Amended Glacier Park contract preserves buses

The National Park Service amended its Glacier National Park concessions contract last week to preserve the Red Bus fleet. It also extended the deadline for proposals until April 2.

The contract calls for the concessioner to create a Red Bus rehabilitation reserve fund equal to 2.5 percent of annual gross receipts and to properly care for the buses for over the course of the 16-year concessions contract.

“The concessioner will rehabilitate the Red Bus fleet over the contract term to maintain the Red Buses in roadworthy and safe condition for conducting road-based tours,” the revised contract states. “To the greatest extent possible, the concessioner must ensure a fleet of 33 Red Buses.”

That’s an about-face from the previous contract released in December. That version only required 15 of the buses to be rehabilitated over the contract term at a cost of just over $4 million. NPS encouraged the concessioner to rehab the remaining 18 buses but didn’t require it.

Instead, NPS wanted the remaining 18 buses replaced with an open-top alternative-fuel bus, and the replacement buses would have been owned by the concessioner. The 33 Red Buses currently operating in the Park are owned by NPS.

That contract language triggered strenuous protests from the Glacier Park Foundation, which wrote a flurry of letters to NPS, newspapers and Montana’s congressional delegation. NPS relented a few days later and agreed to change the contract. The nonprofit Foundation is made up of former Glacier Park Inc. employees, many former Red Bus drivers.

Rehabilitation required under the new contract includes, but is not limited to, new power trains, braking systems and other repairs. In the event a Red Bus is beyond repair, it can be replaced by a bus in the same spirit of the Red Buses with an open top design. The replacement bus would remain the property of the concessioner. The contract revision strikes references to 18 new replacement buses.

“We believe the modifications to the prospectus clearly define our intent to maintain the iconic Red Bus fleet at Glacier National Park,” interim Park superintendent Kym Hall said. “We want visitors to have the opportunity to enjoy the traditional experience of the Red Buses for years to come.”

Red Bus enthusiasts were happy with the changes.

“Seldom does one have the opportunity to heap praise on any part of the government or, for that matter, see it actually fix a problem,” wrote Bruce Austin, who founded the Jammer Trust, a vintage bus preservation group based in Nye. “The National Park Service was that happy exception.”