new destination sign and put crazy destinations like "LOST", "MIDDLE EARTH VIA TIMBUKTU" or "PARIS VIA LONDON" (we live in Australia) just for a laugh. I just used a vinyl cutter to make the names. As you said, there's no regulation font. I just used Arial.
I lived in Silver Meadows when it was much newer in the early to mid '70's and used to take the West Main in to Campus at 8:00AM. Often times there were so many students going into Kent at that time from SM that CBS had an extra Old Look "tripper" right behind the regular West Main just to pick up the excess passengers on the early inbound trips... I became a CBS driver the next year (along with a girl named Bev that eventually became a Supervisor the next year) as I drove a Stadium Loop one quarter and an East Main for two quarters. My brother became an 'extra board' driver a few years after that... CBS was allot of fun with a whole lot of great drivers that went to KSU...
Here in Tucson, Arizona (and at many other transit companies) the destination signs were painted on Mylar. Tucson Rapid Transit Company and Old Pueblo Transit Company were known to paint their own signs in house.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Bill, that was interesting...as always! Thank you for the pointer to Transign, too
My pleasure!
Thank you for history trip.
Very interesting. US blinds seem to be mostly printed on plastic film. I'm from UK where various substrates are used... linen, plastic, tyvek and the London Transport method of paper panels glued onto a linen backing. Someone should write a book on the subject!
Great video!
Do the yellow school buses have rolls showing various destinations?
School buses only carry the school district name painted on both sides. The front, where a destination sign would be, has just "SCHOOL BUS" painted there. Kids are told of what bus number they will ride for the year the time they need to be at their stop. Sometimes the stop is at the end of their driveway. Other times kids have to walk to a more general location where several other kids will join them. Routes change every year in order to roam around the city and pickup the ever changing number of kids per grade. If a bus goes down for maintenance the driver will be assigned another bus number. Today the school can send a notification of the change that morning. The old days you were just surprised to see your driver behind the wheel of a different bus. At the end of school you would expect to board the same bus number you started the day with. Larger school districts run several rounds of bus routes to handle all the kids. The earliest routes pickup high school kids, followed by middle school and elementary. A driver may have 2-3 routes in the morning to cover the three types of schools. They repeat those same routes in the afternoon. Smaller schools may only have one pickup for all kids in the city.
@@Unit2345 Thanks for that very full reply. I only ask as some buses appear to have glazed units rather than letters just stuck on. I've seen one or two photos of buses showing something other than SCHOOL BUS.
You're right, they do exist but are in the minority. Some buses are used for private schools in addition to the public so perhaps they put that schools name on the front when they run those routes.