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Since age six I have thought the Greyhound Scenicruiser was the bus.  It was gorgeous, and this one, a converted Corgi 1:50 model, is too. and it is a very sweet runner: electrical pickup through all six wheels and three center pickups. although it has a longer wheelbase than any of my other converted Corgi buses, the rear two axles are two-axle swiveling truck so it runs very nicely through curves .  It is front wheel drive and uses a monster motor taken from a broken WBB Trainmaster without gear reduction, mounted very low.  I managed to keep the interior, and added a driver and nine passengers.  it is running at only 5.5 volts in the video. 

 

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Scenicruiser
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That's pretty neat. I have always admired Scencruisers, but never had the occasion to travel in one. There's one locally at Jackson Street Roundhouse, perhaps there lies an opportunity.

 

From their site:

 

Jackson Street Roundhouse     The bus in the foreground is a 1954 GM Scenicruiser. General Motors manufactured the bus exclusively for Greyhound. Greyhound used this  three-axle, monocoque, two-level coach from 1954 to the 1970s. 

 

That's quite a creation, Lee.  It would be great to have a Greyhound Scenicruiser running around on a layout. 

 

I too, rode these things when I was a teen back in the sixties, from San Francisco to Los Angeles and from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City.  My last ride on one was from Travis AFB to the San Francisco airport back in Navy days, 1974. 

 

Here's one I have, but it has to be hauled around by a UP freight train.

 

Great job.

 

 

2014-08-16 16.15.52

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Originally Posted by Yellowstone Special:

 

That's quite a creation, Lee.  It would be great to have a Greyhound Scenicruiser running around on a layout. 

 

I too, rode these things when I was a teen back in the sixties, from San Francisco to Los Angeles and from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City.  My last ride on one was from Travis AFB to the San Francisco airport back in Navy days, 1974. 

 

Here's one I have, but it has to be hauled around by a UP freight train.

 

Great job.

 

 

2014-08-16 16.15.52

I look like Greyhound is trying to siphon off passengers from your railroad

Here is another picture of the model, nose to tail with a converted Corgi model of the previous generation of GM buit Greyhound.  You can see how much bigger the Scenicruiser is - and how much better its styling was.  GM hit a home run there.

 

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This bus is the ultimate for me is several ways.  First, as I said above I considered it the ultimate bus when I was a kid. There were two vehicles I adored: the Scenicruiser and the Nash Metropolitan -- opposite ends of the vehicle spectrum!

 

Second, in my second 'Streets book, on bashing and scratch-building (its about 80% complete, the first is complete and with the published now), I have a whole chapter on making buses.  This is the final example - fitting I think.  

 

And third, this is among the most difficult and worrisome conversions I have ever done, even if it does not look like it should be.  The difficultly was in get a smooth turning rear swivel truck with the wheels that close together (the outside edges of their flanges are with 1/2 mm of one another) - necessary the the right look and fit to the  body.  The swivel truck is made from the front axles of two K-Line step-vans - I used two of them as "donors" here - the early ones had larger diamter, "bus size" wheels and it took a whole day and a half to make it so that wheels and the two center pickups are worked smoothly and it swiveling without beinding of too much friction. 

 

But the worry was because of the major problem: when in a D-16 curve, the wheelbase is so long that the front wheels of this bus are running at a 42 degree angle (!!) against the rails.  The rear swivel truck neatly handles friction at that end - the wheels and their flanges run pretty parallel to the rails there.  But in front, the wheels are fighting the curve at close to a 45 degree angle against the rails.  And, the flange is so wide that it barely fits, half sideways, across the flange groove in the curve: at points it is actually touching both the rail and the back edge of the flange groove: friction is phenomenally high.  This bus has about eight times the power and three times the traction of a normal 'Streets vehicle, and yet you will see it slow noticeably as it gets into a D-16 curve: it runs out of traction before power (always a good idea to arrange in a conversion, by the way).  Still, it runs well through D-21 and on my country road, and it looks sooooo good.

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Last edited by Lee Willis
Originally Posted by breezinup:

Very nice. Always like the Scenicruiser. In fact, I don't know why Greyhound doesn't still run something similar - seems it would be positive for business. It makes sense to me that people would be more inclined to ride something like a scenicruiser than a regular bus.

GH does have one, and it is in its Heritage Fleet making a cross country tour in the sout.  See GH website for more details.

 

Van Hool's promotion for the double decker bus it builds for megabus (mega uses a small "M") calls its DD the modern SC.  BTW, SC is copyrighted word for GH.

Last edited by Dominic Mazoch
Originally Posted by scale rail:

Love that twin engine bus Lee. Road them from California to Washington state almost every summer. Saw this Union Pacific bus in the back shops of the Sacramento  Railroad Museum. It would make a good model for UP fans. Don

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"Throughway" buses was not an idea that Amtrak came up with.  In the west, UP used bues in the LA area, and ATSF in the Bay Area.

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