Passengers - length ratio

[Thomas MVP]

I keep seeing 66 passengers, 72 passengers et cetera in bus ads. I don't plan on having more than one at a time.

how do you translate XX passengers translate to YY feet long?

[Griff]

My Thomas 1723 dog-nose is 28.25" per window from center of posts, so that comes out to 2.3 feet per row of seating. A 66 passenger bus like mine has 11 rows of seats making about 25.8 feet of space behind the drivers's seat, plus about 1 foot behind the back window and the tail of the bus. HTH

[RazorCityDen]

We looked at a lot of buses before we bought ours and I learned pretty fast that the rated capacity has little to do with length, but the number of windows don't lie

We have a 10 window 94" Conventional/Bluebird that gives us about 24' of building space behind the drivers seat rated at 54 passengers, looked at a lot of 11 window buses that were rated at 66 passengers that had about 26'. There were plenty of other buses mixed in there that didn't fit that mold, we drove 700 miles to look at a 65 passenger that turned out to be built on a 77 that had 30' behind the drivers seat. We didn't have a good side picture and I took the dealers word about being a "standard" 65 passenger bus. We found that most dealers have little time for a rec bus buyer.

Moral of my windy story, get good side pictures and count windows before driving all over hell and gone and don't put much stock in what the dealer/owner says about capacity as it relates to OAL. Dealers go off the manufacturers plate and private folks just don't really know. I was told all kinds of things that didn't make any sense, called a guy in Arizonia about a 9 window Amtran conventional sitting in his yard. I asked him about the available building space behind the seats, he told me just over 30'

Be patient, a bus is only a good deal if you get what you want the first go-around, there's not much about them that's cheap or easy to change after the money changes hands!

Take care,
Den

[the_experience03]

My windows are not all equal length, but there are 11 of them on each side which coincides with the 65 passenger rating. The 65 comes from having a narrow rear seat to make a place to put a garbage can without interfering with the emergency exit. My bus is a conventional that is 36 feet from tip to tail with 28 feet of usable space behind the driver's seat.

[Lady Franklin]

zag said,

...so it wasn't until I went and looked at it that I found out I'd bought the biggest bus ever made!

So what your saying is you haven't seen these beasts around,

[Sojakai]

What bus is that? I would like to know so I know what I am going to be dreaming about for a while till I can afford to get a bus... and what to look for when I do.

Is it engi front or back?

[the_experience03]

That one is front engine.

[Lady Franklin]

To be honest I have no idea what the specifics are on it... it came from google. But I have seen that the Canadian Pacific Railway owns a bunch of these behemoths to truck work crews around. They are massive to say the least!

[lapeer20m]

that thing is massive! Where can i get one?? lol

Actually, the bus i have with about 30 feet of useable space inside is almost too long for my needs. I could certainly do with a shorter jacuzzi bus. We have to get creative to use up all the available space.

[paul iossi]

jason;
with your skills I'm supprised that you haven't shortened a bus, remove the rear cap, shorten/remove 2 or more window sections, shorten the framerails, and reinstall the rear cap. as long as you don't mess with the rear axle and suspension it's only labor.

[Sojakai]

Lapeer, Have you thought of adding in a dance floor? I remember seeing pics of a party on one of your buses and it looked like the ladies were trying to dance between the seats... and the drinks.

Probably not a great idea for a 30 footer, but is something.

[todd246]

The Pass Cap Number you see is for small children On a standard 71 pass = 3 Students to a bench x number of seats
on 71 seat bus could get 53-54 adults.