Triboro Coach

Triboro Coach Corporation was a bus company in New York City, United States, operating local service in Queens and express routes to Manhattan until February 20, 2006.

History

Salvatore Fornatora began operating buses in Queens on April in 1919 as the Woodside-Astoria Transportation Company,[1] with his first route (part of today's Q19 route) connecting 103rd Street-Corona Plaza on the recently opened Corona Line in Corona with Flushing. In 1928 the Corona terminal was extended westward, and moved to Astoria - 21st Street, when the Corona Line was extended to Flushing, and the company was also operating several other routes in the Astoria-Woodside-Maspeth area by 1930.

The new Triboro Coach Corporation was incorporated on April 10, 1931,[1] running the Q18 and Q24 routes. On September 24, 1936 it acquired a city franchise for nine routes in northwestern Queens (the "Long Island City zone").[1][2] After World War II, Triboro was acquired by the stockholders of Green Bus Lines, after financial difficulties, but continued to operate independently.[1] Major expansions were made in 1956 with an express bus route (now the Q53) between Woodside and Rockaway Park (replacing the Long Island Rail Road's Rockaway Beach Branch, out of service since 1950) and in 1961, when it acquired the Q72 (then the B72) from the New York City Transit Authority. Five express routes to Manhattan were initiated in the 1970s and 1980s: the QM10 & QM11 in 1970, QM12 in 1971, and QM22, QM24, and QM24W in June 1988. Triboro was the first private company in the city to initiate express operations with the Q53 Woodside-Rockaway Park Express bus line in 1956, at the request of the City of New York due to the loss of direct LIRR Rockaway service from Woodside.[1][3][4][5][6]

In addition to diesel powered buses, Triboro housed a Methanol, and compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling facility, along with several CNG powered buses. The methanol fuel station was installed at in 1989 for six General Motors-built methanol buses.[7] In the early 1990s, three Triboro-operated RTS buses were fitted with special Detroit Diesel Series 92 engines that ran on methanol provided by Air Products & Chemicals.[8] CNG fueling was installed in 1994 to be used for orders of TMC RTS-06 CNG buses and later Orion V CNG buses that were ordered in conjunction with identical buses used by Command Bus Company and Queens Surface Corporation (now Spring Creek Depot and College Point Depot respectively).[9] The facility remained following MTA Bus takeover when the former Triboro Coach facility became the LaGuardia Depot. However, the facility was destroyed and shut down in April 2006 (only 2 months after the MTA Takeover) following an explosion within one of the natural gas lines and destroyed a former Triboro/ ex-Jamaica Bus RTS-04.[10][11][12] Since then, all of the ex-Triboro CNG buses were transferred to Spring Creek and College Point Depots and ran from there up until their retirement.

Rear view of an MTA Bus Company bus on the Q38 route with Triboro Coach colors.

Just prior to MTA Bus takeover, Triboro Coach operated the following routes. Most of these continue to be based out of the company's former facility:

Bus routes

Queens local
Queens-Manhattan express

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Roger P. Roess; Gene Sansone (23 August 2012). The Wheels That Drove New York: A History of the New York City Transit System. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 416–417. ISBN 978-3-642-30484-2.
  2. ↑ New York Times, Long Island City Zone Taken by One Bus Line, January 4, 1936, page 17
  3. ↑ Triboro Coach Corporation (via the Internet Archive)
  4. ↑ "Bus Service Links Woodside, Rockaway". Newspapers.com. Brooklyn Daily Eagle. June 25, 1950. p. 6. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
  5. ↑ "Bus Dispute Halts Rockaway Service: Company Suspends Week-End Queen-Branch runs Owing to Extra-Driver Pay Argument". The New York Times. August 9, 1952. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
  6. ↑ Onishi, Norimitsu (August 14, 1996). "For $2, Air-Conditioned Ride To a Day of Sun and Surf". The New York Times. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
  7. ↑ Wald, Matthew L. (May 17, 1989). "BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY; When Methanol Is in the Tank". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
  8. ↑ Clark, Nigel N.; Boyce, James A. (August 21, 1998). "Exhaust Emissions Testing Performed for Air Products Corporation on Transit Buses Fueled by Air Products Brand Methanol Fuel" (PDF). West Virginia University. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
  9. ↑ Motta, Robert; Norton, Paul; Kelly, Kenneth; Chandler, Kevin; Schumacher, Leon; Clark, Nigel (October 1996). "Alternative Fuel Transit Buses: Final Results from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Vehicle Evaluation Program" (PDF). United States Department of Energy. Retrieved 16 December 2015.
  10. ↑ Wohlwend, Lynn (April 13, 2006). "Flames, Smoke Erupt At Triboro Coach Depot". Queens Chronicle. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  11. ↑ Fenner, Austin (April 11, 2006). "EXPLOSION, FIRE RIP BUS DEPOT". Daily News (New York). Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  12. ↑ "Gas Main Ruptures". Queens Gazette. April 12, 2006. Retrieved 1 November 2015.

External links

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