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burnt_orange
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07 Dec 2017, 11:39 am

My 7 year old son is super into school buses. That is his main and sometimes only obsession. He is very interested in the different makers (bluebird, thomas, etc.) and the different styles and characteristics as well as the interiors and the bus drivers. I am looking for a website or book that would be interesting to him, but I'm coming up short. The only merchandise I can really find is keychains and things for toddlers, preschool books, etc. I thought maybe you guys could help me find something since I know transportation is big to many autists. Thanks!!


Also, as a side note, I think it would be great, and I think there is a market for it, for someone to write and publish books for autistic people that have these really specialized interests. It would be a way to share information and a love of your interests.



kraftiekortie
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07 Dec 2017, 11:54 am

Yep...that would great!

If you're into subway maps, there's lots of them on the Internet.

I happen to be into the history of NYC Subway maps.



EzraS
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07 Dec 2017, 12:32 pm

burnt_orange wrote:
My 7 year old son is super into school buses. That is his main and sometimes only obsession. He is very interested in the different makers (bluebird, thomas, etc.) and the different styles and characteristics as well as the interiors and the bus drivers. I am looking for a website or book that would be interesting to him, but I'm coming up short. The only merchandise I can really find is keychains and things for toddlers, preschool books, etc. I thought maybe you guys could help me find something since I know transportation is big to many autists. Thanks!!


Also, as a side note, I think it would be great, and I think there is a market for it, for someone to write and publish books for autistic people that have these really specialized interests. It would be a way to share information and a love of your interests.


That made me laugh because I remember a kid in school who was like that about buses. Then he got into trains too. He was a lot of fun to be around. Maybe if you wrote to those bus companies they might have some ideas. I think that kid got part if a bus somewhere. A chrome piece that had the bus company logo. Ebay might have stuff like that.



Dear_one
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07 Dec 2017, 1:29 pm

EzraS wrote:

That made me laugh because I remember a kid in school who was like that about buses. Then he got into trains too. He was a lot of fun to be around. Maybe if you wrote to those bus companies they might have some ideas. I think that kid got part if a bus somewhere. A chrome piece that had the bus company logo. Ebay might have stuff like that.


Retired school busses often become farm buildings or homes. It should be pretty easy to scrounge used parts, maybe even a whole driver's station.



kokopelli
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07 Dec 2017, 1:47 pm

Churches will buy old school buses for transporting groups to and from church and other places.

Much of the time they have to repaint the bus. I remember one article from several years ago about a church bus carrying their teenagers to a camp or something in another state had to park the bus and transport them by another way because the church hadn't repainted the bus. Consequently the state they were in would not allow the bus to transport anyone while painted the bright yellow of school buses. I think they allowed them to drive the bus without passengers only as far as to a nearby shop that would paint it for them, but I'm not positive about that.

There's a church in a nearby town to me that does have a school bus that has not been painted. When I saw it a couple of months ago I was rather puzzled. Interestingly enough, the school bus had a wheel chair lift on the back. When I walked by it, they were giving some kid a ride up and down on the lift. I looked in the bus and there was a nice big reclining chair opposite the chair lift. It turns out that reclining chair is for the pastor of that church to sit in.



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08 Dec 2017, 6:15 pm

A book on school buses would be a good thing to look for. I also think there might be specific sites that sell scaled down die-cast school buses that he can play with. There's also Google Images which is free.

I'm also into buses of a different colour. I'm into those special double decker buses called Routemasters. I like the original ACE ones that were first driven in the 50s and 60s.


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renaeden
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08 Dec 2017, 10:16 pm

^Oh you're still into Routemasters, CockneyRebel? That's good to know, I remember when I first joined here you loved those.

When I was 14 I used to love to categorise the buses where I lived. There was one bus, a Scania, that was the only one of its kind. I liked riding on that.

I wish there were books for subjects like this. I've seen kids books about planes.



EclecticWarrior
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10 Dec 2017, 9:15 pm

CockneyRebel wrote:
A book on school buses would be a good thing to look for. I also think there might be specific sites that sell scaled down die-cast school buses that he can play with. There's also Google Images which is free.

I'm also into buses of a different colour. I'm into those special double decker buses called Routemasters. I like the original ACE ones that were first driven in the 50s and 60s.


I like Routemasters too. The newer London buses have a very sleek yet retro-influenced exterior very reminiscent of the Routemaster.

Here in the UK, school buses tend to be minibuses and they're used primarily in SEN settings to transport pupils to special schools/units which can be miles away. I've never seen an American-style school bus being used.


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