Return of double-decker tour bus in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. produces mixed results
CBC
A refurbished double-decker bus that hit the streets of Sault Ste. Marie over the summer and autumn months has concluded its first season as a tourist attraction.
Was it a booming success? Not exactly, says the bus manager.
“This season was more of a trial run,” said Jeff DiCorpo, owner and operator of Sault Lock Tours. “We kind of misjudged how much work it was — a little more out of pocket. But we're very proud of it."
The bus, known as “Big Ben,” was launched by DiCorpo and Sault Lock Tours in partnership with Sheila Purvis and the city.
They’re the same team behind the Miss Marie tour boat, which has been taking passengers for rides along the St. Marys River and Soo Locks over the past several summers.
Operating in a “hop on, hop off” fashion, Big Ben took roughly 600 tourists to various locations around the downtown core, including the Bushplane Museum, Bellevue Park, Gateway Casino, Downtown Plaza and Roberta Bondar Pavilion.
There were 13 stops along the route, and the bus came around every hour.
The city used to operate double-decker buses but discontinued the initiative in the mid-1990s.
Tourism advocates recovered the English bus from a local salvage yard two years ago, which had been collecting dust there for nearly four decades.
“There were bears living in it, trees growing through it,” DiCorpo said. “It was one of the original Sault Ste. Marie buses.”
The bus was fixed up with “the best transmission and engine you could purchase,” according to DiCorpo. Sixty new coach-style seats were installed to maximize comfort, while the exterior was branded with photos of Sault landmarks.
It cost $2,000 to purchase the skeleton of the bus from the scrapyard. When the vehicle was ready to take passengers around town, the price tag of the project had risen to upwards of $380,000.
“This is an old English bus that doesn’t have the modern features, so we added those,” DiCorpo said. “To make that operation work was quite a feat and took a lot of mechanics and engineering.”
“It’ll probably take a few more years to pay that off, but we’ll get there.”
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