The Govt. Needs A Program So Peepel Won't Resort To This:

[Jarlaxle]

The last time this happened it was during the 70s fuel crises.
Yes,
Rubato

It still happens, obviously more often than you'd believe. It's even happened to me, and not in a bad neighborhood.

My Questions: Did the buses have diesel engines? If so, was the truck they were stealing the fuel for also a diesel?
It would have made the third guy easy to catch if he misfueled it.

Back in the '30s and '40s, there were a lot of farm tractors that ran on what they called petroleum distillate. It was close to kerosene as far as volatility is concerned. The tractors were started on gasoline from a small tank, and switched over to distillate once they were warm. One time my grandfather's tractor had some distillate siphoned from its large tank. It didn't take long to find out which neighbor boy's car wouldn't start.

There hasnb't been a gas-powered school bus in close to 20 years...they're all diesel or CNG now.

[Jarlaxle]

Gas tanks are cheap and easily replaced. You'd have to be pretty inept, or your "business" be pretty marginal to be shut down forever by a little thing like that.

Yrs,
Rubato

Actually, no, they're not (some top $1500 just for the tank)...but that isn't the point.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Gas tanks are cheap and easily replaced. You'd have to be pretty inept, or your "business" be pretty marginal to be shut down forever by a little thing like that.

Yrs,
Rubato

Actually, no, they're not (some top $1500 just for the tank)...but that isn't the point.

A start up business or small operator just getting by has little room for error. And here they made no error and someone goes and destroys their livelyhood. What if some package or job that needs that truck has to happen TODAY. The owner has to try and find a new tank, then if he's lucky he gets it today and then has to install it today and hope there is enough time to do the job that needed to be done today. And if not done TODAY he loses that client possibly forever.

Insurance may or may not cover vandalism to the point of deductables nd such. And the owner, even if fully covered, is not getting that check today. Maybe next week/month. In the mean time, he has to aly out the money for the tank, for the labor to install and refill a presumeably large tank. It ain't a $30 fill up for your sedan.

Sure the hypotheticals are real easy to banter about, but in the real world, where people are living day to day, these things can put people out of business through no fault of their own. More new businesses fail than succeed evenwith the best planning and financial planning and the like.

This is the real world, not some classroom exercise.

[Jarlaxle]

Not that big a deal...worst case, he could call Penske or Ryder and rent a truck. It's more the fact that he will be on the hook to clean up the fuel that drained on the ground!

[rubato]

A quick check shows $65 to $350 for a replacement tank. Supplementary tanks can cost more but then any real business will have insurance.

Yrs,
Rubato

[Jarlaxle]

Actually, no...a quick check shows a USED tank will be over $300 and a new replacement can easily top $600. (Plus $3-400 for installation, plus having the trucks towed to the shop at $5+/mile.) A school bus tank (they don't use truck tanks anymore) can top $1500. And one more time: it's more the fact that he will be on the hook to clean up the fuel that drained on the ground!

[oldr_n_wsr]

Way back in the late 70's early 80's when I was a volly, we just did a "washdown" on traffic accidents with spills. Into the storm drain it went.
That was then, this is now. Call hazmat, an envornmental services clean up crew and the EPA (just don't let the EPA near a closed mine).

[Jarlaxle]

Something I suspect everyone except Ozzie figured out three days ago.

[rubato]

Actually, no...a quick check shows a USED tank will be over $300 and a new replacement can easily top $600. (Plus $3-400 for installation, plus having the trucks towed to the shop at $5+/mile.) A school bus tank (they don't use truck tanks anymore) can top $1500. And one more time: it's more the fact that he will be on the hook to clean up the fuel that drained on the ground!

So someone running a fleet of school busses can't finance a cheap replacement fuel tank? Like on a credit card? Right. It is unlikely that the victim would be charged for the cleanup in Calif. but you know your own (backwards, primitive) state best.


How many in laws you have that are first cousins, on both sides? jes askin.


yrs,
rubato

[Jarlaxle]

Ozzie, I realize you are really slow and probably loaded, but at least TRY to understand what you read before posting. When someone drains 50+ gallons (my work truck holds 100, a typical big rental the same, a semi tractor usually holds more) of diesel fuel on the ground, the entire property is now contaminated and must be cleaned up!

How much mercury did your mother consume while pregnant with you?

[MGMcAnick]

There hasn't been a gas-powered school bus in close to 20 years...they're all diesel or CNG now.

Some of the buses in my district are over 20 years old. They put a pair of 1996s up for bids last year, and they still have more like them. They brought $2000 each, and went to Mexico where old school buses go to die, usually in another color. One was a diesel, the other gas. Their mini buses are all gas. There are NO CNG buses in the fleet yet. Due to the infrastructure needed to fuel them, I don't see that happening any time soon.

I didn't bid on a bus, but I did buy a 15 year old Chevy pickup. They'd given up on making it run, but a new battery and a couple of days of tinkering were all it needed. Seems it had air in the injection system's fuel rail. I drove it 500 miles one day the last week in June. Brought back another BMW bike I'd bought.

Also note that the tanks on school buses are surrounded by a cage of 1" square tubing to help prevent rupture in case of an accident. I don't know if they are welded or bolted in place, but I'd bet on welding. Removing a tank for replacement is no small task in either case.

[Jarlaxle]

Not so much anymore...most are between the framerails now. AFAIK, the last gasoline-powered fullsize buses were the mid-90s Blue Birds on GMC running gear.

My Genesis (diesel) has no cage, just a reinforcing bar. My old Ford (gas) did have a safety cage around the tank, thouth it could be replaced without removing said cage.

[MGMcAnick]

AFAIK, the last gasoline-powered fullsize buses were the mid-90s Blue Birds on GMC running gear.

That's probably the right bus and era.

Who do you suppose made this one that swallowed a sign pole all the way to the front tandem axle, killing five? It looks totally impossible.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.2736792

[dales]

My Genesis (diesel) has no cage, just a reinforcing bar. My old Ford (gas) did have a safety cage around the tank, thouth it could be replaced without removing said cage.

[Jarlaxle]

Honestly...no idea.

And hey, bosco, sober up.

[dales]

Hey, drizzle du urine............................try not to take your pathetic life so seriously

[Bicycle Bill]

My Genesis (diesel) has no cage, just a reinforcing bar. My old Ford (gas) did have a safety cage around the tank, thouth it could be replaced without removing said cage.

The genuine, original "Partridge Family" bus (a facsimile of which is shown above) was a 1957 Chevrolet with a 'Superior' bus body, and is no longer with us; it used to occupy space behind a taco stand on MLK Blvd in LA near the USC campus, but when the lot was repaved in 1987 the bus, which had been allowed to deteriorate beyond all possibility of rehab or salvage, was sent off to a junkyard.  There are countless copies, reproductions, and buses with similar "as inspired by" paint schemes, including a party-bus company in the Milwaukee WI area with TWO of these things; but the one from the TV show is long, long gone.

-"BB"-