1935 Kenworth Transit Bus: The Last Of Its Kind

Special thanks to Old Bus member Terry DeFever for providing this interesting article and pictures.

"I took pictures of this cool old bus but had no idea what it was. I decided to take a drive down to the local museum to see if anyone there knew anything about it. They sent me to a much smaller museum right around the corner from where I work. Turns out it’s owned by Washington State Railroads Historical Society. It’s a 1935 Kenworth that was owned by North Coast Lines, bus # 708. Originally seats 12 passengers on the upper deck and 13 on the lower deck. They have an original picture of the bus and I will see about getting a copy of it. The book eludes to the fact that there was a few of these busses, produced here in the Northwest, but it’s the only one left. It may have been manufactured in Everett or Seattle by someone associated with the aircraft industry.

The bus was used on routes between Seattle, Portland, Tacoma, Everett, Bellingham and Vancouver. The Railroad owned a few busses and used them primarily around the train hubs to try and keep Greyhound and other bus lines from taking passengers away from the trains. The bus later found it’s home in Richland, WA and the Tri-City area and transported workers out to the Hanford nuclear facility. It was sold and a man used it as a bunkhouse and sat in a backyard till it was disposed of to a local wrecking yard.

The treasure of the WASRHS museum went to the junk yard when it was announced that they were going to close up in search of old usable hot rod parts and stumbled across the buss. That is how it found it’s way into the ownership of the museum. They have some pictures of it prior to being loaded on the train car.