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RICHLAND -- Riding the bus used to be a twice-a-day fact of life for many Hanford nuclear reservation workers.
"It was bumpy and the seats were small for a large person," said Gary Busselman, a tour guide at the CREHST museum in Richland and a Hanford physicist from 1956-71.
But he's reliving those days with the 1953 Hanford bus that CREHST has running again as part of a moving exhibit. The bus likely traveled 2 million or more miles back and forth between Richland and different areas on the 586-square-mile nuclear reservation until 1979.
Now it's traveling again, thanks to the care of Nick Low, the husband of museum executive director Ellen Low and a retired Formula One race car engineer in Europe.
Most days it's parked in front of the museum, a reminder of the days when thousands of Hanford workers rode maroon and cream colored buses to work areas across the site. But every couple of months the museum has taken it to historical events like Heritage Days at Sacajawea State Park in Pasco to serve as the centerpiece of a display on early Hanford and Richland history.
The GMC bus, with a 453-cubic inch supercharged two-stroke diesel engine, seated 53 and was delivered to Hanford without overhead racks to allow a handrail for standing-room-only days.
Card players tended to grab the same seats every day, Busselman said.
The sign at the front of the bus still says, "Do not block aisles with game tables."
But workers would bring their own tables each day, handcrafted of cardboard or wood to fit over the arm rests and stretch across the aisle between the seats, Nick Low said.
They played pinochle, bridge and poker on the rides back and forth to work. One player found the ride so lucrative that he'd board the bus to play cards on his vacation days, according to Hanford stories.
The bus was free, and if you drove your car, you had to have it searched every time you entered the Hanford gates, Busselman said. The guards eventually began putting a sticker across the opening to car trunks, but that meant you couldn't use the trunk if you wanted to save the time of having it searched, he said.
During the years that he worked at reactors along the Columbia River, he would walk about a block to catch a city bus that would take him to the Hanford bus area on Stevens Drive.
The buses were "adequate," he said. "They were cool in winter and warmish in summer."
That was before cars were air conditioned and workers did not expect it on the bus.
The fleet of 40 buses must have been a sight, between the cigarette smoke coming out the windows, the dust they kicked up and the exhaust they put out, Nick Low said. Every two seats have an ashtray, although the sign still at the front of the bus encourages smokers to take the back seats.
One visitor to the bus asked for it to be started up, then went around to the back for a nostalgic whiff of the diesel.
"She said she used to sit on the curb and smell the diesel when her dad came home," Nick Low said.
CREHST has had the bus since the federal government declared it excess in 1997 and agreed to donate it. But it was stored until Nick Low started work on it this year.
It was repainted in 2002 but needed more care, including having the hydraulic system cleaned up.
CREHST is relying on donations and advertisements in the bus to pay the insurance after initial help from the Tri-City Development Council. Jo Breneman, a Realtor qualified to drive commercial buses, is the volunteer driver.
Soon CREHST may have a second Hanford bus. For Ellen and Nick Low's anniversary, he found another bus that eventually will come to the museum.
"It needs love and attention and a good paint job," he said.
Ellen Low would like to use one as a moving exhibit and have the other outfitted with permanent displays to remain at the museum.
