Hakone Bus Office Company

**Hakone Bus Office Company** (Japanese: 箱根バス事務所株式会社 *Hakone basu jimusho kabushikigaisha*) was a state-owned subsidiary of Hakone Public Transport Management Commission that served Hakone, Kagamisei and the neighbouring towns as well as small- and medium-sized cities from 1923 until 1995. It was Kawagoeland's first government-owned bus service.

## History

The first bus routes began running in Hakone in 1917, but they were all privately owned. State-owned subsidiaries of Hakone Public Transport Management Commission were only focused on trains and trams at that time.

In 1923, in an effort to make Hakone have a better bus service, the Hakone Public Transport Management Commission entered the bus division. One year later, Hakone Bus Office Company began to operate its first bus route, numbered 40, between Kabukuma East and Oshigawa-Matsumine. (Tram routes already took the numbers 1 to 39; until 1909, tram routes in Hakone used different colours as designations rather than numbers.) Two years later, Hakone began operating Kawagoeland's first double-decker bus.

Between 1929 and 1935, new bus routes between 1 and 35 were created; these carried the "A" suffix to distinguish it from tram routes, and were branded as "A-buses".

Hakone's express bus route began operation in 1937.

## Fleet

From the 1930s until the 1960s, Hakone Bus Office Company preferred American manufacturers (such as GM and Twin Coach) or the Swedish manufacturer Scania-Vabis for single-decker buses and British manufacturers (such as Leyland and Thornycroft) for double-decker buses. In the 1970s the company switched to buying buses with German VöV-Standard-Bus design (there were three exceptions: in 1965 when HBOC ordered four Albion Vikings, in 1972 when HBOC ordered Leyland Nationals and in 1988 when HBOC ordered Leyland Olympians, for the latter it became the last British bus to be ordered by HBOC).

### Single-decker buses

#### Twin Coach 41-S

In 1956, Hakone Bus Office Company ordered 320 Twin Coach 41-S buses, numbered 8601 to 8820, to replace older models. Like all other American models operated and owned by the HBOC, they are right-hand drive. It first entered service on the 75 on 31 October 1956.

#### Flxible New Look

This was the last American bus model to be ordered by Hakone Bus Office Company. A total of 384 Flxible New Look buses were delivered to Hakone Bus Office Company in right-hand-drive configuration, all 2.44 metres wide and either 10.1 or 10.7 metres long, between 1963 and 1969. They replaced GM Old Look buses as well as several older models.

The first bus in this series was 5590, delivered on 1 October 1963, and the last one was 5974, delivered on 25 December 1969, as Flxible ceased its bus sales to Kawagoeland.

#### Albion Viking

Kowloon Motor Bus of Hong Kong diverted 10 Albion Vikings from the company's original order to Hakone Bus Office Company in response to Flxible ceasing its bus sales to Kawagoeland. These are numbered 5975 to 5985, continuing the numbering from the last Flxible New Look bus delivered to HBOC (No. 5974).

### Double-decker buses

#### MAN SD200

The MAN SD200 is a double-decker bus that was designed for West Berlin city bus services. It appeared in 1973 as the successor series to the Büssing DE for the BVG.

Hakone Bus Office Company's last new double-decker bus order from a British manufacturer was the quantity of 95 Leyland Atlantean buses between 1965 and 1969. In 1974, given the fact that due to a large demand of orders of British buses from Hong Kong, HBOC decided to explore alternatives to buying British buses. In 1976, HBOC contracted MAN to build a total of 200 SD200 VöV-standard double-decker buses in RHD configuration, with doors on the left side, and numbered between 1966 and 2167, continuing the numbering of the last Leyland Atlantean purchased by the HBOC (No. 1965).

#### Mercedes-Benz O305

The Alexander R-bodied Mercedes-Benz O305 double-decker bus began its delivery in 1984 and was concluded in 1985. While Hakone's O305 double-deckers are identical to Hong Kong's O305 double-deckers owned by Kowloon Motor Bus, Hakone's O305 double-deckers have two coloured lamps to the left of the destination indicator and to the right of the route indicator, a three-track number roll and a letter roll. They were numbered from 3101 to 3226.

Mercedes-Benz O305 double-decker buses of Hakone Bus Office Company outlasted its lifespan of those of Kowloon Motor Bus. While KMB's O305 double-deckers were withdrawn between 2001 and 2002, Hakone Bus Office Company's O305 double-deckers were withdrawn between 2009 and 2010. Number 3161 was the last O305 double-decker to run in the city of Hakone, with its withdrawal date of 10 November 2010.

Hakone Old Buses Association (HOBA), the permanent contractor of bus route 142 of Hakone's bus network, owns number 3149. Additionally, Hakone Old Buses Association also acquired two O305 double-decker buses from Hong Kong and Singapore respectively. SBS7114M, from Singapore Bus Services, was given fleet number 3227 by HOBA (and thus repainted). KMB's ME25 became 3226 by HOBA and was repainted into the same colour scheme used by Hakone's buses.