Some recent photos of progress on Rosebus. You'd think I'd be be farther along. Not like I've had much else on my plate ...
Removing the flooring ... the linoleum is held to the subfloor by runners and the wheelchair tire down tracks. The runners have screws about every 8 inches. The screws go all the way through the metal floor Under the 5/8s plywood sub floor. The wheelchair tie down tracks have flush head bolts every 4 inches. These bolts go all the through the metal floor. They have to be cut as they can't be unbolted (hard to get to and they're rusted anyway) or ground. I've found the easiest way to deal with them is with a cutting wheel on the die grinder -- cut down the center of the track and through the center of the mounting bolts, then take the 3 lb hammer and the wrecking bar to split the tracks away from the bolts. Then, cut the bolts. Lastly, the 5/8ths plywood is mounted to the metal floor with rusted screws randomly spaced throughout the floor. These screws generally pull through the plywood when the big wrecking bar is used to pry up the plywood. The plywood generally breaks where it was routed for the tie down tracks.
Slow, tedious work. Plus, making it even less pleasant is finding all the dried "body fluid absorbent" that's congealed under every thing ... yuck.
To make up for that, I found quite a few little figurines, pencils, notes and even a picture ... each one stops me in my tracks to make me ponder the special needs child who lost that item on the bus and what kind of life they've had since. I hope they have nice memories from riding Rosebus.
Also ... Rosebus rolled off the assembly line in February of 2001 and was inservice with the Bayonne, NJ school system on the morning of 9-11. Bayonne is directly across the Hudson from Ground Zero. The driver and possibly the kids may have seen it happen.
The things you think about when grinding bolts one after the other after the other ...
~ John
A kid raised on Hotwheels, Matchbox and Tonka cannot be reasonably expected to own only one vehicle as an adult.
1949 Chevrolet 3804 In the Legacy Gallery | In the Gallery Forum 1973 IH 1310 Dump 1963 Kaiser M38A1 2001 International/AmTran RE3000 "Skoolie" 2014 Ford E-350 4x4 (Quigley)
