Delivering holiday cheer with Santa’s Posse
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During the holidays, it’s easy to get lost in the hustle and bustle. Taking a moment to slow down and do something kind for others can be a productive way to recenter and celebrate the spirit of holiday giving. At C-TRAN, our employees have a longstanding tradition of giving back to our community. Over the years, we partnered with organizations like Share Vancouver to hold drives for food and gifts. For the past few holiday seasons, we’ve lent a helping hand to Santa’s Posse.
Formed in 1997, Santa’s Posse is a partnership between the Clark County Sheriff’s Office and the local community to collect and deliver gifts and food to local families, making their holidays memorable and fostering positive contacts with law enforcement. While the spirit of the program hasn’t changed, its reach is very different than it was almost three decades ago. Its first year benefitted 25 families; as of today, it has increased exponentially to serve over 1,500 families. In 2024 alone, over 4,800 children have received deliveries from Santa’s Posse.
C-TRAN Lead Travel Trainer Veronica Marti suggested that C-TRAN help with deliveries in 2020, marking the first year that the agency became part of the Posse.
“I first learned about Santa’s Posse in 2017,” she says. “My family and I always look forward to volunteering and pulling up to the delivery pick-up line with hot cocoa in hand and Christmas music playing in the vehicle. It’s become one of my favorite traditions.”
After finding joy and fulfillment from her own participation, she asked if C-TRAN would be willing to enlist its fleet to help with deliveries. “Santa’s Posse is a wonderful organization, and I appreciate the work they do every year to make the holiday season brighter for families in our community,” Marti says.
C-TRAN’s involvement with the program was a natural fit—Santa’s Posse had goods to transport, and C-TRAN had the vehicles to do so. The morning of the distribution event, bags full of toys, boxes of food, and bikes are all packed into C-VAN demand response vehicles and whisked away to their new homes. The operation is no small feat, but it flows smoothly thanks to an expansive network of volunteers. During this year’s event on December 14, C-TRAN’s demand response team sent two C-VAN vehicles to deliver gifts to 31 families, which included 87 children in total. C-TRAN drivers make an impact on our passengers’ lives every day, but ensuring that Santa is able to make all of his deliveries on time is special in a different way.
In addition to offering their time and skills to deliver holiday magic, C-TRAN employees have also collected items for distribution over the past two years. Manager of Operations Jill Carillo has organized her team’s participation in the event since C-TRAN first became involved in 2020.
“What was so special about this year is that we did the drive, and we were able to participate in the process all the way from employees donating toys and then employees delivering them to families,” Carrillo says. “It’s a full-circle thing. A lot of times, like in past years, you just drop things off, but employees actually delivering items from other employees made it really wonderful.”
Prior to handing off donations from C-TRAN staff to Santa’s Posse organizers, Manager of DEI and Organizational Development Chandra Washington took inventory of everything that people contributed to measure the impact of their efforts. Leading up to the delivery date, boxes overflowed with items that would soon make their way to local families. Overall, C-TRAN employees donated over 250 pounds of food and over 100 individual gifts.
“People brought everything from formula and diapers to purses and stuffed animals,” Washington says. “These thoughtful gifts were truly inclusive of all ages.”
A requiem for the Gillig Phantom
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The name Gillig Phantom may not mean much to some people, but it elicits an excited response from many transit enthusiasts.
For those unfamiliar, the Gillig Phantom is a type of bus manufactured from 1980 through 2008. Phantoms were first added to the C-TRAN fleet in 1990 and last purchased in 2003. As the fleet modernized, some of the Phantom’s traits became rarer: The high-floor design, distinct rectangular shape and slanted windshield panel on one side, for example.
As of October 2024, the run of the Phantom at C-TRAN has officially ended, as the last of those 2003 buses have been retired from service. Over the years, almost 100 Phantoms have passed through C-TRAN’s maintenance bays. They’ve transported passengers through rain, sleet, snow, extreme heat, and everything in between. Seeing them leave is bittersweet but inevitable as we say goodbye to this iconic bus to usher in a new era of efficiency. Almost all of the vehicles in C-TRAN’s current fleet are newer models of Gillig buses.
