Released Wentward Expansion Pack - Discussion thread 5.8

How about making a double decker bus? I feel like it'll be quite fun...jumping into it's side, driving around a corner to fast, etc.

 

Doing contests like in Top Gear...

 

For me, it looks BRITISH enough.

 

That looks amazing.

 

Will you make a front fascia looking like this?

 

Ahh! An RT-Leyland bus. I used to drive one of these... more details on that in my own comments, but wow... so many things I can comment on all of this. The RT-Leylands were fun buses to drive, but with the RHD in the United States, and the Pre-Select Automatic Transmission (which was a strange animal in its own right)-- these darn things required my full attention.

 

Hello, well greetings Ai'Torror, and others who care to read. So glad you made a discussion section, as I'd like to share my experiences with bus driving, and why your Wentward Series is so near and dear to my heart.

I earned my commercial license to drive buses while I was in college at age 22. It was never supposed to be a mainstay in my life-- just a fun p/t job while going to school, which turned into more than that after I graduated. Dispatcher, para-transit reservationist, assistant project manager, blah, blah, blah. The further I got away from actually driving the buses, the less exciting it became, but moving up was where the money was, so I pursued that route.

Anyway, back on point. Your Wentward Buses (or should I say the official Wentward series that you altered the lengths of), look like good old Gillig Phantom Transit Buses all day long !!!! I don't know which country you hale from, but Gillig is a U.S. bus manufacturer that's been around for decades, making both school buses and transit buses. Their school buses were always of the flat front, rear engine variety. Gillig was based in Hayward, California-- east of San Francisco, for years and years, and just recently relocated to Livermore, California, within the past 10 years or so.

Gillig made low floor buses as well, in order to comply with the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), and so they've become more prevalent. The Wentward series could also double for Orion buses, which are also common here in the United States, but with those 4 rectangular headlights and that front panel door that falls off on front end crashes all the time, I still say there's more Gillig in those, than anything else. I always thought the Gilligs were so beautiful. Today, people criticize those buses for looking so boxy and dated. But today's buses with the projector lamp headlights, and LED and the curvy lines, I personally think are less attractive. Just one man's opinion.

The Wentward series is like a walk through my past from 1989 to 2001, before I moved up in my transit companies, and into the office. The interior and dashboard is the spitting image of what I saw every morning at 0400hrs startup and pre-trip inspection. Brings back memories... both good and melancholy. I look at the dash, and can almost smell the hot black coffee in my Thermos, mixed with the smell of diesel fumes. You just never get certain memories and sensations out of your head, when they're engrained into one's psyche. It is amazing how close the devs came to capturing that look. Right down to the dual air compressor needles (red & green) on the gauge-- primary & secondary. Just incredible!

I wanted to share a few pictures of my transit past-- some 40's, 35's, and 30's-- as well as some red double decker buses I used to drive (imported from London to the University of California at Davis-- for their student run bus system, back in 1968):


Thu, Mar 23, 1989-- West Sacramento, CA-- Age 22, my first day of training, with the Yolo County Transit Authority (Yolobus); standing in front of a 1984 Gillig Phantom with the dual headlight option. Apparently the County Transit Authority preferred this over the quad headlights. Not sure where they got the green and blue stripes over a white background livery from, but it was unique to be sure.


This is a 40 foot bus. If you count the main rectangular window panes down the left side of the bus, there are 7 of them-- just like on both the Gillig and the Wentward.


I'm not really sure I knew what I was getting myself into at the time, but I was excited about learning to drive one of these. Here you can see how incredibly similar the Wentward driver interior section is to the Gillig (minus the fan and the fare box).


Mar 23, 1989-- No sooner did we get 788 back into the yard, it began to rain in Northern California that day. A line up of the fleet, including one with the "44 Sacramento Express" bus head sign. These were the old roll-up silk-screen styled destination signs, a few short years before they started going dot-matrix digital in the 90's.


Thu, Jun 8, 1989-- Our 1970 styled GMC bus... 776. Today was my training day on it, separate from the other ones. This was an odd, cumbersome bus to drive. No power steering, no air conditioning, huge radius steering wheel for extra leverage, and the touchiest air brakes my passengers and I ever had the misfortune of experiencing. It drove like a Sherman Tank. It actually felt heavier than the Gilligs (Gilligs felt like fiberglass built on Styrofoam, compared to this bus!)


Sun, Jul 8, 1990-- University California, Davis-- Unitrans (the student run bus company) at the parking pad. A row of some classic buses. (From right to left):
1. One Yolo Bus allowed for the "Park out driver" who lived in Davis.
2. Yellow on Blue TAPS (Transportation and Parking Services) bus. A 30 foot Gillig-- count 5 windows along the left side. This was the intra-campus Transportation and Parking shuttle that took people from the outer parking lots of the University to the core campus area, in an effort to help alleviate full parking lots closer to campus. It didn't work... hardly anyone rode the darn thing... program was canceled some 2 years later.
3 & 4. Our 35 foot Gilligs-- count 6 windows along the left side. We had 5 of these and these were our 7am to 12 midnight workhorses. Seldom were these buses ever turned off, new drivers just took them over at the top of the hour.
Note the odd wide stance of the quad headlights. Spread further apart, because they were not encased in imitation chrome plastic bezels, made them look a tad more sinister, IMO. These were 1981 Gilligs, with really horrible Stone-Bennett automatic transmissions. You laid into the accelerator just a tad too much, the tranni would jerk down into the next lower gear, throwing the passengers forward in their seats. It was very challenging to drive these smoothly. Really had to anticipate shift points to stop them from "lurch-downshifting".
5 & 6. Our 40 foot Flxible Buses-- No that is not a typo in the name. They were not "flexible" as in bend in the middle. Flxible was the actual name of the company. These were nice smooth buses to drive. A transmission that shifted like butter, power steering and a wheel that just slipped through your hands effortlessly. The only complaint about these was they were sort of boring looking, but they were an awesome historical example of early 70's bus manufacturing.
The oddest thing I remember about these buses was that none of the dashboard light ("idiot lights") were on the dash. They were all stacked vertically down the driver's A-pillar!

