page_title: Minnesota Transportation Museum
section_title: Classic buses
hierarchical_section_title: Minnesota Transportation Museum / Classic buses
caption_attribution_description: English: The Minnesota Transportation Museum pressed this classic bus back into service as part of the 2004 Hiawatha Light Rail grand opening in Minneapolis.
context_page_description: The Minnesota Transportation Museum is a transportation museum in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States.
  MTM operates several heritage transportation sites in Minnesota and one in Wisconsin. The museum is actively involved in preserving local railroad, bus and streetcar history.
  MTM was formed in 1962 to save a streetcar that had been built and operated by Twin City Rapid Transit in Minneapolis–St. Paul. Many of the museum's early members were formerly part of the Minnesota Railfans Association, which had organized railfan trips from the 1940s to the 1960s.
  In 2004–2005, the organization's streetcar operations became the Minnesota Streetcar Museum, with the steamboat Minnehaha, originally built by TCRT in a style similar to its streetcars, becoming a major attraction of the Museum of Lake Minnetonka.
context_section_description: Several buses from the 1940s and 1950s are also operated by the museum. Most equipment in the bus collection were built by the GMC division of General Motors, and represent vehicles that replaced the streetcars in the Twin Cities in the 1950s. The conversion from a streetcar to bus system required two years. The last trolley run was on Hennepin Avenue on June 18, 1954.
  The collection consists of buses operated in and across Minnesota. Earliest is a 1942 Mack (occasionally used in conjunction with the Commemorative Air Force) which transported war workers to the B-24 final assembly point at what is now St Paul's Holman Field, and a block of 1953/54 GMC transit units, two of which are painted in original Twin Cities Lines colors. The buses are used in regular charter service, and form a very visible part of the museum's collection, often used in wedding and corporate charters, and on the museum's city tours.
  This part of the collection is sponsored by Richfield Bus Company, graciously providing maintenance and licensing to operate them.
  As the museum has acquired much of its bus collection from Metro Transit, the bus company sometimes requests the use of the old buses for special events.
caption: The Minnesota Transportation Museum pressed this classic General Motors bus back into service as part of the Blue Line light rail opening in June 2004.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot S45", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "179", "Image YResolution": "179", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2008:04:26 14:45:28", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "186", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1114", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "15024", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2004:06:26 12:29:10", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2004:06:26 12:29:10", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "223/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "227/32", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1254", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "895", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2272", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1704", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "948", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "56800/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "56800/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}