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Amtran plans to keep one of its remaining six 40-year-old GMC buses as a historical artifact, after replacing all those buses next year, according to General Manager Eric Wolf.
“Great idea,” said Amtran Chairman Scott Cessna, who is a former executive director of the Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum. “History happens every day.”
Staff had been mulling the idea for a while, until Maintenance Director Gary Williams helped clinch the decision by saying “we really need to save one,” Wolf said.
Staff will pick the best of the six to keep, he said.
Amtran is trying to take a more enlightened approach than the one taken by officials the Altoona & Logan Valley Electric Railway, Amtran’s predecessor, when trolley service here ended in the early 1950s.
They documented the occasion with video, but it was not so much a fond remembrance as a celebration of “out with the old, in with the new,” Wolf said.
They burned what they could of the trolleys and sold the remaining steel for scrap, he said.
Amtran has room in its garage near Mansion Park to keep the museum bus, alongside all 28 of its fleet buses, Wolf said.
Amtran acquired nine of the GMCs from Montgomery, Ala., more than 10 years ago.
They’ve served as school “trippers,” which don’t get used as heavily as the authority’s regular buses.
The southern buses have been great, but the salt from the winter weather here has begun to corrode them, Wolf said.
It’s also hard for staff to find replacement parts.
Wolf has heard that Amtran is the only U.S. bus system still running the vintage GMCs, although there’s one in Canada that’s doing it, he said.
The buses are easy to work on, like older classic cars, “but after 40 years, enough is enough,” Wolf said.
In August, Amtran arranged to replace three of the GMCs with used buses.
It should be easy to get federal money to replace the remaining six next year through the new FAST transportation bill, because of regulations that give preference to proposals based on the age and mileage of buses to be replaced, he said.
The keeper bus will need to be driven periodically, to guard against deterioration.
Wolf plans to paint the it in the original Amtran gold-bronze-green color scheme.
The bus can be used for parades and other ceremonial occasions.
But Amtran can’t rent it out, because of rules connected with receiving federal funds.
Three or four times a year, groups of bus enthusiasts numbering from several to 20 make a pilgrimage to Altoona to see the GMCs, Wolf said.
“I think it was one of the best buses ever made,” he said. It’s a widely shared opinion, he added. The model has been nicknamed the “fishbowl” for the protruding shape of its windshield.
GM actually manufactured its “New Look” buses from 1959-86, according to Wikipedia.