How The Midnight Bus Came To Be
One brisk Saturday morning my boyfriend Steve and I made the trek up to the Great American Tiny House Show at The Florida State Fairground in Tampa, FL.
We were working on a few projects with container homes and tiny homes and figured seeing other container homes would give us inspiration for our own projects.
There weren’t really many homes to check out and the lines were really long. We wandered around the show for a few hours and took some videos and shot some pictures. As we were walking out the gate, I noticed a large army green bus parked a few yards away. It’s not really what we were interested in but since we were there we figured we’d check it out before we headed home.
Interior of Courtney and Rom's Bus
Outside the bus stood a middle-aged man who had kind of Grizzly Adams vibe to him. He had a black scruffy beard and hair just below his shoulders with small curls at the ends. On his head sat a tan felt hat with a feather stuck on the side. Standing next to him was his girlfriend, Courtney. She was thin with long brown straight hair, a flowing dress and a wide-brimmed black felt hat. Courtney looked like a young Stevie Nicks.
We walked up and introduced ourselves and they welcomed us into their bus. As I walked up the stairs of the bus and through the jungle of plants placed by the doorway, I noticed the beautiful live edge counters in the kitchen. To the right was an old pot belly wood stove sitting on brightly colored Mexican tile. The couch was a mustard color with a Mexican blanket draped over the back and a small mandolin propped up in the corner. The bus was amazing!
Right then a lightbulb went off! I switched from wanting to do a container or tiny home AirBnB to wanting to do a school bus AirBnB or as the people who live in school buses affectionately call them, “Skoolies”.
The original craigslist ad
We started chatting with Rom and Courtney about their life on the road living in the bus, Rom and Courtney’s experience with building prior buses (he’s built 39), and how we might work together.
As we parted ways, we told them we’d be in touch with them soon.
The entire drive home all I could think about was how incredible their bus looked.
I wanted to do an AirBnB out of a bus. I looked for what seemed days and days on every platform I could find-Facebook marketplace, auto trader, private websites…
I was starting to get frustrated and was feeling like I’d never find something that was somewhat close by and reasonably priced. I hadn’t really been on Craigslist in years but I decided to check that site out as a last resort. It’s kind of like the MySpace of ads.
Bingo! I spotted a double-decker Bristol Lodekka 1955 bus from Scotland.
It looked like it needed a LOT of work, was priced pretty high at $10k, and had been listed for over a month. There were two blurry photos of it. One of the inside and one of the outside. The inside photo showed three steps and plywood boards on the floor. The outside shot showed just the rear exterior of the bus with what appeared to be just grey primer and it looked like rust stains were dripping down the back. I felt like the rust stains were the bus crying to be brought back to its former glory. I could see so much potential for this bus!
I called the number in the ad and on the other end, a gentleman picked up with a strong southern drawl. I explained that I was calling about the bus in the Craigslist ad and I asked him if he still had it. “Yes mam, I do”, said the man on the other end of the line. My heart jumped with excitement
He began to tell me that he bought the bus from a guy living in Royston, Ga. Scott, the man on the phone, said that when he bought it he had great plans for it but has since gotten too busy with his custom woodworking to do anything with it. He left the bus at the farm of the person he bought it from and it’s just been sitting.
He told me to give Jim a call in Royston because the bus was still on his farm and he knew more about it. Excited to learn more about my new treasure I hung up and called Jim.
It was about 8:30 in the evening so I wasn’t sure it was appropriate to call but wouldn’t be able to sleep if I didn’t get the scoop on the bus. I called Jim and he answered. He was a nice older gentleman who’s a Presbyterian minister and has his own sawmill. Jim told me that he and his wife June bought it a few years ago.
I told Jim that I’d like to buy it and turn it into an AirBnB. He thought that was a cool idea.
There were a few obstacles though- it had been sitting for years and hadn’t been moved. The motor would probably need work, the tires might be dry rotted and there was a window that he accidentally busted out when a rock flew up and broke it while he was weed eating. The other issue is that I was trying to move this oversized bucket of rust almost three hours away and up and down steep mountain roads. He wasn’t so sure how well the brakes were after sitting for so long.
