Web Practices FAQ

"A method to Mike's madness."

Why are some photos edited to remove or blur the district name?

Sometimes it will be elected to remove labels from the bus in order to conceal the exact location of a bus.  This helps to protect the privacy or safety of the photographer, owner, or passengers.

Why are only parts of the name removed, or even just blurred?  Why not remove the entire label?

The publisher of this website acknowledges that gaps in text or blurs on the bus may appear awkward, but feels that the text and lettering style on a school bus are one of many things that help to define the character of that bus.  Typically, only the portion of the name that reveals a location will be removed from the name.  For example, in Detroit Public Schools, "Detroit" might be removed, leaving "Public Schools" on the side of this bus.  It will appear obvious that the photo has been doctored, but leaving part of the label will allow the photo to retain information about the lettering style of that bus.  In the event that a coach's text is so concise that the entire label needs to be concealed, then the label will be blurred.  Doing so does appear unnatural, but it allows the photo to still communicate the location and size of that lettering, which may have been a unique trait. 

Why do some buses have a specific model year, while others are given a range, and still others do not have a specific year?

The model year of any vehicle can be difficult to determine without having prior knowledge of the bus, or without access to the interior of the vehicle where a manufacturer's data plate may be found.  When a year is not known, providers and publishers to Mike's Bus Yard do their best to narrow down a year. Clues will be taken from special equipment, the placement of badges, and shape/location of body and chassis items to determine a range of model years that may apply to that bus.  This is where the model year would be listed as "1994 - 1997," for example.  We do our best to keep these ranges small.  If the coach does not posses any items that immediately give away a model year, then the era will be listed, such as "1990s," sometimes narrowed with a "late" or "early."

In what format are the model names listed?  Sometimes the body and chassis are separated, while at other times they are combined. 

The following applies to the way in which model names are listed within the photo information table. 

The most recent practices have listed model names in a way that reflects the way the bus was marketed and sold.  When a bus was sold as one company's body mounted on another company's chassis, the listed model name would reflect this.  For example, if the bus consisted of a Ford chassis with a Thomas body, the model name would be listed as "Thomas Conventional on a Ford B-700 chassis."  These are products that could have been seen in other combinations, so they are listed separately. 

If the bus was a model marketed as one product however, then the listing will reflect this.  Many transits fall under this category.  A Blue Bird FE would be listed as a "Blue Bird All American FE" rather than "Blue Bird All American on a Blue Bird FE chassis."  One would rarely find these two products separated, so the name will not be separated.  Blue Bird's deal from 1992 - 2003 with General Motors for an exclusive chassis partnership produces a similar situation.  A bus will be listed as a "Blue Bird GMC CV200" rather than a "Blue Bird CV200 on a GMC chassis" because one would never encounter those two products separate from one another.  The same goes for the Thomas Saf-T-Liner C2 or the IC CE-300. 

Any additional information such as capacity, engine and transmission type, brakes, etc. will be listed in the same line in a way that works grammatically.  If the photo page is particularly old, it may not follow this format. 

For the sake of brevity, in the title of the photo pages, the body and chassis names are almost always combined in a format that follows Year, Body, Chassis, Style.  Example: "1985 Thomas Ford Conventional."  

What do you determine is listed in a bus's hyperlink?

Hyperlinks will list a bus's model year, model, state/province, and bus number.  Some items may be omitted if they are unknown.  If there is more than one bus in the photograph(s) the hyperlink leads to, then only one bus number will be listed. 

The hyperlinks contain model information based on the categories and subcategories in which they are located.  In order to reduce the length of each hyperlink, only information that is not already given by the category will be listed.  Take, for example, a 1992 Blue Bird Chevrolet CV200.  Its hyperlink would be found in the Blue Bird section, in the Conventional/CV200/Micro-Bird category, and the Chevrolet chassis sub-category.  It will only list CV200 as the model name because it is the only part of the model name remaining that needs to be identified apart from the others that might exist in that sub-category. 

When do you decide to give a photographer his or her own section?

When there is an overwhelming representation of buses from one photographer's particular location, he or she will be given their own section in order to maintain a variety of buses on the main page.