BusTalk

[Q65A]

From 1945 to 1959, bus operations in NYC underwent a significant evolution. Post World War II social and economic changes had a profound effect on many city neighborhoods. Ridership levels increasingly fell from those experienced during the incredibly busy wartime years. Former mass transit passengers gradually began using their own private automobiles as a primary means of transportation. Newly built limited access highways enabled city residents to adopt a new suburban lifestyle. Within this relatively short timeframe, the typical transit bus also evolved considerably in response to new operating pressures: 35-foot long, iron sprung, gas powered buses already had become obsolete in NYC. For all practical purposes, the GM TDH-5106 set the pattern for the typical NYC transit bus of the late 1950’s and beyond. Features such as 40-foot length, air suspensions, diesel engines, hydraulic transmissions, and push-type exit doors all became standard specifications that would extend even to this day. By 1959, GM legitimately could claim the U.S. and Canadian transit bus markets as its own private turf. Well established transit bus builders such as Mack, White, ACF-Brill and others either had exited the market, or were making imminent plans to do so. Flxible had become a transit bus manufacturer after it had joined forces with Twin Coach in 1952, but outside of Chicago and perhaps a handful of other cities, it had not yet become a dominant factor in the transit bus industry. GM well understood the critical importance that new technologies and modern styling played in the automotive industry. In order to maintain its status as the leading U.S. bus manufacturer, GM clearly knew that the time was right for making sweeping design changes to its highly successful line of Old Look transit models. It could be argued that many of the styling elements of the Old Look body design dated back to the PCC car of 1936. Although the term “reinvention” had yet to be invented at the time, GM began working on the New Look transit bus in 1956, even as thousands of TDH-5105’s and 5106’s were rolling out of GM’s Pontiac (MI) assembly plant. Working with various major transit agencies, GM learned first-hand what needed to be done to improve their already-successful transit bus design. By September 1959, the New Look lineup was ready to start producing the first of many millions of passenger miles. The GM New Look coach utilized the same monocoque construction as had been used on their Old Looks, but the similarities generally ended there. “Visibility” most accurately described the salient feature of the New Look design. Borrowing from its phenomenally successful PD-4104, GM eliminated the old small side windows and slit-like standee windows in favor of large, sleek, horizontally sliding “slant-line” side windows. These were 82” x 25” in 40-foot buses, and were hinged at the top to serve as emergency exits in the event of a bus rollover. Individual standee windows were replaced by a tinted, continuous standee strip window installed above the side windows and below the roofline. This feature was fitted to New Look transit coaches, but was eliminated on New Looks suburban coaches. To reduce dangerous blind spots, “half teardrop” windows were installed behind the aft edges of both the entrance door and the bus operator’s side window. Also derived from the PD-4104 (and the earlier PD-3741/4151) was an extensive use of fluted, anodized aluminum body side panels. This was a sharp departure from the flat, riveted, painted side panels used on Old Looks. The 3-piece rear window likely was inspired by the rear window assembly used on the 4104. The New Look rear window assembly was 20 sq. ft., more than triple the area of the pair of rear windows used in GM Old Looks. (Shortly after introduction, it was modified into a 4-piece design that further reduced glass replacement costs.)The huge front windshield on the New Look was dramatically larger than the slanted 2-piece windshield used on Old Looks (25.5 sq. ft. versus 9.3 sq. ft.), a feature that gave GM New Looks the nickname “Fishbowls”. (Some bus historians might suspect that the 6-piece front windshield design was inspired by the 6-piece windshield used on postwar Twin Coaches and on later Flxibles.) To maintain proper visibility during inclement weather, dual long-arm, pantograph-type air-operated wipers were fitted on early Fishbowls. Early Fishbowls lacked the contoured rubber front splash fenders, but this feature was added later as standard equipment to control water spray during operation on wet roadways. Front and rear corner marker lamps were large, squared units equipped with stainless steel accent panels; 3-lamp front and rear “Michigan Marker” assemblies were optional equipment. Engine air intakes were installed at the rear-most edges of the standee window strips, and were covered with mesh grilles. Perhaps inspired by contemporary automobile designs, quadruple round headlamps were used, while large stop/turn and tail lamps were installed into the tailgate using streamlined fiberglass “nacelles”. The tailgate itself was a fluted aluminum, single piece unit hinged at the top. Old Looks had used a series of smaller hinged doors to provide engine bay access. New Looks used 2-panel, 4-window “slide-glide” entrance doors. Exit doors were either 2-panel push-type exit doors, or optional air-operated or treadle-operated 4-panel “jackknife” doors. A large, crank-operated, single-piece front destination sign (lighted by fluorescent lamps) was standard equipment. The B/O faced a free-standing front instrument panel equipped with a gauge layout similar to that used on Old Looks, redesigned to incorporate dual “tell tale” lamp panels. The left-hand switch panel was completely new, with the introduction of a rotary-type “master” switch that controlled ignition, lighting and other electrical circuits. This eliminated a number of individual toggle switches. Auxiliary toggle switches were housed in a small hinged “tip down” switch panel that folded into the left-side wall when not in use. (This feature later was changed to a fixed recessed switch panel when it was discovered that the parking brake lever interfered with the motion of the tip-down switch panel.) The large, floor-mounted mechanical parking brake was installed at the left side of the B/O, while an automatic transmission selector lever was floor-mounted to the right of the B/O (as opposed to the dash-mounted lever used on Old Looks). Fluorescent interior lighting also was used, a modern feature that provided a much brighter atmosphere for nighttime passengers. In common with GM Old Looks built after 1953, New Looks came equipped with air-ride suspensions. These were upgraded by elimination of the steel “air beams” that had been used on Old Looks. Air conditioning was optional. Four transit models were offered. A newly-designed 190 BHP V-6 Detroit Diesel (6V-71) was mated to either a 4-speed Spicer 7145V mechanical transmission (equipped with a wet-type clutch) or an Allison Model VH hydraulic transmission. Bus operators could choose 35’ or 40’ lengths and 96” or”102” widths; 40-footers rode a 284.5” wheelbase, while 35-footers rode a 235” wheelbase. 5-hole 10-stud cast steel wheels were used; 102”-wide 35-footers and all 40-footers used 11.00x20 tires (narrow 35’s used 10.00x20 tires). Following the standard GM model nomenclature system, New Look transit models were known as TDH/M 4516, 4517, 5301, and 5302. The 35’ TDH/M 4516 and 4517 picked up where the Old Looks had ended; this is why they started with numerically higher model suffixes beginning at -16. In the 45 series New Looks, even numbered suffixes designated a 102” width, while odd numbered suffixes designated a 96” width. The new 40’ TDH/M 5301 and 5302 had no similarly sized predecessors, thus they started with suffix numbers beginning at -01. In the 53 series New Looks, odd numbered suffixes usually designated a 102” width, while even numbered suffixes usually designated a 96” width. As will be shown later, one New Look model deviated from this standard nomenclature system. For the first time, suburban coaches had their own model series: SDH/M 4501(35’) and 5301(40’). All GM suburban coaches were 96” wide, so model numbers for 102”-wide buses were not used. With the exception of New York Bus Service (originally known as New York Bus Tours), NYC bus operators did not purchase GM New Look suburbans for regularly scheduled services (in contrast to NJ bus lines, who operated suburbans extensively in Trans-Hudson express services to the PABT). Several PBL’s (i.e. QTC, JBI) purchased small numbers of GM New Look suburbans for charter service. Although there were many more models of GM Old Looks than New Looks, the history of the Fishbowls in NYC is a bit complex, and will be presented in several installments.