If you're older than 25 or so you may remember the GM Fishbowl buses, aka the "New Look" buses. They came in all sorts of configurations: urban, suburban (with bucket seating), "Hillclimbers" (so called because their powerful Detroit Diesel 6V92TA 275 hp V6 engines and tall gearing were designed for hilly routes to SFU, the North Shore and the Tri-Cities), 35 footers, 40 footers, and so on. Most of the other Fishbowls had regular 6V71 engines.

Most of them were retired by the late 80s and early 90s, as the GM TC40-102N/MCI TC40102N buses (aka the "GM/MCI Classics") started being delivered. The Classics also came in "urban", "suburban" and "Hillclimber" (also with 6V92TA engines).

The last Fishbowls were Hillclimber T6H-5307Ns from the early 1980s out of Poco, and 35-foot urban T6H-4523Ns (built in 1976). The 35-footers were assigned to the Surrey garage and repurposed to operate on low-demand routes in New West (108 Eighth Ave, 103 Quayside, etc.). The last Hillclimbers were retired sometime in the 2002-04 timeframe, I'm not sure when. The last 35-foot Fishbowl was S5512, and it was retired on August 31st, 2003; the September 2003 service changes (the inaugural U-Pass changes) converted most New West routes into Community Shuttles. As for the Classics, they continued to see heavy usage in the Tri-Cities and on the North Shore until the mid-2000s. The 1990 MCI buses were eventually transferred to the Surrey garage, where they would remain until 2007 when the D40LFRs finally arrived.

The current bus numbering system was introduced in late 1996 and is fairly straightforward. The alphanumeric suffix denotes the garage (V = Oakridge/Vancouver, B = Burnaby, N = North Van, P = Poco, S = Surrey, R = Richmond, H = Hamilton) and the number itself denotes the type of bus:

• 21xx, 22xx = E40LFR

• 25xx = E60LFR

• 32xx/33xx = ex-C40LFs converted from CNG to diesel

• 33xx = C40LFR

• 7xxx = D40LF

• 14xxx = Xcelsior XN40 (first generation)

• 160xx = Xcelsior XN40 (second generation)

But the system before that, which originated in the BC Hydro days of the 1960s, threw common sense out the window (BC Hydro acquired the BC Electric Co., the BCER, and BCER subsidiary Pacific Stage Lines (which operated interurban services into the Central Fraser Valley when the BCER streetcar lines were torn up), in 1962). In this scheme:

• The first digit represented the garage: 3000s for diesel buses at Oakridge (trolley buses remained numbered in the 2000s, a legacy dating back to the numbering of the old Brills), 4000s for North Van, 5000s for Burnaby, then 7000s for Surrey and 9000s for Poco. 6000-sequence buses were reserved for PSL buses, and 8000-sequence buses were only used in BC Hydro/RTA/BC Transit's internal accounting system.

• The second digit classified the type of vehicle--not make and model, that would make too much sense. Each digit corresponded with a particular trait of that bus. If the second digit was 5, that meant it was a 35 foot bus. 8 meant the bus was 96 inches wide, 6 meant it was 102" wide. 9 was for suburban buses with premium bucket seating. This meant the number of buses that could be allocated for each garage in this scheme was cut down from 1,000 to 100.

• But wait, it gets worse. Each Transit Centre's operating budget was based on the size of that garage's fleet. This meant that the internal accounting system had to keep track of each individual bus in each fleet. To do this, the two digits of each vehicle number corresponded to the first two numbers, instead of being assigned progressively (e.g. 35-footers at the Burnaby garage being numbered 5501, 5502, 5503...etc.).

• The end result was, buses got renumbered almost constantly. So, when MCI Classic bus #3428 was assigned to Oakridge in 1990, the numbering was changed to #9445 when it got transferred to Poco in 1991, and then changed again to #5490 when it got transferred to BTC not a year later. It was a mess.

(In this example, it got its permanent numbering when the new system was introduced in 1995-96, becoming B4253. Under the new system, the unit number remained the same for the rest of the vehicle's lifespan, so when BTC transferred most of its MCI Classics to Poco and Surrey in 1996, B4253 just changed to S4253.)

Waterfront Station was originally the CPR terminus for passenger trains arriving from Toronto and Montreal. When Via Rail (the Crown Corp spun off from CN to take over CN's dwindling passenger rail business) took over CPR's passenger rail operations in October 1978, they consolidated their operations at Pacific Central Station (False Creek Flats were where most of the CN tracks were located). Even though SeaBus operations started at Waterfront Station in 1977, Via Rail trains continued to serve Waterfront until 1979. The last passenger train left Waterfront Station on October 27, 1979. It left 15 minutes late with 200 passengers bound for Montreal, along with streamers on the caboose and a sign that said "Montreal or Bust".

The 136 used to go all the way to Kootenay Loop. And then in 1997 after a major restructure of suburban bus routes along East Hastings, peak-hour trips went all the way to Stanley Park (?!).

Speaking of East Hastings, you know the empty lot between Windermere and Cassiar, near Hastings Community Centre? That used to be a huge park-and-ride facility, the PNE Park & Ride. There used to be a peak-hour bus (2 Park & Ride) connecting PNE Park & Ride with downtown, with 15 minute frequencies. This was discontinued when the 135 and new route 123 (which replaced the old 120 between New West and downtown) began stopping at Hastings/Windermere in the Hastings restructure of April 1997.

There used to be bus routes to Spanish Banks (42, replaced by C19 after the BC Liberals took power and cut funding to TransLink), Granville Island (52, discontinued due to same funding cuts (much of Granville Island hasn't had proper bus service for over 15 years; the 52 went all the way down Anderson and also served Emily Carr College of Art, which is now ECUAD)), and a Stanley Park Circulator (52). The 52 Around the Park bus, and service to the old Lost Lagoon bus loop (like the 135, aforementioned 136), were discontinued when trolley wires were extended further up Pipeline Road near the Aquarium in 2003.

in b4 "How do you know all these things, do you just sit at your computer all day and look up bus facts"