It's Back!

We figure you've waited long enough to see the Public Service Buses on this site again.

We've also updated the Music page to reflect the current performance schedule. Parades, concerts, plays, I got em coming out of my ears (or my horn) over the next couple of months.

Buses Are Back, And A New Mackey Blog

We are pleased to reopen the NJ Transit Bus Fan Page after an absence of about, gee, a year and a half? New pix and roster info forthcoming.

And I am pleased to announce the official blog of The Puzzle Brothers. We are going to be discussing our puzzle related activities in excruciating detail on this blog and hopefully be self-publishing our own pathetic creations that no editor dares touch. Enjoy!

1851: Unlucky Number For NJT

NJ Transit bus 1851 (a 1994 Flxible) was the site of a fatal shooting yesterday when it was running the 62 route in Newark. Yet, that number seemed oddly familiar.

I checked my archives and remembered that on May 31, 2004, Academy Lines bus 1851 was involved in a serious accident on the Garden State Parkway. 43 passengers were injured in the crash involving a 1999 MCI 102DL3 coach. Academy still runs other buses in this series, notable for their plain-white appearance.

In case you've wondered where our bus pages are, we are not in any great hurry to bring the NJT info back up, since it is now slightly outdated... at least the fleet photos may be back soon. We will definitely be bringing back the Public Service bus pages as well.

9/11

This pic by Trevor Logan says all that needs be said today.

Bus Gallery

Whole buncha new stuff in the Bus Gallery tonight!

Bus Shop

The Bus Shop is now open. We offer Jim Lehrer's memoir "A Bus Of My Own", and the Iconografix series of bus history albums, everything from Yellow to Mack to Flxible to Prevost to MCI. Visit, and more importantly, buy!

Eddie Anthony Back On His Feet

We told you a little while ago about Eddie Anthony's bus website. I am pleased to report to you that Eddie, as of Wednesday, has been fitted with a prosthetic right leg and is very happy and proud to be back on two feet again. He had been using a wheelchair until that point.

Rosa Parks' Bus Restored

This Old Look is not just any newly restored bus, but a rolling piece of civil rights history. This is the actual bus on which a black woman, Rosa Parks, declined to give up her seat to a white man and was subsequently arrested as a result in 1955, one of the significant events of the civil rights movement.

The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI unveiled the bus yesterday. The bus had been sitting, vacant and neglected, in a field in Alabama for thirty years after its retirement. The owner of the bus at the time was told by the transit agency in Montgomery, AL, that this was the "Rosa Parks Bus", but needed further proof. Newspaper clippings had ID'd the bus to its fleet number (2857). Librarian Tom Jones of the Motor Bus Society helped further by verifying the bus as a 1948 GM TDH-3610, serial number 1132 and concurring that the bus was in service in Montgomery in 1955. All of the pieces of the puzzle had come together: the bus was the one, alright. The Ford Museum spent almost $800,000 acquiring and restoring the bus to near-new condition (the goal was to have the bus as it appeared on December 1, 1955). The bus will be on permanent display at the museum. Ms. Parks, who will celebrate her 90th birthday in a few weeks, was not at the ceremony on Friday.

Greyhound Through Express

One of the Yahoo groups I belong to is called Greyhound Through Express. A very active group with lots of posting, mostly on topic (thankfully), and full of characters. One such guy is Eddie Anthony. I've never met him, but he is a very enthusiastic West Coast based bus fan. Last summer, he had a pedestrian accident (running across the street to catch a bus) which resulted in the loss of his right leg below the knee. But Eddie's persevered and he's back on the streets of LA taking pictures of Greyhound and other buses. He's just launched a new site, labusfan.net. Features bus pix from all over Southern California, with a heaping helping of LACMTA, Big Blue Bus, Long Beach Transit, etc. Makes me wanna go back! Thanks, Eddie!

We're Not Quite In Sync Yet

Like a syndicated television show of the 1970's, some of you are indeed seeing us at our new host. Others of you are still seeing the old site, but within the next day we should have the whole world hooked up.

We have relocated the Bus Gallery pages back to the mother ship. The Coach USA gallery, which many of you enjoyed until it got lost in the server shuffle, is going to be reconstructed and included back into the Bus Gallery site, simply because Coach USA is on its way to becoming a dinosaur.

Look for many exciting new features on this site!

More NJT Roadeo Pix

We've added the other two showbuses from the NJT Roadeo, thanks to a suggestion from an employee of Big Tree Garage in Nutley. So your 1922 is now up on the web as well as the two MCI's, the 7666 and 7788. Look for em at the NJT page. Yes, putting only one of em up wasn't the fair thing to do. Congrats, BTW, to all of this year's Roadeo winners (whoever you are... I had to leave before the winners were announced!)

NJT Bus Roadeo Reports Forthcoming

Later today or tonight we will have a selection of pictures for you from today's NJ Transit Bus Roadeo. Howell Garage has traditionally been an exclusively MCI facility (with a Nova Bus tucked away in the corner for some reason, and a Flxible still hanging around), but now, the facility is being more and more populated by the new 45-foot D4500 buses from the 7400 series. We have pix and serials of some of em. (BTW other web sites have been noting these buses as D4501's. I looked at the builder's plates. All the ones I saw are D4500's.)

PSCT Update

We made a minor change to a picture file on the Public Service bus site. A bus now in repose at the Seashore Trolley Museum in Maine was misidentified.

Bus Gallery Now On Comcast Account

The Bus Gallery has been moved to my Comcast Hi-Speed Internet account. We are freeing up some space on the main davemackey.com servers for many more NJ Transit pictures.

Coach USA Update

On the Coach USA page, we have corrected the files we added back in December. You haven't seen these files yet due to a little quirk in Front Page that kept them from being published properly. Take a look at Arrow Line 26396, Leisure Line 2004, and Short Line 70958.

We are also opening an annex for file overspill in the Mackey Family of websites. You won't be able to access this site directly, but if you see some weird file names, that will be why. This will eventually affect my sites and Robair's.

Now open in the Bus Gallery

Our School Bus exhibit!

More Updates

Back from another weekend in Atlantic City. We will have some new buses on the NJT and Coach USA pages forthwith.

PSCT Update

Some fixes and new photo files today over at the Public Service Bus pages. We will have quite a few more to come in the coming weeks.

NJT Correction

Quick correction: the new NJT buses 8202-8204 are D4500's, not D4000's!