A Saturday Adventure Ending in South Point, Ohio

     A couple weeks ago, my dad an I decided to make our way up to Symmes Valley to take a look at their fleet. There wasn't really much to look at, mainly just a couple of Thomas 3800s and FS65s. But we went from there to Ironton, saw the same buses that they've had for a while now, and made our way up to South Point. Despite it being so close, neither of us had been here before. We decided that it would be a good idea to take pictures. So here you go, for your enjoyment purposes.

Thanksgiving in Gallia County, Ohio

I always celebrate Thanksgiving at my grandmother's house outside of Rio Grande, Ohio. About 6 miles down the road is Bidwell, Ohio. Bidwell is home to the open bus lot belonging to Gallia County Local School District. Sometimes while we are up visiting, my dad and I will take a trip down there to get pictures, just as we did Thursday. I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving.

2019 or 2020 Thomas C2

 Bus 39, a long retired 1987 Thomas S-1800 used for storage.

 Another shot of bus 39's Thomas Emblem.

 What's rural Ohio without cattle?

 Buses and cows. Buses 0025 and 44, another long retired 1987 Thomas S-1800 used for storage.

 Bus 29, a nice looking Thomas FS65.

 A pile of hoods, from a C2, S-Series, and fender extensions from a 3800.

Bus 23, a 2004 Thomas FS65 bought used. Registered 6/22/2016 according to ODOT.

A damaged 2001 Blue Bird 3800 that is only used for storage. You can see the damage close to the rear bumper, I'm assuming that the frame was bent.

An Adventure in Wayne County

Today, I decided to take a drive to Wayne County's bus garage to get some pictures. I figured that I should before the weather gets too bad. My dad came along, so it was a good father-son day for us. There were a few buses on the way that we ended up getting pictures of on the way back, but they also had some interesting buses in the back that are soon to be sold. All of which consisted of first gen ICs, mainly FEs and CEs with an RE in the mix.

As for the rest of the lot, It was mainly ICs of all types.

Also one of their very few Blue Bird Visions, which I assume to be a 2008 or 2009 model.

On the trip back, we photographed every bus we saw parked along the way except one 2014 IC CE Handy that was parked at a driver's house.

And then we concluded our day in Kenova, so here's the usual bunch but with the IC RE swapped out with an HDX.

Adventures Throughout the Tri-State Area, 11/04/2018 Part 2 - Ohio and West Virginia

This is a continuation of the last post, if you couldn't tell from the title.

Before we move onto the Ohio and West Virginia portion of the story, here is the bus we happened upon at the church in Kentucky that I did not have photos of before - a 1999 Blue Bird Freightliner FS-65 from Chesapeake Union Exempted Village Schools, thier old bus 9. I'd had my eye on this bus for a while and was waiting until the right moment to ask about it, but I guess it was too late. As I told the pastor, I'm glad it's in good hands that will take care of it. I also told him that I'll be contacting the church soon with my contact information because I'd definitely be interested in buying it.

Now, for the intended part of the story.

We left Kentucky in our rear view mirrors and set our eyes on Ceredo, West Virginia. My friend wanted to get some train pictures down there, and I was happy to come along. On our way, we saw Wayne County Schools bus 2721 parked in Kenova, a Thomas C2 that looked to be about a 2009 model or so. We grabbed our pictures and went up to Ceredo. Ironically, I probably got my best shots of the day here with a Kanawha River Terminals locomotive coming in as we were there. I hadn't planned on getting train photos that day either.

After we finished up there, we went back down the road towards Ceredo Elementary only expecing to find a Thomas HDX, but we were greeted with two IC RE's as well, one with very unique spec's. This was Wayne County Schools 13-79, a 2014 or 2015 IC RE with a mid-ship wheelchair lift. Being from West Virginia, I've always appreciated and studied West Virginia spec's, but never had I ever seen a rear engine WV bus with a wheelchair lift, let alone a WV bus with a wheelchair lift anywhere else on the bus except the rear. I guess it was becuase this bus was an RE, but it also only had room to fit one wheelchair, judging by what we could see through the windows.

Since we had our fun here, we went a little farther down the road and got some pictures of some more Wayne County buses, two 2018 or 2019 model IC CE's and a IC RE.

Our stomachs were starting to get to us, it had been about 4 hours since we initially met up at this point and we had very little food in this time frame. We decided it would be best to take a trip to Sheetz, as it has started to become our tradition for when he comes into town. After this, we decided to head to South Point, Ohio and see their unique fleet of buses. We saw a Blue Bird Mini Bird on the way, but also faced so many detours and road closures that it was dark by the time we got around everything. So we said goodbye, wished each other safe travels, and parted ways.

Adventures Throughout the Tri-State Area, 11/04/2018 Part 1 - Kentucky Buses

Yesterday, I met up with a friend from Cincinnati to go photograph buses and test out my new-to-me camera that I bought the day before. Unfortunately, I only had a telephoto lens for it. Aside from that, I still got some good pictures.

We decided to meet up at a truck shop in Grayson, KY with a small fleet of retired school buses of their own. These buses looked to have come from Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. I found these the day before on the trip when I bought my camera.

The two of us got our pictures and decided it would be best to head less than two miles up the road to East Carter High School to check out some of Carter County's fleet. In their little lot, they had a couple buses that sparked our interest. They had two retired Second Generation IC CE's. They looked to have been older by the quality of the paint. One of them had a bent rear axle. They also had a early model AmTran Genesis that looks to be the next on their "For Sale" list.

My friend had sent me a post from the forums School Bus Fleet dating back to 2006, suggesting that there was a Delmar-Keenes Superior sitting along Route 60 between Ashland and Cannonsburg, so we went to look for it. We never found it unfortunately, but we did find a bus at a church that I'll include in the next post. We also found a retired 2004 IC CE from Carter County.

While at the church, we talked with the pastor who told us that there was another church down the road with a "Chromed out blue bus that looks BAD [in the best sense]" so you know what we did next. We of course went down there and took a look at it. The pastor of the first church also told us that they had dropped a significant amount of money on a new bus, so when we saw the blue colored Blue Bird 3800, we guessed that it was originally ordered by the church. It had coach style seating, A/C, chrome rims, a chrome grille, and it had tinted windows. The bus also had no signs of ever having warning lights, a stop sign, or a crossing arm. Behind it was a 1995 Wayne 3800 that was from an unknown origin.

We pondered what to do next, so we decided to go back up the road to Boyd County's bus garage and get some photos. We had both been there before on our own time so we didn't grab too many pictures while we were there. From there we decided to go to West Virginia, which is just a couple miles from where we were.