He said to me that there are two options. One is to tow the bus but because of the height, it might not fit under the bridges going down the highway. The other option was to drive it—if I could get it running
I asked Jim about the history of the bus. He told me that the bus is a Double decker Bristol Lodekka with a Gardner 6 cylinder engine and it was built in March of 1955. The bus was used as public transport between Lockerbie and Aberdeen, Scotland until Aug 1975. Then a few years later Walt Disney bought it and had it shipped over to their KOA campground in Orlando, FL. They shuttled people from the campground to Walt Disney World in it.
From 1999-Feb 2002 it was loaned to the Mighty Eight Air Force Museum in Pooler, GA, until they changed the theme of the museum and at that time the original owner got it back.
In May of 2002 it was sold to Jim and June Lugo. They were going to use it for a rolling Christian book store but they ended up using another bus So it just sat in an old barn for years until Scott, the current owner, came to purchase something from Jim and “just had to have the old bus because it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen”.
Jim told me that an Englishman named Brian Coney who lives outside of London came to evaluate it. Apparently they keep logs of all the old buses and their status.
Here are a few links to the records they’ve been keeping. They even show a few pics of the bus in her better days-
http://bcv.robsly.com/wsmtlod.html
After hanging up With Jim, I text Rom and Courtney to tell them about my find. Rom text me back and said he and Courtney were at a festival and wouldn’t be finished up until after 7pm. I asked them to call when they were done.
When Rom called, we strategized on what would be the best way to transport the bus. We both agreed that getting it running would be the best option.
For the next several days Rom called around to different mechanic shops to try to find someone to take a look at the bus. He wasn’t having any luck. Either they didn’t answer their phone, they didn’t know about the motor or they weren’t comfortable working on an old bus.
After a few days, I decided to take a crack at finding someone. I typed in Google “diesel mobile mechanic Royston GA” and came up with Michael from SS Mobile Repair. He said he was up for the challenge and would get out there first thing in the morning.
Well, Michael made the nearly four-hour round trip drive out to the bus. He FaceTimed me when he was there and said I was crazy for even attempting to move the bus. He said it’s going to take a ton of money to get up and running and that’s not counting the cost to refurbish it. He said he couldn’t help me fix it.
Jim’s Farm Shed
Back to the drawing board.
My problem is that I’m a woman calling around trying to find a mechanic. I feel like the town has kind of a good ole boy network and I’m not part of it. Both Jim and Scott said they’d help me find someone. Let’s see what tomorrow brings. On a good note, Scott agreed to sell me the bus for $4500 instead of $10k. The downside is that I live almost 9 hours away from where the bus is, I haven’t seen it, the bus is still listed on Craigslist, Scott doesn’t take online payments and I want to get the bus tied up before someone else buys it.
Today I called 59 tow places and 47 diesel mechanics, all over Georgia and South Carolina. Nobody wants to tackle this job. I’m feeling pretty defeated. I’m not sure where to go from here. Maybe I’m not meant to buy the bus.
This evening I was on a Facebook page for buying and selling trains. Someone posted a train and hundreds of people chimed in wanting to buy it. Hmmmm...I wonder if I could find pages for diesel mechanics or towing companies and post my bus job there? I found about ten different mechanic and tow groups on Facebook.
The words flashed across my screen as I furiously typed, “Looking for a diesel mechanic or a tow company in or around Royston Ga who can tow or work on a double-decker bus with a Gardner 6 cylinder engine in it”.
Ding! Ding! The comments began to pop up. Jerry Cox commented-“you can PM me. We’re a heavy haul company here in GA.”
Jason Reed comments, “Rider Towing, they tow mega buses all over the country.”
Tony Addison chimes in, “you’ll need a lowboy to tow it because the height is already 13’ 5.”
Taylor Sipsy posts, “Call Marietta Wrecker service. They transported a large Nascar drivers tour bus for us a few years ago. Something that old like you have will definitely need to be put on a trailer. They have bus trailers that not many companies have.”
