Toulouse: the restoration of the 1962 bus is making great strides
The association for the preservation of the heritage of urban and inter-urban transport in Toulouse has been working for a year on the restoration of a 1962 bus.
“We undressed the whole bus,” confides, delighted, Jérôme Bonato, president of the Association for the preservation of the heritage of urban and interurban transport in Toulouse (ASPTUIT). March 2021, this Since Tisséo bus driver and many other volunteers are working hard to restore a so-called Chausson bus that was driving in Toulouse in the 1960s and 1970s. A project supported by the Heritage Foundation. Housed in the hangars of the Toulouse transport authority, this bus has been stripped from floor to ceiling to be able to undergo major work. “We removed the engine, the gearbox, the exhaust line… It is rusty in several places, damaged by time, to prepare it we had to go through there”, says, with passion, the president of the ‘ASPTUIT.
All these mechanical operations will make it possible to review each part in order to put them back into service. Moreover, at the end of 2021, a company located in Alès, restored the gas tank of the bus. “We are content, the site is progressing. We are waiting for a return from the Albi company on the amount of the estimate to repair the rusted areas and apply protective paint, we should get it in September”, notes Jérôme Bonato again.
Once this vast project “to cure the bus of the cancer that is rust”, if the Albigensian society accepts, the 1962 bus will return to the Toulouse premises “for a total repair”. The volunteers of this association of enthusiasts hope that by the beginning of 2023 the vehicle will return. Then, “it will be necessary to tackle the repair of the electrical harness, the reinstallation of the parts then the refitting of the bus to the identical”. The end of this ambitious project is expected in 2025.