Welcome to the Bus #1130 Summer 2023 update! This update will cover some key tasks completed to further the bus’ restoration since the summer of 2022, most of which happened in the last several months up until the time of writing this (August 2023).

After the bus sat idle for much of the summer of 2022 due to a minor insurance issue, in October of 2022 I managed to score a fantastic cheap antique vehicle policy for it with a different company which allowed me to bring the bus back onto the road again for the first time in several months. Around this time as well, the storage lot I was using finally completed their secure section so I ended up moving the bus into it where it would sit for the entire winter. In between all this I took the liberty of posing the bus for a few photos in the nearby, brand new Southeast Calgary community of Hotchkiss under construction. Photos attached below; there is just something so cool about seeing an old GM Fishbowl in front of newly completed showhomes!

Fast forwarding about 6 months now to April of 2023, which was my first opportunity to visit the bus since late autumn due to the storage lot being inaccessible for most of the winter. I ended up having to move the bus to a different part of the secure lot as due to the length of time the bus had been sitting, the tires had sunk too deep into the ground for me to drive the bus out on its own power, resulting in me having to get the lot owners to help pull the bus out with a tractor. In between all this, I decided out of mostly boredom to continue messing around with the destination sign system hoping to learn some more things about it. As noted throughout this entire website, I’ve been having issues with the rear sign ever since I first bought the bus, with it blanking out every time I tried setting it rather than displaying a reading. It wasn’t until now, after careful examination of the 9-pin extension cord supplying power and data to the rear sign, that I noticed something peculiar; the brown and orange wires were in a different position in the connector at one end of the wire versus in the connector the other end. I switched the wires around in the connector at the front end, and was thrilled to see the rear sign now working beautifully after this very easy fix!

Unfortunately, the sign lights still won’t stay on even despite me wiring the system in parallel as it should be. Regardless, with all the bus’ signs working flawlessly at this point for daytime use, on May 21st it was time to bring 1130 back onto Calgary’s city streets for some photo stops for the first time in over a year! This time it would be around the deep south end of Calgary, an area of the city that the GM Fishbowl fleet visited by far the least out of any area during their last few years in service. Many fellow enthusiasts came out this time to enjoy the beautiful late May weather and scenery. Attached are several photos from this trip taken at McKenzie Towne Terminal, Somerset-Bridlewood CTrain station, Fish Creek-Lacombe CTrain station, Canyon Meadows CTrain station, and the communities of Parkland and Deer Run, showing the bus’ rear sign now in action.

And finally, I should mention the one biggest thing that ultimately drove me to writing this update to begin with! While working on 1130’s interior restoration back in 2020-2021, I was able to find or manufacture most of what I needed to complete the bus to its in-service state, however there was one major item in particular that I was never able to obtain. This was the iconic Duncan farebox used on all Calgary Transit buses for the past half century and remaining in use to this day. No transit bus is truly complete without this detail, and it wasn’t until July of 2023 that I finally had the opportunity to snag one such farebox off of a retired Calgary Transit bus via a local metal recycler!

Several minor problems came with this initially when it came to preparing this farebox for its new home inside 1130, the first being that it was missing the key to open the vault, so I had to get a little creative to break the box open and set it up for opening/closing with a screwdriver instead of a key. Another was the lack of the proper farebox mount that Calgary Transit’s high floor buses used, as it came off of a low floor bus, and the third was that the box had been painted in Calgary Transit’s post-2014 farebox colors of grey and black rather than the original two-tone blue. So I spent several weeks working on all this in the first half of August. I didn’t care too much that the farebox was of the shortened variant of Duncan used by Calgary Transit, as much of the refurbished GM Fishbowl fleet used this variant anyway including 1130.

For painting the light blue, upper part of the farebox, I managed to find a perfect color match to the light blue stripe on 1130 with a paint card from Home Depot. The darker blue portion was a little trickier as I couldn’t match it to any paint card, so I had to peel some paint chips off the dark blue stripe on 1130 to tape to a card to provide the paint shop with. This resulted in an ever so slight, but not major, deviation in color from the original shade of blue for the dark blue portion. Over several days, my dad and I helped each other with the tedious task of masking up, sanding down and painting both sections of the farebox into their respective shade of blue.

For mounting it to the floor of the bus without its proper mount, I cut an 11x12.5 inch sheet of stainless steel and carefully drilled holes and countersinks into it in order to screw it into the holes on the bottom of the farebox without the screw heads sticking out underneath. Then I drilled the 4 corner holes in it for the bolts to mount the whole thing to the floor of the bus using the existing holes in the floor.

Despite being a very tedious process to mount the farebox in the bus due to its position relatively far inboard, luckily I was able to do this without too many issues, except for the fact that the bus sitting in its current spot in the storage lot sat too low for me to get underneath far enough to fasten the nuts under the floor! I had to power up the bus and build air to raise it on its airbags, and then park it angled upwards by positioning the front wheels on top of a small crest which created enough clearance under the front end for me to slide myself underneath. Normally I try to avoid getting underneath the bus when it is aired up but in this case I didn’t have a choice, although the upward angle of the bus due to the way I positioned it probably would have given me plenty of clearance regardless.

Once I was finished, all the hard work proved worth it as the freshly painted farebox looked fantastic in the front of 1130, and 1130’s driver’s area now felt much more complete! As a bonus, I was able to further complement the cosmetic look of the front end of the bus with an original blue garbage bucket I retrieved from another retired Calgary Transit bus as well. I drove the bus for a lap around the storage lot to pose it for some photos with the farebox installed.

Going forward, in the next few months I plan to bring the bus back into a heavy shop yet again for some more work, mainly the long overdue rebuild of the aged Detroit Diesel 6V71N engine that the bus had installed since retirement and leaked/burned a massive amount of oil making operating the bus more tedious than necessary. This will most likely happen this coming fall as the shop I plan to use frees up a space for me. Along with this will come any other needed mechanical work, followed by another Alberta CVIP inspection, to not only ensure the bus stays roadworthy and future-proof but also to simply get that sticker on the side of the bus as a quality seal of sorts. As well, in the coming weeks I plan to get a friend to help perfect the fleet number decals on the exterior and bring them closer to the original font that the bus had when in service, as well as get a few other exterior decals on to complete the cosmetic look along with a “plaque” (interior ad) dedicated to the bus and the many people who have helped bring it to its current state over the last 3 years that I have owned it. As far as exterior body condition goes, as I mentioned in the chapter titled “The Buy”, I will not touch anything that is not required for mechanical integrity or for passing a CVIP, as I want the bus to keep its “transit bus look” and have no particular desire for it to look unnaturally mint. I may consider getting some of the larger rust spots repaired if it proves financially viable, but I feel that the rest of the various imperfections on the body tell a story of the bus’ history and time in revenue service, much the same as on all the other Calgary Transit GM Fishbowls during their last few years in service. Therefore most of this will remain as is for the forseeable future and my focus will remain on keeping the bus in excellent running and mechanical condition.