Why Trucks Aren't Buses (Anymore)
Thanks for watching. If any of the information presented in this video is wrong, please leave a comment so I can correct it here in the description where nobody will ever see it.
Sources:
www.curbsideclassic.com/bus-s...
web.archive.org/web/201107161...
web.archive.org/web/200902260...
www.sa-transport.co.za/buses_...
www.curbsideclassic.com/bus-s...
www.coachbuilt.com/bui/t/trico...
Video of Trailer Buses:
• Moving the cow (1) - S...
Let's try out using some keywords for the algorithm. Truck. Semi-Truck. Trucking. Europe. America. Truck Driving. Trucker. Bus. Transit. Public Transportation. Articulated Bus. Trailer. Tractor. Logistics. Horn. Honking the Horn. Honking the Horn at the Elderly. Honking the Horn at My Own Elderly Family Members. Honking the Horn at My Own Elderly Family Members So Loud They Forget Who I Am. Cars. Trains. Big Rig.
Im a bus driver and i was always curious about these. I would think it’ll be a decent ride for the passengers being that it would have a long wheel base and no engine in the passenger area. And imagine the truck having a sleeper and it having two drivers, you could keep that bus running across the whole country 😂
a lot of long haul busses has a little compartment for sleeping with enterances both from outside and inside
Thats actually an interesting concept. The modern semi truck can be made just as smooth and comfortable as a coach bus, and with ability to pull a 53' trailer across all states, that leaves more room for passengers in a quiet space. Meanwhile, two drivers can team drive much like freight and the bus can stay moving. Though stops will have to still be made for fuel and passenger breaks, I could see this being a better alternative to long haul bussing over coach buses only downside is that the US still doesn't like Busses and trains for public transit and thus always gets the short end in funding lol. That and we currently have a law statin that no persons can ride in a trailer on a road vehicle.
Back in this era the trailers were probably leaf-sprung. Nowadays they'd probably be much smoother on the air ride
@@Mach_Style The law about riding in a trailer was pushed by the RR just before the 1939 Words Fair I NY. They didn't want the public dragging a trailer behind their vehicles and taking away business from the RR. It had nothing to do with safety. Most states it used to be legal to ride in a trailer as long as it was a 5th wheel attachment. Now with seat belt and air bag laws there is only about a dozen where you can.
@@Mach_Style thats what i was thinking, and then you can get crazy and add a double decker with the extra length…..talking about moving cites of people lol. And yeah I can definitely see the breaks happening, I drive for greyhound and I like the runs where there’s no more than two hours of driving, it gives me a break but more importantly- it gives my smokers an chance to smoke! I would be okay with having like an hour long break at truck stops to fuel and let the passengers get off and walk around. And I couldn’t agree more with public transportation funding, people don’t ride the bus because it’s unreliable, it’s unreliable because people don’t take the bus, in doing so the city doesn’t fund for better infrastructure/Pay for staff because it doesn’t make money, it doesn’t make money because it goes right back in a circle to my first statement lol. Edit: i forgot to mention: I didn’t know it was illegal to ride in trailers, maybe because the vast majority of trailers are meant for cargo and not human transport? I wonder if a trailer that was actually designed to move people would be made the exception. I know on military bases they sometimes still use trailer buses- but at the same time, thats in an area where you can throw live Grenades and no one thinks twice about it 😂.
We used trailer buses in basic training at Ft. Sill, OK in 2009. They usually shuttled us around in actual cattle trailers, but we were sometimes treated with one of these bus trailers, which were furnished with seats and were air conditioned. I've never seen them anywhere else.
They're still in service at Leonard wood, got done with basic there a few months ago. Honestly they haven't changed at all since you got done but I did like the AC.
2014 fort benning had them
2017 ft sill had them
Still a thing. Or at least it was in 2014.
@@blackwito9690 I was just going to mention about Leonard Wood, actual cattle trailers.
I'm a school bus driver and recently upgraded my license to Class A. It had a restriction for no "Class A passenger vehicles." I was like, "what the hell are those," and I discovered the existence of bus trailers. Thank you so much for making this!
Same situation here! I have literally all the possible endorsements on my license. Yes- School bus, passenger, double/triple trailers, Tank, Hazmat. Motorcycle too. My son asked if there was anything I COULDN'T drive. Yep, there's one restriction- Class B passenger or lower vehicles only. I had to search around to find a class A passenger vehicle, looks like this video found a lot of them!
