Some people have asked how long I have had this website running, how long I've been into this hobby, what in the world motivates me to spend some of my free time chasing after buses, what motivates me to go for a random bus ride as a form of stress relief or what motivates me to dedicate large portions of vacations to photography of buses. Well hopefully the answers to all that and more are provided here.
A. Website History
The idea for Kevin's Bus and Rail Page came shortly after the I had taken my first half dozen or so photos. This was in the fall of 2001, the website was opened on November 12th, 2001. The website was originally hosted on a 15Mb free Geocities account. Within the first year or so this 15Mb had filled up, but back then it wasn't regular updates and I didn't take very many photos. So 15Mb was quite a bit to work with, now a days, each update is 3.5Mb to 4.5Mb! So then went the move to Topcities which provided 150Mb, still a lot to work with, and it was at this stage when updates were made on a regular basis. When Topcities filled up, it was time to get serious and the website moved to a paid server along with having its own domain name. Weekly updates have been a key part of this website, allowing the collection of photos to grow into thousands over the 6.5 years that the site has been operating.
As interest in the hobby expanded and my travels brought me to more places, I was able to open up more sections of the website. In earlier days, the website had a Calgary Transit focus, but now boosts photo collections expanding into multiple parts of Canada, a few American systems and a few systems outside of North America. The website eventually also put focus into motorcoach companies as photo collections grew in that category too.
B. About the webmaster (Me!) and how I got into the hobby.
I reside in both Calgary and Edmonton, depending on the time of year as I am a University student at the University of Alberta. I've always had an interest in vehicles, it was cars at a younger age. By the end of junior high school it had moved into an interest in buses and trains. I've always been the sole webmaster of the site and enjoy my own website most when I am able to add photos of buses that do not exist on the site yet.
I started to become interested in buses as I started using the public transit system in Calgary on a daily basis during the summer of 2001. I was going to summer school that summer for a month. This required taking a feeder bus down to Brentwood Station and then hoping aboard the Route 20 down to Chinook College. Of course back then, it was mostly high floor buses serving these runs that I took. Being able to ride buses on a daily basis is what transformed my interest into vehicles in general into buses. At the same time a now defunct website called Transit Music Express provided a large collection of photos, I really only remember looking in the Calgary section at the time. This website along with riding buses everyday inspired me to eventually start learning some of the basics, such as names of the different bus models and not long after I started taking some of my own photos. Unfortunately, a lot of my older photos have been taken off the website as many of them were not that great due to my lack of photography skills as a beginner and the poor quality equipment being used. However, some photos from 2001 and 2002 can still be found on the site.
C. About the Hobby
The most common answer I give to the age old question of "Why do you like buses?" is, "it is like how people have hobbies revolving around cars." Some people like to take photos of cars, some know almost everything there is to know about almost every single model of car past and present and of course many enjoy driving/racing cars. This hobby sometimes referred to as "transit fanning/rail fanning" for myself and many others consists of taking photos of buses from different cities and finding out information about them.
Lets talk about the photos first. Now some wonder, but they are buses don't they all sort of just look the same? Well yea they are the same in that they are all more or less boxes of slightly varrying shapes on wheels. But it is attention to detail that matters here. Various models of various years all look a little different and sometimes way different. So then once thats understood, others sometimes wonder, why so many photos of the same model of bus from one city? I think thats similar to collecting cards, pogs or coins. Each bus has its own fleet number, so its almost like forming a collection, plus as buses get older they get repairs or modifications that make them unique, this helps to explain some of the larger galleries on my website.
Now lets have a look at the part about finding out information about transit buses. Just like cars, buses have drivetrains, builders, build years and a whole ton of other specifications. Rather then just simply taking a photo of a bus, knowing who makes the bus, about how old it is, what kind of engine it has just gives the photo that much more character.
All in all, the photos and the noting and exploring of information and pictures about buses and trains is a hobby that provides opportunities to learn, form friendships with those with similar interests and for myself has made me into a far better photographer then I was 7 years ago.