1st Gen Lunchtable Thread - General Discussion

Thomas, Blue Bird, or Gillig? Or whatever defunct company made the twinkie ones?

 

Blue Bird, Thomas Built?

There’s a huge bus industry in Hayward. We have Gillig, MCI, and they just built a brand new Prevost factory.

 

Thomas. Named for Thomasville NC. There are busses in pretty much every parking lot in town.

 

Those are popular to convert to motor homes because they’re assembled with screws, and you can take it apart easily. Most other buses are rivets and welds.

 

Ahh, for all the districts that can't afford Blue Bird. Guess the kids of Bumblescum, AL still need busses haha

 

I never even knew there was another bus manufacturer until I went out west for the first time. You dont see anything else here.

 

Plant workers top out around $22 an hour last I heard. Just driving screws all day. Pretty much the only large unionized manufacturer in the state.

 

That sounds agonizing. Can’t imagine doing that eight hours a day, it’s so monotonous.

 

FWIW my school district on Mercer Island, WA (about the best funded district in WA, even kids from Seattle and Bellevue tried to get bussed over) had Blue Bird and Thomas busses and boy did you wish you got a Blue Bird when your route had a Thomas. The seats were nicer, the heat was uniform in the winter, the busses actually were quiet and had good air circulation. The Thomas ones were like stepping into a bowling alley where it still smells like smoke from when you could still smoke in buildings... for comparison haha

 

Apparently before the union came in it was practically a slave camp. I was specifically told not to work there by my welding instructors upon graduating, or they would be really dissapointed haha. But they pull a lot of guys from our automation program so who knows, I may end up there someday.

 

the power

 

had another one of these pop up locally tonight while cars were driving over it

 

At least what you do has some kind of variation in it. That’s totally fine.

 

Is routine road maintenance nonexistent where you live?

 

That's the best thing about where I work. No two days are the same. Today I was making parts on a lathe, tomorrow might be TIG welding, or milling, or plowing the snow out of the loading area.... who knows haha

 

I do remember even the newer thomas' were incredily noisy/full of rattles in the interiors. And the YMCA gym locker room smell was standard.

 

Thats what i like about working as a service tech. Also doing something different, aways something new to learn every day.

 

yes apparently it is, this is the heaviest route through town on I-80 (4 or 5 lanes of fast moving traffic over these holes)
i have complained to the nDOT on multiple occasions over the past 5 months but nothing has been done yet!

 

A job shop is where its at. Production machine shops would be agonizing to me. Our machinist is on light duty so Ive been getting private lathe lessons all week while I essentially do his work for him. Not bad at all when its different parts every week/day.

 

their excuse to me was that they were too busy way out in the farmlands repairing roads and bridges washed out by the floods in March so that the farmers would not remain stuck and could get their goods out