Bus Graveyard

This article was scraped from Rochester Subway. This is a blog about Rochester history and urbanism has not been published since 2017. The current owners are now publishing link spam which made me want to preserve this history.. The original article was published September 08, 2015 and can be found here.

     The following is a guest post submitted anonymously with additional photos by       Mike Governale

I was near the airport when Vice President Biden's plane came in a few weeks ago. Held up by a road block, I happened to find myself near a junk yard full of old RTS buses. I knew traffic wouldn't be moving for a while so I pulled over and got out to take a closer look. It was little bus graveyard...

   A barbed wire chain link fence was wide open. On the other side I could see what appeared to be twenty buses parked in rows, two or three deep. Another dozen or so scattered around the perimeter of the yard. Some were resting on the broken asphalt lot. Others nestled in the overgrown grass and weeds.

   I started talking with the guy in the car behind me who, as it turns out, drives a bus. He told me the old buses often get sold to third world countries.

   RTS spokesperson Carole Dowling confirmed for us this lot is used to store retired buses that are in the process of being sold. "We issue an invitation to vendors to submit bids to purchase the retired buses," Dowling says. "They are typically sold for parts and scrap given their condition, but sometimes they are purchased to be put back into use."

   The lot is near the airport but I'm not going to give away the exact location. This yard is not at all secure and we don't want to encourage anyone who might come and do (more) damage.

I wandered around for a bit and noticed several of the buses were open. I got on and snapped a few pics...

   Soon I realized that all of the cars that had been held up by the roadblock were gone and I was totally alone. Creeped me out a bit or else I would have stayed longer.

   Anyway, here's hoping these buses get a second chance at life.    * * *