7, 8, & 9 from the right. Our 60's GM Buses-- These were old, heavy buses with no air conditioning, and not a joy to drive. But they felt very solid, rock solid. If you were assigned these in the daytime, it usually meant you must have done or said something to tick off the dispatcher or the route supervisor. If they liked you, you didn't get these buses.
These were usually relegated to middle school and high school runs, or charter work on Friday or Saturday nights.

(i.e.-- Sorority girls who couldn't hold their liquor and threw up all over the bus, after which, I would hose it down the aisle, and out the back door! Such a lovely thing at 3 in the morning, when all I wanted to do was go home). What days, but I wouldn't trade the overall bus memories in general for the world.

10. Final single deck bus, to the right of the double-decker-- A very old 50's GM. We called it the "Prison Bus" or the "Rosa Parks" bus, because that's exactly the era it looks like it came from. Not a fun bus to drive, but a historical one, and probably our oldest. More about it below.


July 8, 1990-- Davis, CA-- Our pride and joy London double decker buses, imported from England in 1968, when the student run bus company first began. Even our lead mechanic "Wally" was imported from the UK, complete with British accent, and a disdain for drivers who treated the pre-select pedal like it was a clutch (it was NOT!).
On the left-- two RT-Leyland buses, driver box over engine, totally separate from the passengers and conductor. Passengers exited out the left rear corner of the bus only. This could be potentially dangerous here in the United States.
3rd from the left-- A Daimler-Benz flat faced double decker. A rear engine bus, much heavier than the RT's. And with a full load of passengers, upstairs and downstairs, on a rainy day-- stepping on the brakes, you could really feel the weight, and the increase in stopping distance. These were no joke. The driver sat in the cab up front in the same space as the passengers.

For us drivers, driving a double decker was a special privilege that came only after 6 months of successful probationary service on single-deck buses. There were much fewer double-deck shifts available, and senior drivers snatched them up pretty quickly. I drove them a few times, fall of 1990, and winter/spring of 1991... but that was about it. They were fun... I'll give them that.


Bus #4508-- The Prison Bus! At least that's the nick-named it earned. These were used primarily to pick up middle school kids, so if they trashed the hell out of it, it was not really a big deal. Looking at the driver compartment, yes it really was as spartan and imposing as it looked. Not a user friendly bus to drive at all. 40 feet on this one.

All of these have long since been retired with California's tough environmental regulations, but the memories live on. Maybe one day BeamNG can incorporate some of these different and unique designs in buses.

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed. I look forward to further enjoyment of the Wentward mixed length pack.

 

In Hong Kong, most of the double decker buses have the stairs behind the driver. Some of the newer ones even has a window for you to look outside when walking up the staircase.

In KMB(the main bus company in HK), They assign them with codes like ATENUxxxx
Here are 2 of the most common buses in HK:
Enviro 500, Enviro 500 MMC, (all of them uses the Cummins ISL340b, with either a ZF gearbox or a Voith DIWA)
ATENU
, Enviro 500 MMC facelift (the ones designated 3ATENU is 12.8m version, and E6X is the 12.8m ones with euro 6 engine and ZF gearbox, glass staircase)
E6X
Volvo B9TL designated AVBW/AVBWU(uses Volvo D9A or D9B engine, paired with either a ZF or a Voith)
AVBWU

PS: almost none of them has rear wheel steering, except a few that has been disabled because it had been found that it didn't help much in tight roads, and bus routes that need to go into tight corners we have 11.3m 3 axle Enviro 500s and 10.8m 2 axle Enviro 400s to go the routes.

 

Very interesting YKS... thanks for posting. It's always interesting to see how other nations handle their busing needs, and what styles and sizes they choose.

 

I really enjoyed reading your story about your bus career, it was super interesting. Just quoting this post so I don’t make a text wall.

 

Well thank you. I appreciate that.

 

ive also really enjoyed reading your bus career it was interesting Just quoting this post so I don’t make a text wall. same as p_enta

 

Cool... much appreciated. They were interesting times. Some days better than others.

 

i like the mod

 

I suggest that you make a double decker version with three axles like this one with closed and open roof options.

 

It looks like 0.21 broke the busstop lua. Apparently they moved some code around in the files so the bus.lua file is a bit changed.
Should be a quick fix though, just replacing the old bus.lua with the new one from the game files.

 

Is it Outdated?! If yes, Why?!