The Pacific Bus Museum is thrilled to welcome an old friend back to Northern California.
In Sept. 2024, we acquired Peninsula Charter Lines #216 from the Museum of Bus Transportation in Hershey, Pa. The return of this coach back to the Bay Area to become part of the Pacific Bus Museum’s fleet, represents a homecoming for this coach that was operated in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1926 until 1949.
Bus #216 (serial 10465) was built in 1924, the last of an order (206-216) for the Pacific Electric Railway. It had a standard Fageol body and a 4-cylinder Hall-Scott engine (50 serial 483) and 4-speed Brown-Lipe transmission.
After its short service with the Pacific Electric Railway in Los Angeles, in 1926 four Fageols (213-216) were sent north and leased to fellow Southern Pacific Railroad subsidiary, Peninsular Railway (PRy). PRy needed these buses to provide replacement bus service as a result of street improvements that forced abandonment of some of their trolley service. At the end of the lease, the ownership of #216 was transferred and repainted into Peninsular dark red with gold-leaf lettering. In 1933, #216, along with sister #215, passed to Floyd Pearson (Palo Alto Transit Co.) and subsequently to John Demeter and Frank Knapp (Palo Alto City Lines) in 1941 and ran in city service until 1949.
This bus was preserved by its successor Peninsula Transit Lines and restored in 1989 by Mike Demeter, then the owner-operator of Peninsula Charter Lines out of East Palo Alto, Calif. It was converted to the 6-cylinder Hercules JXB gasoline engine with a distinctive Diamond T manifold mated to a manual transmission it still has today. In 1990 #216 was featured in a Pacific Bus Museum charter trip to celebrate its restoration.
During its time in Palo Alto, just 16 miles across the bay from the museum in Fremont, it was seen multiple times in the Redwood City Parades and was on display for the 1992 Bus Bash in San Jose. Mike donated the bus to the Museum of Bus Transportation in Hershey Pa. where it became one of the gems of their collection until the Pacific Bus Museum acquired it in September of 2024.
#216 is a remarkable survivor and the Pacific Bus Museum is thrilled to bring this 100-year-old bus home to Northern California!
More information is available at the Museum website: https://pacbus.org/museum-roster/216-peninsula-charter-lines/
Pacific Bus Museum
1st & 3rd Saturdays
10am – 2pm
37974 Shinn St., Fremont
in**@pa****.org
