![]() Today, the 63-year-old bus is in the Ensignbus Vintage Fleet, which has a Web page that describes 1014 as “a London bus with a Californian accent!”Įnsignbus embellished the Unitrans logo with an American flag - as a backdrop for the lettering - and promotes RTL 1014 “for any event that needs a trans-Atlantic feel.” The ASUCD paid $3,000 for RTL 1014 45 years later, Ensignbus got it back for $7,000 plus shipping. “They sold RTL 1014 to a bunch of students, and I’m sure they never expected it to come back the way it did - still running,” said Anthony Palmere, Unitrans general manager. Three of them are still in regular service alongside more than 40 modern buses in a fleet that carries more than 3.5 million passengers a year. The ASUCD launched its transit system the next year and subsequently bought several more London double-deckers - which would become symbols of the university. In its previous life, RTL 1014 worked in the London transit system for 17 years, until 1967 when the ASUCD acquired 1014 and a sister bus, RTL 1194, at a time when London was swapping out its Regent buses for Routemasters. And why not? The bus spent more than two-thirds of its life in Davis. Today, RTL 1014 has a new coat of red paint and still sports “ASUCD-City of Davis-Unitrans” lettering on the sides and a California license plate in an Aggie frame. RTL 1014’s new home is the Ensignbus Transport Museum, which organizes public "running days" and also rents buses - including RTL 1014 - for wedding parties and such. In recent years Ensignbus has “repatriated” a number of London buses from Australia, Canada and the United States, bringing them home as artifacts of London’s transit history. ![]() Quillici visited there after Christmas, and - in a reprise of his job as Unitrans operations manager in 2005-06 - checked in to ensure that the bus had completed its run.Īnd there it was, this UC Davis icon, safely back with Ensignbus, the successor company to PVS Bus Sales, which had sold RTL 1014 to UC Davis in the first place. The red double-decker from London was one of the University Transit System’s first two buses in 1968, and would serve the campus and the city for 40-plus years, until last January when Unitrans dispatched the bus back to London. Read more about Mike Quillici and how he contributed to RTL 1014's historical accuracy in London. “It’s not every day you get to drive an all-original 1950 double-deck,” said Quillici, who would train a dozen more people to operate the right-hand-drive bus with manual transmission. But, after all these years, he still cares about those buses - especially RTL 1014. Watch a video on Unitrans’ COVID-19 safety practices.Mike Quillici graduated from UC Davis in December 2006 and left his job at Unitrans a few months later. Or see the schedules online: Select a route, then set the “terms” drop-down menu to "Summer Session 2" and the “days” drop-down menu to weekday or weekend service.įlynn reminded: COVID-19 precautions remain in place on Unitrans buses. Printed schedules with the updates are available at Unitrans terminals and on buses. F, L, M, P, Q and W lines - Minor schedule updates (one to two minutes).Z Line - It will run five minutes later in the morning to better match the A Line schedule, as a way to alleviate anticipated crowding on the A line.Unitrans also announced these changes effective Aug. Unitrans also provides downtown service on the A, O and Z lines on Second Street, the L Line on B Street, or the M Line on First and B streets. From Fifth Street, the E Line runs out to Covell and back via F and J streets, and back to the Memorial Union. Riders can disembark or catch the E Line at Fifth and D streets. The new route goes through downtown on Fifth Street instead of Third Street. 2, with the start of Summer Session II, but was moved up to July 21 because of downtown construction. The E Line rerouting had also been scheduled for implementation Aug. The campus-city transit system also announced minor schedule changes on other lines and the elimination of the youth fare starting Monday (Aug. Unitrans’ rerouted its E Line last week for improved reliability through downtown Davis and out to Covell Boulevard.
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