| My search for a Pacific School Coach for restoration began, almost incidentally, right after this site expanded to feature the School Coach shortly after its launch. The purpose of covering the School Coach was primarily due to the fact that no other website featured it, and partly due to the fact that I received information shortly after posting a couple photos of them, that Gillig indeed had a relationship to the School Coach. After that, I began my search for one myself. (I'd spent considerable time riding one in my first year of school back in 1986, South Kitsap School District still had a sizeable fleet of them at the time) There'd been a few I'd been well aware of, and two intact ones, but one was moved from where it sat down near Longview to an unknown location (possibly scrapped altogether) and there had been one sitting for years up at a storage yard in Sequim, Washington. The one in Sequim was known to be totally intact, and is quite visible from Highway 101 sitting in a storage yard a football field away from the highway's shoulder. The one in Sequim, however, has been sitting for close to ten or fifteen years, and that fact kind of made the idea of trying to locate the owner to talk about purchasing it seem rather, well, unattractive. When I left production of this website in 2003 to go on hiatus and "pursue other interests", I discovered one in a wrecking yard just outside Gorst, Washington. Although relatively intact, it had been painted a dark green. Needless to say, the only thing I kept from that bus was the front "PACIFIC" cast wing badge emblem (these things are huge and heavy!), and the dashboard switch panel. Shortly after returning from my hiatus in the summer of 2006, a 1955 Pacific School Coach showed up on Craigslist for $3800 located down in the small town of Cathlamet, Washington. The listing showed a bus that for all intents, looked like it had been taken out of service just yesterday. This got me real excited, but I wasn't willing to spend that much money on an old school bus. So I decided to let this one slide, thinking that "there must be more out there, then..." After a few months had elapsed, it reappeared on Craigslist with a reduced price of nearly half the original asking price. I then contacted the owners of it and started talking about buying it. After a series of e-mails back and forth, and after the deal looked solid, things took a nosedive. My employer at the time wasn't giving me enough hours, so I couldn't manage to come up with even a down payment. By January 2007, I thought that maybe it was still available, and decided to contact the owners yet again. On a hunch, I sent the sellers an e-mail in the middle of that month asking if it was still available. In their reply, they told me it was, and talks of purchasing the bus started in earnest a few days later. On January 27, 2007, I decided time had gone by long enough, and it was time to go down and check this bus out in person. So, I set forth and went to see for myself just what this bus looked like. Needless to say, I was very impressed with what I saw. The ad claimed that a few seats had been taken out, and the bus was in the process of being converted. What I saw couldn't have been farther from the truth. The whole bus looked as if it was retired just yesterday. Everything was intact, and every seat was still installed save for the left front seat, which was just simply detached from its mountings. The owner purchased it at auction from the district with intentions of turning it into a motorhome, but grew reluctant over the project due to the bus' age and the fact that his wife didn't view it as her idea of a motorhome to begin with. The bus had apparently been retired only a few years prior, and was originally owned and operated by the Wahkiakum School District there. |
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| My '55 Pacific T-216 |
| Needless to say, on that visit, I was very much impressed, and had then "sealed the deal." After a few false starts and failed attempts at getting back down to Cathlamet, the purchase finally took place on March 11, and was driven up just three days later. The drive up was an eventful one, too. Just six miles outside Cathlamet on our way back, we ran out of gas in the bus, forcing us to drive back in the pilot car. There, we purchased seven gallons of gas and two gas cans. From there, we filled the bus up, made the drive into Longview, and filled up. Here are the first set of photos taken in January. These were taken the night I examined the bus. It was one hell of a cold night that night! (Photos taken at night on 01/27/2007) First Contact Right front view Left front view Right rear view Engine air intake scoop (Gillig would later use a variation of this design on their buses) Engine compartment photo Looking up the air intake duct shaft (radiator is in lower portion) Close-up of the "Pacific" emblem located on the front of the bus Interior photo looking back (note the presence of an additional, smaller window on the duct shaft) Closeup of intake duct shaft seen from inside the bus Interior view looking forward Interior photo of the roof escape hatch Photo of back seat area Photo of the front of the bus from the inside Photo of driver's compartment, from a driver's perspective Stepwell photo, as seen from the inside Same as above, as seen from the outside Right rear closeup (note the newer "Kenworth" emblem on the bottom above the back bumper) Driver's compartment photo #2 Closeup of foot controls ID placard photo (Note "Washington Built" on the placard) Stepwell ID placard (this contains engine number data, as well as passenger capacity and chassis weight) Purchase Day Here's the second set of photos, taken on the day I officially bought it. It was a rather cold morning that morning, and I was real tired from not having any sleep the night before. We were supposed to drive the bus up that day also, but the lack of jumper cables and the fact that we could not get the thing to move forced us to try again later. These photos were taken by both myself and fellow Gillig enthusiast Tim Olsen. They were taken using his camera, because out of a fit of stupidity, I left my camera's CF data card at home. These photos were also taken in daylight, unlike the previous nighttime set. Right front view (Tim Olsen photo) Photo taken with yours truly standing in front of it (Tim Olsen photo) Left front view (Daytime version of the photo above) Air intake scoop duct Front roofcap and windshield closeup (Tim olsen photo) Front body closeup (Tim Olsen photo) The inside of the back of the bus (as viewed from the left-hand side emergency door) (Tim Olsen photo) (More Photos Here) The Drive Up The following set of photos were taken the day the bus was driven up. The drive up took about three and a half hours, mainly because this bus has no real good acceleration when going uphill, and the fact that we ran out of gas bringing it up. The bus also took about 20 minutes to fill up. That day, the weather was considerably better than it was the day I purchased it, despite the fact that it did end up raining about 20 miles outside of Shelton, and lasted until we got home. On the way down, Mt. St. Helens makes an ominous presence known over the I-5 corridor. Fueling up in Longview Northbound on I-5, roughly 10 miles south of the Centralia/Chehalis area Closer to home, Finally! Only 25 miles from Shelton, we're here at I5 and the 101 exit (Exit 104) Rounding the northbound 101 entryway lane from I-5 at Exit 104 Looking back. We're on U.S. 101 here, roughly a mile outside Steamboat Island, Washington Parking the bus (More Photos Here) Finally, it's home This latest set of photos were taken on Sunday, March 18, 2007, five days after it was driven up, and were taken at the exact same spot it was parked at. I went out to tinker with the bus, and finally got the roof escape hatch to open (which refused to open for me in previous attempts). I also went and examined some rust issues, and took better photos than I did before. The air intake scoop - looking at it from above (I accessed the roof via the escape hatch for this shot) Full front head on view Full rear head on view Full right-side profile View with escape hatch opened from the outside of the bus Looking out of the roof hatch from inside Photo showing the right-hand side emergency exit being opened (More Photos Here) |
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| BUS STATISTICS |
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| Restoration Progress Report (A chronicle of the restoration progress!) |
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