I would imagine a long RV trailer might also be considered a Class A passenger vehicle.
@@pauldavis5665 I don't think so, because in most states anyway, nobody can ride in them while in motion
So why did you upgrade your license unless you actually plan on driving one of these?
@@theaxer3751 CDL Class "A" is your garden variety big truck driving license
These types of buses were commonly used at airports in Ukraine and were still in use quite recently at some of them. The tractor unit was a ZiL-130V1, the passenger carrying semi-trailer was designated APPA-4. Capacity was 130 passengers. Production ran from 1973 to 1995.
Sláva Ukraine!
Heroyam slava!
The Ukraine is a backward country
My initial comment was provided to give a little insight into some specific vehicles and for everyone interested in unusual automotive equipment. I don't think it is necessary to get politics involved!
@@BlackSeaRC Welcome to the Internet this is not Russian Federation. So I can say what I want and I wanted to show respect to the Ukrainians who are suffering everyday fighting for their indepence against a brutal enemy which is much more important topic than a bustruck if you have problem with that I don't know what to tell you I am not disrespecting anybody here.
If only australia build one as a roadtrain ….. that would be friggin dope
I had the same though, but I wonder if there would be enough demand for it. no point in running one if you can't fill at least one segment. I have no idea what the demand is for transportation into the deeper, rural areas of australia is,
but the required wardrobe would be belts and spikes to ride one
@@Slash0mega You're right. There just isn't high enough demand for public transport except within cities, where road trains can't operate. Most rural routes don't even have a road coach every day of the week, and there will be only one on the days it does operate. Australia also has high private car ownership - I don't think I know any adults that don't own a car. If you're travelling rurally, you will probably need a private vehicle at your destination. Regional centres are usually a long way apart, and if you're not driving, air travel is usually an attractive alternative (Perth to Broome is cheaper by air and more than 30 hours faster, with about 5 flights per day vs 3 buses per week), with car hire available at the airports.
There are some ideas for bus rapid transit applications. Build an long bus with the engine and a fifth wheel coupling behind, then attach a bus trailer. The resulting platform would be much more capable in snow than articulated buses because it concentrates a lot of weight on the driving wheels. Not sure if you would call it a road train, but about 30m would make a pretty impressive bus.
@@danielrose1392 that would be frigging epic. Semi-bus with a trailer bus best bus.
I feel like the articulated bus is the more refined "child" of the trailerbus concept which ended up being the more practical approach.
SLIGHTLY more practical. Bendy buses suffer from the same problems, except that maintenance is even more expensive due to all the moving parts being hidden inside. There's a reason London ditched them. And not just that they killed cyclists. They tried using them where I live, but the demo bus had to have a special route in from the motorway to where they were displaying it, and had to go down pedestrianised routes because it couldn't navigate the one-way system due to the tight corners.
@@Skorpychan Weird, they are seemingly very successful in Copenhagen
@@FirstnameLastname-kn5sw Yeah, we have them in Perth, Western Australia.
@@Skorpychan bendy buses are common in LA, NYC, and Chicago.
@@noob.168 Big cities with plenty of space, built for large vehicles. You wouldn't see them in San Francisco, because they'd overheat getting up the hill. You don't see them in any british cities, because they re too long, and were also only bought because of backhanders.
The privately owned bus company I used to work for in Australia had some of these back in the 40's, they had a large poster on the wall of the office depicting almost every model bus they operated between 1925 - 1990 including a semi-trailer bus.
The image of the Indian trailer bus is from Bangalore, India. They ran all the way up to the late 1990s and I have seen them rattling around steets of Bangalore in my childhood. Such nostalgia seeing one parked at the Majestic Bus Terminus in this video. Thanks for bringing back memories from my childhood.
F inida. India is a begger sh!t h@le country
Correction here, that Indian DD trailer bus is from Mumbai. The number plate says MTF xxxx which corresponds to Maharashtra
Why in India stopped?
@@nikhila1307 as I've vedio mentioned such trailer buses were very difficult to maneuver in cities. Indeed they should have used them as interstate sleeper coach buses that would be more successful. And this type of bus is still usefull especially in india but should be allowed travelling above 500 kms. Ie interstate bus operators.
@@Shehbaaz Its literally a photo of the bus in Majestic Bus Stand which is in Bangalore. How is this Mumbai?