Lost in Peoria says, “Mary Shannon Moore, Hope you have lots of money budgeted for this project! That’s about as basic as possible in a diesel. Dump oil before even trying. Fresh oil and filters, after making sure it’s not locked up by hand. Then fresh fuel source, and leave engine stop in off position. Make sure you have an e-stop flap over intake or some way to kill the engine if it decides to try to run away... And crank till you see oil pressure. Then you can think about trying to start it. Were you drunk when you bought this? Hehe. Jk You may want to look to the military 6x6 pages or see if you have any friends with military trucks... Many of them have hd tow bars made for those trucks, so a little fabrication and it could be safely towed with a m1088.”
The guy I’m buying the bus off of won the lottery and agreed to sell me the bus for $2000. I wrote him a check right away. Seems weird writing a check out for $2000 to a guy you met on Craigslist and have never met in person. I feel like if I’ve written the check then it’s a done deal, the bus is mine.
I’ve figured out the transport, I’m going to hire AJC Heavy Hauling. I checked out their Facebook page and they have lots of pictures of them hauling big military trucks, heavy machinery and cars. I got a copy of their insurance and they quoted me a decent price to transport the bus from Royston GA to Mars Hill, NC. They started their price out wayyyy higher but since they have an incoming pickup, they agreed on a very reasonable cut-rate. I just need to be able to get the bus on and off the lowboy trailer. It’s been raining in Royston GA for over a week now. The mechanic won’t go out to look at the bus until it stops raining. That’s the last piece of the puzzle that I need, I think
My dad passed away this Sat, on Valentine’s Day. It’s really difficult but he always loved my entrepreneurial spirit. I know he’s somewhere smiling down on me loving my new project. I emailed him most of the above story to read but he got sick a few weeks ago and never got a chance to read it. He was a newspaper reporter for almost 60 years. The paper even wrote a story about him today.
Back to the bus, it’s still raining in GA. I’m still trying to get Richard at Bowmans Mechanic to go look at it. I’ll keep you updated
Jim’s Farm
It’s now been a week or so since I’ve updated you. It finally stopped raining in Georgia. I have a tow truck driver with a wench standing by in Georgia to get the bus up on the lowboy that I hired to pick it up on Jim’s farm. And I have another tow truck driver on the other end in North Carolina to pull it off the low boy once we stop. This Saturday Amy over at AJC Heavy Hauling said that she’s going to send one of her drivers out to check the height of the bus. I was told it’s 13’ 6”. If it an inch taller it’s going to be thousands more to move because they’ll need permits, lead cars, oversized loads and the whole nine yards. Michael, who has several similar buses, assured me it’s not above that height and he’s moved several of the same type of bus.
My boyfriend and I are going to drive to Georgia on Sunday in hopes that we’ll be all set for a Monday morning transport
It’s 11pm in the evening and AJC Heavy Hauling called and said their driver thought it would be unsafe to transport the bus via a lowboy or tow it. This company transports for the military and moves huge items and they can’t move an aluminum bus? I have my AirBnB booked as well as the wrecker services to haul the bus on and off the lowboy.
I’ve called nearly every heavy haul company within a 300-mile radius of Royston, GA. It’s on the Nationwide load board for all the truckers in the US to bid on. No takers to move it.
Just logged onto my Google account and ROM and Courtney are on the front page of the Boston Globe. Gosh I hope they stick with us on our project
Today Steve, Sir Charles von Doodle, and I loaded the car up and headed up to Royston GA to see the bus. It’s a 10 hours drive.
On the way up we decided to try to call to see if we could make an appointment to see it. We’ve called Jim several times and he hasn’t answered. He’s a Presbyterian minister and it’s Sunday, so I’m not sure we’ll get ahold of him. We’re about 2 hours away and he finally answered. He said we could stop over and see it!
We’re a few blocks away and our navigation is taking us through a graveyard and right by Ty Cobbs gravesite. Steve said he’s a famous baseball player.
As we headed past the graveyard and down a long winding county road dotted with farms, we came to a dead end.