For what it’s worth, C-TRAN held onto its Phantoms for an exceptionally long time, largely thanks to the agency’s outstanding maintenance team led by Chief Maintenance Officer Tim Shellenberger and Manager of Fleet Maintenance John Orsetti. Shellenberger started as a mechanic in 1996 and has been with the agency for over 26 years. December 2024 will mark 10 years at C-TRAN for Orsetti.
The transit industry standard is for a bus to remain in service for a minimum of 12 years. C-TRAN has a benchmark of 16 years, but that’s often exceeded. Many of our vehicles remain in service more than 20 years before they’re retired, as the 2003 Phantoms did.
“It’s just a testament to the maintenance that we do,” Shellenberger says. “Ever since I’ve been here, we’ve always taken pride.”
“We have an outstanding (preventative maintenance) program, and the mechanics take such good care of the vehicles,” Orsetti says. “Our team cares and is passionate about what we do and how we do it. If you compare our buses to others out there, they’re cleaner, and they’re a lot more maintained. The outstanding program that we have is such a huge thing for us.”
Shellenberger and Orsetti also give credit to operators who drive the buses daily.
“We could do all the maintenance work, and if they didn’t take care or have incentive to treat it like their own vehicle…they could throttle off and on, you know,” Shellenberger says.
“And they’re not afraid to write things up,” Orsetti says. “If something is wrong, they always bring it to our attention. Everything from a major issue like an oil leak to writeups for scratches. They pride themselves on how they look, too, not just how they run.”
While not part of C-TRAN’s regular fleet, one very special Phantom was retired a few years ago but has been retained as a special event bus: Coach 1776. The bus bears a striking star-spangled exterior with an eagle on each side—hand-painted by C-TRAN Coach Technician Mike Felts years ago.
“I just think of what has gone into that bus and what it represents, and it’s just absolutely amazing,” Orsetti says.
“I think it holds a lot of sentimental value,” Shellenberger says. “We were talking about a patriotic bus, so marketing got involved. Mike stepped forward with a piece of paper and said, ‘Hey, what about this?’ He took his piece of paper, taped it to the side of the bus, and he would just start drawing on the side of the bus, and then he started airbrushing it. That’s all free-hand. It’s his design, so I think that’s why it means so much. Before that happened, we had no idea that talent existed, because he was very humble. We had no idea. Now it’s like, what else can he do?”
When buses are retired from C-TRAN’s fleet, they are either scrapped to reduce the number of carbon-polluting vehicles on the road or auctioned via public surplus. The buses that have been auctioned have gone on to some unique second lives beyond the C-TRAN bus yard.
“People do different things with them,” Orsetti says. “I talked to one guy that wanted to convert one of them into a greenhouse. The things people do with them, you never know.”
Retired buses are sold as-is (with C-TRAN logos removed) to anyone who wants to buy them. That may be another transit agency, a nonprofit organization or a private owner. Shellenberger recalls one bus that was sold for $1 to a fire district to become its mobile command center.
“We painted it for them, and they gutted it, put in a generator and beds for first responders, a first aid station, the works,” Shellenberger says. “I think they finally got rid of it, but they used it for a number of years.”
C-TRAN introduced the practice of scrapping old vehicles when it makes sense to do so, or if it’s required following the addition of zero-emission buses to the fleet. In that case, an outside company comes to pick up the bus and salvages any valuable metals from it. C-TRAN then receives payment for the material. That approach produces a win-win: It reduces waste while taking an older, polluting vehicle off the road, and it provides a fiscally responsible solution for C-TRAN.
The sun may be setting on the Gillig Phantom, but the future of C-TRAN’s fleet remains bright. As part of C-TRAN’s Zero Emission Bus Transition Plan, we’ve already added battery-electric buses to the fleet. Hydrogen fuel cell electric buses are next, in addition to a hydrogen fueling station that will be available for other agencies to use. That facility is expected to be complete in 2026. Hydrogen fuel cell buses will follow soon after.
What’s the fate of the final three Phantoms that left the fleet in October?
“There’s a gentleman coming out later today to look at them,” Orsetti said on the day that we spoke with him. Maybe they’ll become a workspace, a party bus, or an art installation. Whatever the buses become, they’ll remain a part of C-TRAN history.
UPDATE (November 12, 2024): All of the final outgoing Gillig Phantoms have been auctioned off and have new homes.