In Czehoslovakia the trailer bus was mostly used for worker transit to and from company. The combo consisted of semi truck Škoda 706 and modified body of bus Škoda 706 RTO. The driver came to work, attached the bus, colected workers, then detached the bus and worked as normal truck driver and at the end of the shift, he would drive the workers back to different stops around nearby town (some companies still do this, but they hire third-party bus companies)
1:41 To add there was never a "small fleet", only the prototype set, as shown in picture.
@@PtrkHrnk it was used, I heve even sat in the prototype
@@PtrkHrnk there was a small fleet between 1949 and 1957, but it was Karosa D4 trailer behind a normal bus, not the semitrailer type.
@@PtrkHrnk sometimes even KZheadrs get things wrong bud, take everything online with a grain of salt. I believe this commenter though, cause if he was lying that’d be the dumbest flex ever
@@Scumful I didn't accuse anyone of lying, I just tried to clarify.
This channel is so underrated, the production quality is so good, I can't wait to see where this channel goes in the future!
Came here to say just this
Também acho.
I really enjoyd the part where he made us watch a 3 minute video on some topic and then kept saying he's not an expert and doesn't know anything about it. Read a booke you philistine
@@hobbes5043 sorry you feel that way. I watched this video for entertainment and am not that interested in the world of garbage trucks to the point where I would read a book on it. If you'd like to read a book on the topic I'm not stopping you
There is only one active trailer bus in Tokyo. That bus connects Musashi Itsukaichi Station with a hot spring called Tsurutsuru Onsen. The trailer bus was adopted to imitate a steam locomotive and is more of a tourist attraction.
2:10 That's the OCTA Superbus, one of a few super bus lines in Southern California in the 90s, They had a bathroom, snack bar, chargers for laptops, and were generally seen as a link between other commuter services like trains and planes. This bus ran from the airport, and there is also superbuses in Palm Springs than ran from metrolink. The most recent pictures I have found of either are debadged in storage lots in the early 2000's. They have probably been scrapped by now.
2:27 the driver in trailer design looks exactly how it feels to drive while in a dream
Yup wish I wasn't driving a 60k lbs truck in one of those dreams
Why is this so relatable LOL
Usually when I have those dreams the brakes don’t work
It looks like a Mallet type locomotive on the road.
I like these few bus crossover episodes, buses and trucks do share a few aspects sometimes
It's definetly not uncommon for buses to share their engines with trucks, although usally detuned versions. They also can share transmissions, axles, and wheels. They can even some interior components, such as dashboards, and driver's seats.
There is an even more commonality to them when such a bus was built on a truck chassis. The Philippines, especially the central visayas, has bus owners build their brand new bus from a cab & chassis package. They leave the truck cabin alone as they dont want to mess with the complicated electronics on the cab. You can order them prebuilt or build it on your own shop. This also gives the vehicle a chance when the 15 year lifespan of being a bus gets used up. A quick swap of the bus body to a dropside or a cargo box gives it new life as a cargo truck.
@@Just_Waitin_For_A_Mate Here in Brazil front engine buses are very common. Manufactures like Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Volkswagen have chassis made specifically to be used as a bus. They are basically a rigid truck chassis (a Mercedes-Benz Atego, per example) with the front axle located a little bit more away from the front of the chassis so the front door can be placed there. The bodies are made by other manufactures, like Marcopolo, Caio, Neobus...
We have those in Israel, used by the Army and Prisoner service. They are all old and rundown, but have a large capacity and trucks are always available. EDIT:I thought I'd add more info. In Israel, they are called "Tiyulit", or "field-tripper", since their primary use has been moving school children and army soldiers on filed trips. They were used originally because of a bus shortage, but then because they were cheaper and easier to run on the rough terrain in the developing country. Mostly, they were used where budget was more important than the comfort of your passengers. Another reason they remained after all these years is that until recently, they had a sort limbo in classification, meaning getting a license for one was easier. Finally, they are cheaper to secure against attacks compares to buses, as the engine of a bus might struggle with a reinforced chasis, but a truck has no issue pulling an semi-armored cab, so in the Palestinians Territories, these are often used when security during transit is important. But really, the reason they are used is because they haven't broken down yet.
Loving the channel, im a UK based truck driver and seeing the in-depth videos of truckers from different countries really pulled me in, keep up the good work!
2:11 The Ukrainian example is actually an Airport Shuttle Bus to transport passanger from the plane to the airport building. Also known as Airport Apron Bus.
