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Former School Bus M8
Senior Member
143 Posts |
 Posted - 09/01/2011 : 9:59:23 PM
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About 12 years ago Bluebird was the dominant bus manufacter to providers in this area. Over the years that changed and many contractors were buying Ic's and Thomas's, IC being the dominat provider around hear. In the past two years I've seen contractors shy away from Ic go with Thomas's thus making thomas the main bus provider, making ic coming in 2nd and bluebird still last(although they have gained back some territory.
Has anyone noticed more people going with Thomas and abandoning the other to manufacterer's? I'm not at all a fan of the c2 just for the record but always loved the fs65. |
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Jake
Top Member
USA
3527 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2011 : 03:36:41 AM
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| With all the new hybrid C2e's being poured into KY, I've seen a lot more districts starting to order C2s along with HDX's. Our fleet is generally an IC dominant fleet. This year, though, with the 16 hybrid C2s, we ordered at least 30 additional C2s (both regular ed and special ed). Although IC offers a hybrid bus, Thomas seems to be the more favorable. Our district also ordered some IC hybrids (the same time they ordered the C2e's) and I still don't think that they have arrived. Our C2e's arrived back in April. |
Yellow & Black
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Come join the discussion! |
Edited by - Jake on 09/02/2011 03:40:17 AM |
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kentuckynascar1
Advanced Member
USA
489 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2011 : 6:57:25 PM
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| Fayette Co. had to switch to Thomas because IC no longer has FE and even on th handicapped buses, they ordered C2s. |
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Jake
Top Member
USA
3527 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 04:31:19 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by kentuckynascar1
Fayette Co. had to switch to Thomas because IC no longer has FE and even on th handicapped buses, they ordered C2s.
So their new transits are EF's?  That's cool. I haven't seen any new EF's with KY specs yet. |
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C.HARDY
Advanced Member
354 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 08:45:49 AM
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| Yeah C-2s seem to be the new standard around here also. Now that Va. has allowed 78 passenger conventional there arent as many Transits on order either. Our area around here has long been International country with all different bodies but now its C2. |
"Hardybusman" |
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78fordwayne
Top Member
USA
2868 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 11:31:33 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Former School Bus M8
Has anyone noticed more people going with Thomas and abandoning the other to manufacterer's?
Nope |
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WayneCustom
Active Member
30 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 4:53:32 PM
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I would say in my area, the balance of Blue Bird/IC/Thomas has stayed roughly equal, even with the change to the Thomas C2.
However, what seems to have fallen out of favor in my area is Type D transit buses, except for one district in my area which has specified nothing but Type D Amtran/International/IC for its large buses for the last decade and a half. Our state's Thomas distributor has been pushing the heck out of the C2, and our Blue Bird distributor has been steering buyers away from the rather unattractive new All-American and has been sending most districts Visions. The new large buses from Starcraft and Lion have not, and probably will not, make an appearance in my state this year.
A lot of the operators of small buses are starting to embrace Trans Tech and Starcraft products. |
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BBInt.10
Top Member
USA
1042 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 8:20:00 PM
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| My company used to be all IC for transits and conventionals, but in 2009 we started buying Visions for conventionals. We still use IC for transits. We've been getting the Visions with the Cummins under the hood, and they have proven much more reliable than the IC's that we've been slowly phasing out of our fleet. I've now been driving my Vision for two complete school years, and although I much prefer the body design/ driver's area on the IC's, I'll admit that my Vision has been a MUCH more reliable bus than my '05 IC was. Not one running problem in two years. Just a couple electrical problems in the body but nothing major... a wire broke over the door once and made it so it wouldn't open, and my door switch went bad once. But that's it for problems over 2 years. Not bad! |
If all your problems are behind you... you must be a school bus driver. |
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overbyja
Senior Member
USA
123 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2011 : 9:09:01 PM
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| The company I work for has been all Blue Bird since the start. The only non Blue Bird buses we have got through acquisitions of district buses and contractor liquidations. Last week 5 brand new Thomas C2 Hybrids showed up at the terminal. Don't know what's up with that unless the owners are just trying to jump on the hybrid bandwagon or something. Does Blue Bird even offer a hybrid for full size buses? |
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TylerB
Active Member
19 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2011 : 11:53:07 PM
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| all they got is propane and cng... |
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BmoreDriver
Active Member
USA
10 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2011 : 4:31:31 PM
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There are still a pretty fair number of Blue Birds in Baltimore City. Baltimore County has moved away from ICs to Thomas C2s, and a lot of the other counties use IC FEs or Thomas HDXs.
I work for a limo company that uses C2s for our bus transportation. We used to have a few HDXs, but we had WAY too many problems with them. Has anyone else known of problems with the HDX model? I don't know if it was just a bad year, because I loved the driver's area and visibility, but ours seemed to get more miles driving to and from the mechanic than it did transporting passengers. |
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Anyone Noticing Bus Co.'s Changing Bus Models