Snapshots of the farm
Over to the right there sat an elderly man, with silver hair, in the front yard perched on an electric scooter. The property is littered with all kinds of interesting artifacts. Farm equipment, a small hand-built wooden general store that Jim made for an office. On the outside of the general store sat an old rusted gas pump just in front of the small wooden porch of the general store. The exterior walls were adorned with steel, antique sales signs that read Dr. Pepper, Coca Cola and Hudson Forest Equipment
It had been raining for weeks so the red clay path leading up to where the bus sat was squishy and muddy.
Over in the distance, high up on a hill sat the towering, old and tired bus. It was grey primer color, the paint was peeling off and it was several different colors. On the side of the bus, you could see the very faint lettering “KOA” from her time as a shuttle bus from the KOA campground to the Disney resort in Orlando.
I walked around the bus to the driver’s side, stuck my hand in the small circle, and turned the lever. The door swung open. Inside was a brown leather chair and a large black steering wheel. There were gauges and levers everywhere and a long black pole-like shifter. It didn’t look like it was in very good shape. There was a lot of rust and dirt. I guess that’s to be expected since it was sitting on a farm in an open area barn for nearly 20 years.
Jim opened the doors in the back. I peered in. The first step heading up to the top was completely rotted out and caved in. There was plywood on the ground as a makeshift floor. I grabbed the rail on the side and hoisted myself up to the second step in the bus. As I ventured up the stairs I noticed a broken window and glass everywhere. There was a box with the old headlights toward the front of the bus. Part of the drop ceiling had fallen on the ground.
On the bottom level sat the front grill of the bus and trash was strewn about the floor. On the wall was a small tarnished brass placard inscribed with the words Bristol Eastern Coach Works Lodekka. The plaque also has the body number and several patent numbers.
While walking around the bus I called my friend Michael the Englishman who I met on a train forum on Facebook. He owns several of the same kind of buses as well as several trains. He’s been helping me with many things in the background. We both loved the authenticity of this bus. It still has the old glass interior running lights along the ceiling, the mirrors, and the original front grill with a stamped ID number. Michael said that most of his buses were missing the grills and I was lucky to find a bus that has most of the original parts. He thought that $2000 for a bus like this was a heck of a price.
interior of the bus in its original state
I feel like I know the entire town of Royston. I had called nearly every mechanic shop in and out of town and word started to get around. I had random people in town calling me asking if I had been able to move the bus yet. The lady the runs the local hair shop, the waitress down the road, every trucker and towing service, all the tire shops, and mechanics wanted to know how it was going with the old double-decker bus down on Jim’s farm.
It was also up on the “load board”, a National board that was designed for posting jobs for truckers. They would see jobs posted and pick them up as they needed work. All the truckers were talking about “that bus on the farm in Royston” but nobody wanted to move it 111 miles north to Mars Hill, NC
On the way up to North Carolina from seeing the bus in Royston GA my boyfriend Steve and I started cold calling heavy hauling companies. I called around fifty. Steve picked out one and called them. Myles Trucking out of Lawrenceville, GA.
“I’m looking for someone I transport a bus about 100 miles,” Steve said. Barbara, the woman on the other end of the line said, “Great, we’ve got you covered! That’s what we do.” They spoke for a few minutes on the specifics about the bus and he hung up and said, “Well, I’ve got our girl...Barbara. She’s going to move it for us.” I just smiled and rolled my eyes. After the last few months of broken promises, I didn’t have high hopes.
Steve and I stayed in an Air BnB in Asheville, NC in anticipation of moving the bus in a few days. A week went by without much progress. We thought we were going to tow it but soon realized that was much more difficult than we thought.
The tires on the bus are not your average tire. The nickname for the tires is “widowmakers”. Apparently, they are known to explode when you change them and decapitate people. Needless to say, finding someone who was willing to change the tires was next to impossible. I did locate one person near Royston GA, Hayes, the owner of Hayes tires. He said “When I took over my daddy’s shop I promised him I’d never change a widow maker. I’ve had good friends lose their life changing them things. I do have one guy in my shop who will mess with them though.”
photos of the bus on Jim Lugo’s farm
Next was locating the tires. We couldn’t find any because they’re illegal now and they don’t manufacture them anymore. The other issue was cost. It would be roughly $3,000 to replace all of them and there was a chance they’d break the wheels getting the tires off. I did find one wrecker service to haul to bus over to Hayes to get the tires changed. He came out to look at it, walked around the bus and said he wasn’t interested in moving it the five miles down the road to Hayes Tires. Back to the drawing board.
