The Great Bus Heist (or, Rather, Joyride): Hamilton's Unlikeliest Early Morning Adventure

Imagine, if you will, the quiet hum of early morning in Hamilton, the city just beginning to stir. Then, picture a very large vehicle – a city bus, no less – quietly slipping away from its home, not on a scheduled route, but on a decidedly unscheduled, dare we say, escapade. And so it was, that one crisp November morning in 2025, a Hamilton Street Railway (HSR) bus became the star of a rather improbable caper.

It all began, authorities tell us, sometime around 4:30 a.m. A Hamilton man, 36 years of age, allegedly made his way into the HSR storage facility on Wentworth Street North. Who does that, honestly? Who, when presented with a choice of vehicles, thinks, 'Ah yes, a full-sized public transit bus – that's the one'? It’s a question that, in truth, remains delightfully unanswered, for now anyway.

But a bus, indeed, was taken. And it wasn't long before the city's finest, Hamilton Police, were alerted. Now, thankfully, these aren't the days of frantic, blind searches. Modern buses, you see, come equipped with a little something called GPS. So, while the bus may have been on a tour of its own making, it wasn't exactly flying under the radar. Police could track its meandering path through the city streets, a digital breadcrumb trail leading them right to it.

The pursuit, if you can even call it that – it was more of a precise, technologically-guided follow – came to its rather uneventful conclusion around 5:15 a.m. near the intersection of King Street West and Locke Street North. The stolen HSR vehicle was brought to a stop, without incident, without drama, and crucially, without any injuries to anyone involved. Nor, it seems, was the bus itself worse for wear; no damage reported, which is certainly a silver lining for the city.

The 36-year-old man, whose name has not been released, was promptly arrested. He now faces a rather serious roster of charges: theft over $5,000, dangerous operation of a conveyance – that's the legal term for operating a vehicle, in this case a bus, in a dangerous manner – and, adding another layer, two counts of breach of probation. It brings a curious end, doesn't it, to what must have been one of Hamilton’s most peculiar early morning joyrides. Just another day, you might say, in the life of a city where the unexpected can, and sometimes does, take the wheel.