GoDurham Purchases Second-hand Gilligs

As we've seen recently, GoDurham is working hard to revitalize and expand their fixed-route bus fleet, with refurbishments, retirements, and new bus deliveries all having occurred over the past year or so. All the way back in November (before The Triangle Commuter even existed), Transit Sales International (TSI) approved an order from RATP Dev (GoDurham's parent company) for 10 Gillig Low Floor diesel buses. According to TSI, these are to be 40 feet in length, same as the rest of GoDurham's fleet, and feature Cummins ISL powertrains paired with Allison B400R transmissions. This same engine/transmission combo can be found on GoDurham's 2008 units of the same make and model, and is notorious for being durable and reliable, if maintained properly. According to Transit Asset Management America, these "new" buses are to undergo refurbishment and preparation to meet RATP Dev's specific requirements before they are delivered and enter service. What exactly they will do/change is unknown, but we do know that they of course will undergo full inspections, "necessary repairs", and "customer-specific modifications". Sources said they were supposed to begin delivery to GoDurham this month (February), and lo and behold, the day after I began writing this article, news broke out that one had been delivered. Isn't that fun? Now, when they'll enter service is up to GoDurham, but my best guess is it will likely be sometime in the spring.

Neither Transit Sales International nor TAM America had stated, but I did have some speculations as to where these Gilligs could be coming from, before one got delivered and absolutely eradicated my theory. Knowing that they were ISL/B400R units narrowed my initial search down immensely, because I instantly remembered that Greensboro Transit Authority, just a few towns over in the city of Greensboro, is also operated by RATP Dev. What does this mean? Well early into 2025, GTA purchased and began operating 7 pre-owned Gillig BRTs, which were formerly operated by SunTran in Tuscon, Arizona. Since GoDurham and GTA are both operated by RATP Dev, I figured it was highly likely that they would want to buy from SunTran again, as their experience with the BRTs has seemingly been good, considering they are still used frequently today, even after GTA received new hybrid and electric Gilligs. What helped my case even more was the fact that last year, SunTran sold off a ton of old and outdated units, with model years ranging from 2009 to 2011. Buses from each 2009 series except one, the 3000 series, were sold. This series consisted of units 3001-3010. Now, if you can count, you can see that this specific series consists of ten buses. These ten buses are conveniently Gillig Low Floor 40-footers with Cummins ISLs and Allison B400Rs. I'm sure by now you can tell what my theory was - I whole-heartedly believed Durham was getting these. Now you could have argued that they were just still active and hadn't been sold yet, hence why they haven't showed up on GovDeals like all the others, but thanks to a very helpful source, TransSee, we can see that none of these units have tracking history, which means that they either haven't been active in a very long time, or their GTFS tracking devices have been removed. Either way, they're retired, which added more evidence to my theory. And, if there wasn't enough evidence already, the buses that have been sold on GovDeals were auctioned off by a third-party company, Sierra Auction. This means that SunTran could have very easily sold the 3000 series to Transit Sales International and the rest to Sierra Auction to be auctioned off. Then, RATPDev could've bought them from TSI, and the rest would be history. 

However, like I said earlier, the day after I wrote this entire article, the first "new" unit was delivered to GoDurham, and it was essentially the exact opposite of everything I thought it would be. The lone unit in GoDurham's posession, an unnumbered Gillig BRT 40', is currently in silver primer with no decals, which made the search for its previous owner quite difficult. However, using very specific physical features on the bus, Dylan was somehow able to find the most likely original owner. After scouring rosters for every single operator of Gillig BRTs, an almost perfect match was found, this being Tri Delta Transit all the way across the country in California. Tri Delta Transit 0992 - 0999, which are 2009 Gillig BRTs with the same engine and transmission as specified, share many features with the BRT in Durham's yard. These include; 

• A One-piece windshield

• "Curved" front headlights

• Top-mounted side mirrors

• Front and rear roof humps

• Alcoa rims

• Non-openable smoothside windows

• Dual horizontal rear stop lights

Not to mention, Tri County Transit's BRTs have the exact same seats with the exact same plastic color. The inserts are different, as Tri County's were fabric with a design and the Durham one has blank grey leather, but it's very easy to just replace the inserts. Everything seems to match up almost perfectly except for the fact that Tri County only had eight buses in this series, not ten. Therefore, if GoDurham is still planning to buy ten secondhand buses, two of which are going to have to come from somewhere else. To save myself the time and effort I'm not gonna try and figure out what the other two are. We will find out within the next couple of months once they are here and I can lay my own eyes upon them.

 From a foamer's standpoint, these things will definitely be interesting, and likely will become the most sought-after buses in the fleet for transit enthusiasts such as myself. However, the arrival of these units means that some older buses are bound to be retired. I couldn't tell you for sure which buses will be sent off to die thanks to GoDurham's flawlessness at ghosting me, but you can read our article about their 2025 battery-electric Gilligs to see which buses in the fleet are most likely next up for retirement. While most would assume the 2008s are the most endangered thanks to being the oldest in the fleet, I actually think it is unlikely for all of them to be retired, since they are continually used even they don't need to be. Their future is assisted by the fact that one of them, 0806, was overhauled just a few months ago. While it is possible that a couple of them may be retired, I highly doubt all of them will, and instead some of their 2010/2012 Gillig BRT hybrids will probably be retired, since they are much less reliable than the diesel 2008s and have been quite problematic lately, with their batteries far past the end of their useful service life. 

Please take this all with a massive grain of salt since I am just a regular bus nerd and I don't know any more than you do. This is all just speculation backed up by "evidence" that just so happens to kind of line up. All we know for sure is that GoDurham is receiving ten Gilligs with Cummins ISLs and Allison B400Rs.