Proper name is АППА-4, and while this one is shot in Ukraine, they were built in Riga and widespread in all USSR.
The swiss one aswell. On the side it says Flughafen Zürich which means Airport of Zürich.
I guess these were cheaper than purpose designing and building specialty low floor airport buses.
makes sense for those things to be used in situations the obscenely long and detailed vehicle regulations for regular roads don"t apply to
@@vadim6385 It was 60-70s designs... I suspect, that low entry designs for buses was exactly widespread at that point
Hungarian coach builder, Ikarus also had these operate in Budapest. For trolleybuses and coaches too. Nowadays only 1 or 2 remains which are reconstructed. You can search for "pótkocsis Ikarus". Also this trailer setup was relatively short lived in Hungary, but gave way for one of the first articulated buses, which were put together at Ikarus works, without proper plans. Interestingly, articulated buses remained "trailer vehicles" in the case of road registration for quite some time in the mid 19's.
In South Africa they were mostly used by the mines to transport workers between the living quarters and mine. The mine operators liked them since the truck could be detached and used for goods transportation. I seem to vaguely remember also seeing a mobile clinic (Tuberculosis screening [?]) variant as a kid.
It's so validating to know that the thing I was so passionate about being real when I was 5 turns out to actually have been a thing. Also, the trailer company mentioned at 1:36 has definitely far far outlasted the tractor company that were imported to pull them and has inversed the transaction of product - crosaley has been out of business for at least 40 years now, while DAF is pretty big in the UK commercial vehicle scene
Idea where these could be useful - and they actually already use this idea in other transport systems. Long distance Sleeper busses. They already use this for trains, because by having the main sleeping compartment unmotorised allows for a quieter and more comfortable ride compared to DMUs. Allowing the bus to effectively only have road noise and a lack of engine and associated vibrations may be somewhat advantageous for whats admittedly a very limited market.
Well honestly, modern luxury busses with engines on thier back are very silent already, I have been travelling on them since my birth and the sound even sleeping over the engine, really never bothered me or really anyone for that matter
add a double shell design for the trailer and hydropneumatic suspension and you"ll be on to a winning formula for that tiny market. additional advantage, you can swap not just driver, but whole drive unit should the trip take longer than a driver is allowed to be on the road.
@@illdeletethismusic The torsion axles used on the better classes of modern travel trailers are amazingly smooth-riding.
i was literally looking at my local bus museums website which had been updated and saw a semi-trailer bus in their collection and was like what is that? that bus you showed from australia is the exact one i saw. this was two days ago. amazing timing for this to appear
I had something like that happen to me. My hippy art teacher said I'm in tune with the universe and its a sign your life is going the way it's supposed to go. Same with deja vu... he said it's like they're bookmarks or street signs you come across on your road of life... again showing you're on the correct path of life. 🤷♂️
I went on one of these at Ibiza Airport here in Spain as a child and thought it was super cool then too. It was when our flight did rear entry loading & didn't even reach airbridge height. So they just parked anywhere and put us on these. They were really comfy even over the speed bumps
in the netherlands in eindhoven at the daf museum there is a full setup of a trailer bus with alot of info and history placed next to it and also if i remember it correctly it did state why they stopped producing them one of the reasons was the thrue the roof building cost. i highly recommend that museum if you want to learn more about semi's from civillian use to military use to royal use and their cars that they made and races they part took in it
I've seen these used by mining companies in South Africa. Although I think the last time I saw one was about a decade ago, but I'm sure there might still be some in use somewhere. I imagine the convenience of using the same truck to collect workers in the morning and then using the truck during the day to pull regular trailers, is why they used them. And of course in S.A. everything will be used until it completely turns to dust.
I passed a brand new trailer bus here in Tzaneen, Limpopo, South Africa yesterday. Also noted them in Ceres, Western Cape. It is popular for farms to truck in harvesters. When Picking season is done, they can repurpose the truck for other transport.
We still (2022) use them here in Welkom Free State for ferrying mine workers from the hostels to the shafts
@@epicoutdoor5795 The yellow/orange bus ZZ2 tomatoes staff bus
Also in Botswana there where used to transport miners and soldiers
The trailer busses were used by South African Railways and effectively provided a 'road train' service in the country where there were no railways, generally they served the smaller rural communitiesand took them to and from the railway stations. From memory they were painted a muddy dark red almost purple, and were driven by maniacs. Last time I saw one was going through the Kei River gorge in 1973.