Meanwhile, Steve flew back by himself because he had some business meetings in Florida. I stayed behind with the dog and our stuff to figure out the bus. And Courtney and Rom, who we hired to rehab the bus, were stuck in limbo waiting for the bus to arrive.
I continued talking with Barbara and her manager Austin over at Myles Trucking. We didn’t feel we could haul the bus without the tires falling apart so now our only way to haul it was by lowboy.
Barbara said her company is the best in the business and she assured me if they take a job, they’ll get it done. Well, this bus had been rejected by nearly every trucker out there. She also informed me that if they’re going to transport the bus via lowboy, they’d have to pull over height permits. That’s not cheap and it’s not quick. I told her to go ahead and pull them. I just wanted this done.
She got the permit for GA and South Carolina quickly but the days clicked on waiting for the permit for North Carolina. I decided not to rack up more charges for the AirBnB. I packed up the dog and my stuff and pulled an all nighter-I left North Carolina at 7 pm and pulled into Florida at 5 am the next morning, exhausted and defeated
For the next week or so I kept in touch with Barbara. She finally got all the permits in. The next step was to hire a pilot car to follow the bus from the North Carolina border up to its final resting place in Mars Hill, NC.
She told me she had it scheduled for 6:30 am on March 18th. The day after St Patrick’s Day.
I called the farm owner Jim for the next few days to let him know about the impending pick-up. No answer. I hoped he didn’t come running down the hill with a shotgun, not recognizing or expecting anyone on his farm.
The night before I could barely sleep. I rolled over and grabbed my phone at about 6 am. There was a text from Barbara an hour prior, “we need the address”. I grabbed my phone and promptly text it to her. I called her and she didn’t answer.
Chris with the Bus
I woke Steve up. He called the main number for Myles Trucking. A young guy answered the phone, “Hey this is Chris!” said an enthusiastic guy on the other end of the line. “I’m going to be transporting your bus to North Carolina today”, he exclaimed. He sounded very, very young and like he drunk a bunch of coffee. He was very excited about it.
After having truckers come out to the farm who had 50 years of experience, we weren’t so sure this young fellow would be able to pull it off. We chatted for a few minutes and then hung up with him.
About ten minutes later, he called back and said there were torrential rains, tornado warnings, and the bus was stuck several feet in the mud. “Here we go again,” I thought, but Chris said he wasn’t going to give up and wasn’t going to leave without the bus. He suggested we get a tow truck to tow it out of the mud and down the hill. So we did.
Transporting The Bus
I waited with anticipation for over an hour.
Finally, my phone rang. It was farmer Jim. “Hello”, I answered. On the other end of the line, and excited Jim says, “I wanted to be the first to congratulate you. After months of hard work, you’ve finally done it. They have the bus on them lowboy.” Man, was I happy to hear those words. Jim said, “I want to tell you a story. My brother-in-law passed away from Covid recently. He was a “can do” kind of guy, just like this guy Chris you hired today and like yourself. At my brother-in-law, Kenny Harrison’s funeral, they gave out pens inscribed with this saying-Some can, some can’t, some will, some won’t-I can, I will. I gave one of those pens to Chris. He is a “can do” kind of guy.” I thanked farmer Jim and right then Chris was calling on the other line
Chris was so excited. People were posting all over Facebook about the bus, truckers were radioing on the CB high fiving Chris for loading the “impossible bus” up and my texts and phone were lighting up like a Christmas tree. Everyone south of the Mason Dixon line knew about the bus.
Meanwhile, Chris friended me on Facebook and I found out that “Chris” was only 26 years old! Truckers twice his age couldn’t figure out how to load this bus, but somehow Chris got it moved and made it seem so effortless
He met the pilot car at the border of NC and continued up the winding roads to the destination at the ski resort
To be continued...