I recall these being used in rural areas in my hometown in the 80s, they were briefly also used at the airport as a backup transport system
There aren’t very many photos but the Walt Disney World resort in Florida had a few trailer truck buses that we called the super bus. I remember riding in one as a kid and then I ended up working for the company as a bus driver. I brought it up with my trainer thinking I was crazy but apparently they were real. They kept them until the late 90s. Disney transport never purchased any more of them but they did purchase articulated buses in 2013.
The Super Buses were also operared by OCTD/OCTA in Orange County, CA. I think there was only a handful of them and you didn't see them in operation often. I had the pleasure of riding in one operating route 43 a couple of times.
The first bus you showed being pulled by the red Daf is my neighbor's. It's the original tractor to that trailer and it was always used to transport employees at the Phillips factory in Eindhoven.
I realy like how you are expanding the channel to more than just trucks, keep it up.
Love that you're expanding to other transportation as well as trucks, it keeps it fresh 🥳
This is huge! I didn't know anything about trailer Buses. You've done a great job with uploading this video. Thank you very much 🥰💕
I really like the title of this video. And I learned something interesting! Nicely done.
I have had a ride in two of these. One was the tourist "bus" on Catalina Island. The other was used for a while as a shuttle between the terminal and the rental car area at the Minneapolis airport.
The United States Army still regularly uses trailer buses (aka "cattle cars") on military bases for troop transport. I remember that was the first time I had ever seen or rode on one, and it was kind of strange. I know of Ft. Sill, Ft. Leonard Wood, Ft. Riley, Ft. Jackson, and Ft. Benning still having them in operation (or at least on post within the last 5 years).
The marine corps also uses them on recruit depots
Sure beats walking from downrange.
Trailer busses were still in use as internal transportation at Ft Benning, GA as late as 2010. They are used to transport soldiers to and from the various training areas and ranges. We called them "cattle trucks", for obvious reasons. For all I know, they may still be in use.
2:09 OCTA (Orange County Transportation Authority) Superbus Mobile Maintenance Training. OCTD receieved two of these in 1987. In 1993 they received 10 more. They always operated together as 7001/7501 & 7002/7502 and 7101/7601 to 7110-7610. These were used exclusively on the 721 park & ride run from Fullerton to Los Angeles. One summer they did try them on the 43 on Harbor Blvd, but it didn't last more than a few months. In 1996 three (7108/7608-7110/7610) went to the Inland Empire Connection, and in 2001 7105/7605 went to Palm Springs. All have since been sold except 7102/7502 which is now used in maintenance for a mobile office.
Hey man appreciate all these videos you're making! It would be cool to see one on the history of containerization! Greetings from Italy!
Never thought I’d be so invested in truck content. Well done yukon 🤝
I think the US sill had a few way up north by the pole for transportation around the base. Great content mate!
Another interesting trucking topic might be concrete mixers, and the differences between front and rear discharge mixers. Pretty cool machines and there is quite a bit of variation depending on operating location.
Never ever I had an idea these existed, thank you for your effort making these videos. :)
Santa Catalina Island near LA used them to fare tourists around the island atleast up until 2012, they generally only used vintage vehicles but it was the first time I had ever seen a trailer bus and it stuck with me
I was been in a trailer bus in Italy, in a private road in a Camping, in the '80s or maybe early '90s. The camping is named Cieloverde (green sky) since is entirely covered by pine trees. The bus was carrying people from the camping to the beach, since the dimensions of the camping are huge and there are something like a kilometer between the camping and the sea.
Thanks for this. Had seen pix of the concept, good to learn more.
I really appreciate the channel. Please do any subject you like, the carrot here is your own style. No need to limit yourself to trucks or any other topic.
Went to school in Australia late 1950s & all of the 60s & the local bus company had one of these on the fleet. Went to school on it many times. It had a White Motor Company tractor.
I'm glad you included a picture of the OCTA bus shown at 2:09
6 years ago while in Marine Corps MOS training, we used these to get from our barracks to the training area. They were usually decent, however there was one trailer that I’m pretty sure was converted from a horse trailer. That one managed to tear a hole in my cammies.
I was in them all the time in basic training in Missouri. They used them to transport us to ranges and courses. That was in 2018 so I bet they still got them.
I was thinking about something like this earlier. Trailers offer a lot of flexibility for the truck asset. Things like school busses site idle not generating return for most of their lives. The trailers would need a lot of technical investment to make them ride smoother though.
That would be an excellent idea! And one of the reasons semitrucks are a thing to begin with. I don't know how smooth the trailer ride is, but they are often air-ride (use airbags instead of springs) exactly like the tractors so I don't know why it would be any worse then a normal bus
Video was perfect for my short attentiom span, keep it up!
I just wanted to say I’m not really that into trailer buses but your narration made the video a lot more entertaining x
Hey great video about these Trailer buses. The one from Switzerland that you‘ve had shown a picture of is still owned by the museum of transport in Lucern. It‘s not on display at the moment but still in the storage. So if you want to have more information about it (Flughafen Zürich Trailerbus) let me know. I can help there😉
Interesting video. Yes I have experience with trailor buses, I use one most days when I'm on my way to and from assignments. It's called in Hebrew a "טיולית" [tiyulit] which roughly translates to "small trip" or "tourist" according to Google translate. They aren't the smoothest rides out there but they do their job. Hopefully this classes as a truck to you since I have no clue, but yeah enjoy.
Awesome, had never seen this! Link to your video shared in American Truck Historical Society group.
This video reminded me of the tiller fire truck, which is a ladder truck that uses a trailer for the ladder apparatus.The trailer uses a rear wheel turning system operated by an engineer in the back to better maneuver around tight turns, like the narrow streets in New York. Some cities and towns still use tillers, like NY and LA. Nowadays they’re quite outdated, as modern ladders fit the same ladder length into a smaller, singular apparatus, as well as eliminating the need for a tiller operator. However, they are still used widespread across the US. That being said, I would love a video on fire apparatus’s! I think they are very interesting, and extremely important to the American neighborhood.
Great content once again! If you need any information on European/Nordic bus travel and the buses themselves, hit me up! As a bus driver from Finland, I find this content really interesting.
just under 4 minutes and i recieved and retained more info than a typical 10 minute video on the same topic, kudos
Thanks for the content I really like your channel and the quality of your videos! Keep it up you’ll be at a million subscribers in no time
Nice one, always wanted to find information about these… The trailer double deckers were my favourite in the mid 80’s. My favourite spot was in the first row of the upper deck as a kid!!
This pace of narration is hell of a speed.
Wow bringing back memories! A cab over with a cattle trailer. Ft Sill OK , 1981 .this is what we used in basic training to go out to the rifle range. They commonly called it a Limousin. Check out that definition of Limousin
Wow, Well done and thank you. Fascinating video.
I appreciate you not imagining random arguments and artistically lengthening the video but instead telling nothing but the things you did find out and openly addressing the lack of other sources. Refreshing!
In the late 1990s/early 2000s, a few of this type of bus was in use at Walt Disney World. Disney named them “Super Bus.” They served the All Star Resorts. I only saw them a few times while visitng WDW.
We had a trailer bus at our basic training here in the US. It had enormous passenger capacity and picked up a lot of us trainees from one of our field trainings. Two points of entry on one side like boarding a subway car. Both ends of the trailer sat higher for the wheels. Drill SGTS let the driver in the tractor truck cabin know when we were all on board. It was nicely heated and probably the most comfortable ride we had during my training, this was back in 2021.
Thank you for your superb video. I think a good follow up to this, on a related theme, would be those bendy buses that articulate in the middle. London courted them for a few years and then gave up on them, I think, due to high maintenance costs & one or two of them getting stuck in narrow streets or on top of flat cyclists. They do still seem to be popular at airports over here though.... There is a reason we keep going back to that basic layout of one wheel one each corner, despite its limitations....
I've never seen a trailer bus before ever, not even a glimpse. Thanks for the exposure
There is a bus museum in Sydney that has one of these, and you can walk inside it in person.
You are having exploding success my friend, good luck
Wonderful ! A fascinating sidebar to people transport. Thank you.
I'm from South Africa, and I remember seeing one of these about 15 years ago. It was used as a company bus to pick up workers to work at a factory.
I still see them today in Ugie Eastern Cape😅😅
Would love to see more bus videos, one on the history of bus conversions into motorhomes, hippy buses, oilfield crew transports that were also converted to AWD, prison buses... all that stuff would be super fascinating!
Well, since I was little I have loved buses. I used to play with a couple of buses that I had and with trucks for which I drew windows on the trailer. thus creating a tractor with a passenger trailer. In my region this does not exist, so for me it was a certain adaptation created by me, at that time there was no internet, so I had no way of knowing if it existed or not in the world. Over time I realized that this idea already existed in reality when I saw some news about Cuba on TV. Today your video appeared and I thank you for the time you have invested in collecting information about this type of vehicle, I always had that loose end in my mind and I wanted to know more about it. Thank you again.
They used to have these in the 90’s in various Greek island airport. They were only used to ferry passengers from the aircraft to the terminal
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, WA had one of these they used at shift changes to get employees to the gates back in the 60's to early 80's. The drivers called it the snake, if I remember correctly. The tractor was used for regular semi trailers at other times.
I remember these trailer buses from my childhood in Calcutta. There was only one route L9. On other routes there were normal double decker or single decker buses. I have no idea how these big double decker trailer buses came to ply on Calcutta roads, but it was a very busy route and these buses were always jam packed.
When I was doing basic training in the army, Fort Leonard Wood used a bunch of these, that was just a couple of years ago!
When I was in the Army we had what we called cattle cars. Basically a large semi trailer designed for cattle or horses. Some had seats and some were stand up only. They were good for moving large numbers of trainees and quickly loading and unloading them
I got the best sleep on those things a long time ago in basic lol
Aspen Ski Corp. used them up to the mid 1960's in Aspen and out to Buttermilk I think they had 2. Now on a rutted snow packed road, you did think about them disconnecting, but they where way cooler than the school buses that also where in use. The looked pretty much like the one that is features in the still for the video (or the Czech type you showed).
I remember seeing one being used by a city bus service in either Phoenix or Tucson back in the late 1980's.
I recall there was at least one trailer bus operating in the 1960's in the area of New Zealand's capital city, Wellington. I only know of it being associated with school trips, but then, I was a school kid at the time, and that is where I saw it - but I might have had other roles too. Have not heard of it since then though.
while in basic training in 2018 in ft benning Georgia, we were hauled around on some decently nice trailer busses
Situation in Switzerland: As can be seen in the photo, these vehicles were mostly only used at the airports (Zurich Airport) on the page. They were there to take the passengers to the planes on the apron. The vehicles never drove on public roads and were even then wider to transport more people. It must have been around 1976 when I was driven to a DanAir aircraft in such a vehicle and I can still remember standing in front and finding it exciting to look at the tractor. Another use for such solutions was - but I did not find any picture of that and only a work colleague who worked as a young man on a power plant construction in the mountains and there were one or two such vehicles in use to bring the employees to the site. Towing vehicles were four-wheel drive trucks and the body was relatively short to get through the tight curves.
I started driving a bus in 2019. They taught us about these in orientation. These look pretty cool actually. Closest we've actually gotten to these in the states was the infamous motorized accordion, known more as the bendy bus. I drive one of these btw.
When I was at Basic Training in 1975 these were used to haul troops to the range and other parts of Fort Leonard Wood by the Army. We referred to them as Cattle Cars and each would hold about 75 standing or sitting troops.
in Osnabrück (a german citty in Lower Saxony) we have the BusPlus. you have one picture of these kind of bus in your video. They are normal busses, but with a trailer for passengers, when they need higher capacitie around the early mornings and noon, when school starts for example.
In 2012 while in the Marine Corps going to Military Police School at Ft. Leonard Wood, we would be occasionally be transported via “Cattle Car” which is almost exactly what it sounds like. It is a large modified gooseneck/5th wheel livestock trailer and a commercial truck. There were zero bells or whistles… seating was sitting and standing room only. Lets just say that this is one of those things that will only be seen on a Military Base. Still, as austere as this description is, we were extremely grateful for them when dealing with the rain and snows of Missouri in the Winter. A toast to those who have spent time at Ft. Lost in the Woods, in the State of Misery. It could have been worse, not sure how, but that shit’s possible.
When I joined the Army back in 1982. Trailer busses(army called them troop transporters) were used on post as a way of transporting whole platoons when going out to the ranges, or dropping troops off for a long hike or training mission which saved time. They only had long benches running on the sides from front to the back and the rest was standing room only. They always packed us in like sardines.
In 1979 I went to Army Basic Training at Fort McClellan, Alabama. There were plenty of trailer buses. But...being there for Military Police school, we marched, walked, ran or rode in Jeeps. The trailer buses were for the MOS Type Writer Repair troops.
The small fleet in Bratislava you mention was actually a full trailer type, Karosa D4 trailers hauled by standard (trolley)buses. The semi-trailer Škoda was just a prototype and never entered production.
Your one picture from the Los Angeles region, called a Super-bus when it was briefly in service is one I had the opportunity to ride, but not the only one I rode here in California. In Basic training for the Navy in San Diego they were known as "cattle-car busses" and used on that large base into and beyond the 1960s but dated from the 1940s. Los Angeles of course was fast becoming a car-centric public transit wasteland in that era, 1950s ,60s and seventies, but WWII caused private cars to be put on blocks with no new tires available and gasoline rationed. In addition to obtaining nearly every last streetcar and interurban rail passenger cars and putting them back into service for the many aeronautical industries we had in this area's workforce commuters, these tractor trailer busses were employed widely throughout the region. the ride was indeed quite rough, and of course not at all air conditioned.
I have been a bus driver since 1985. The picture you quickly showed of the US bus was from my then employer Orange County Transportation Authority (California) which bought 10 of them around 1988 or 1989 and kept them in service for only a few years, much less time than a regular transit bus was kept in service. My employer referred to them as the “Super Bus”. Nobody in the United States was willing to build the passenger trailers, so a company in Mexico built them instead. I was given an opportunity to drive them in regular service, but they were plagued with all kinds of problems and I would have been required to upgrade my CDL from a class B to a class A, so I passed on that. Also my employer wasn’t going to pay anything extra to bus drivers who were willing to drive those Super Buses. They seemed to be in the maintenance shop more than they were on the road and few drivers wanted to drive them with all of the problems that were entailed. After a few years most of them had been taken out of service or repurposed for other things like mobile classrooms. The remaining few weren’t kept much longer, every one of them was gone by 2000 if memory serves. It was an expensive failed experiment that belongs in the history books. Good riddance!
in Romania in the 80's and up to 90's there were quite a few trucks locally produced with rigid non removable trailer that was separated in 2 compartments... the frontal half was inclosed and had windows and seats exactly like a short bus ... the rear side was open and was used like a normal trailer to carry stuff. these were often used by workers' teams, so they could carry the workers themselves protected by rain and cold, as well as their heavy tools ... very practical especially for road repair workers that had to carry the big diesel air compressors and pick hammers along... many of these trucks also had a powerful hydraulic articulated arm with a hook at its end that was used as a crane to load and unload the heavy tools. with these trucks, whenever the need, there was only one vehicle that brought the workers, the tools, and provided the heavy lift capability.... instead of bringing a minibus for the workers, a truck with the tools and a crane to load/ unload... they were pretty common and I think some of them ( although old now) could still operate to this day . Another advantage it had, being in fact a modiffied truck, with high ground clearance and big wheels, it was very practical on offroad work, like construction work sites full of mud, or for working in mountainous terrain
There's still a few of these operating in Ft. Leonard Wood to this day, they've got seats and air conditioning, but are mainly used to carry large groups like army basic trainees
We had those in Chile too, they were used to transport military personnel for the most part and you still get to see them (albeit rarely).
My local airport was a regional airport that grew in traffic going through it with the tourist boom. There were very few gates with jetties, so all the way up to the 90's even, they used trailer buses to transport passengers from thw terminal to the planes that were further out, usually the charter holiday maker planes. Later the airport got a huge reconstruction with a second terminal, jetties and all that. I don't know if the trailer buses are still in use at all, as I haven't flown in years.
How interesting, good work Sir.
Where I live there are a few truck-based buses that just have a bus passenger compartment put on a medium-sized truck cab chassis. They are mainly used as school buses, so they don't need to worry about collecting fares.
I have a converted bus as an RV (1948 too). I like this concept even on a smaller scale, like a 5th wheel camper but one that doesn’t have to clear a truck bed to hitch up, instead using a truck with NO truck bed, like an Isuzu NPR. I have a couple of trailer buses in my photo collection. And a couple of trailer RVs in my photo collection too. Also. Good voiceover work in your video, nice job!
You know, Ram Promaster builds a flatbed cutaway chassis van to which a fifth wheel can be mounted.
@@MikeV8652 yeah, but they aren’t F-450 or F-550 equivalent rated, AND it isn’t Japanese quality either! And what’s wrong with the Isuzu’s anyway?