Sterlings still on the road

Even though Daimler halted Sterling production in 2009 and shuttered the plant for good, there are still zillions of Sterlings on the road (or so it seems).
There is also considerable variety, as I have shown in the past, with former Ford cabs in various configurations, but that is not all:

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1. and 2. When Daimler owned Chrysler, they decided to give the Sterling dealers a small truck, and rebranded the Dodge Ram to do the job. I predict these will become collectors items, since so few of them were built. Maritime Fence has already rebuilt the front of their Sterling/Ram after an accident.

3. Even before shedding Chrysler, Daimler built some Sterling low profile and lighter duty vehicles, including this compact compactor operated by the City of Cleveland,OH. It uses most of the regular Louisville cab components.

4. Jack T. Cooper runs this low-rise Sterling built for autorack service.

Battle of the School Buses continued

As previously posted, the two big school bus makers are Thomas and Bluebird. Thomas has been owned by Daimler for many years, but Blue Bird remains independent. [See June 2 for more]

Blue Bird will build your bus on any chassis you specify, even the competitor's Freightliner. But just to avoid free advertising, I see they now insert their own badge on the grille - nice moooove!

Photos taken Cap-à-l'Aigle, QC, 2010-08-31.

Going Head to Head for the School Bus Market

Yes there is intense competition in the school bus business, and from this photo it might seem it is between Freightliner and International for bus chassis. But you would only be partly correct. The two biggest players in the bus body business are Thomas, of High Point, NC and Blue Bird of Fort Valley, GA.
Both body builders have been around a long time. Thomas was founded in 1916 and has been building buses since 1936. Blue Bird was founded in 1927. For a long time they were independents and bought chassis to suit their customers needs. However all that has changed.
Thomas is now part of (wait for it) Daimler Trucks North America LLC. So no surprise that Thomas uses Freightliner chassis for its type C (conventional) and D (transit style) school buses. Thomas claims that fully one third of the school buses on the road today are Thomas Built. (They are no longer built in Canada, just in the US.)

Blue Bird, no slouches themselves are part of North American Bus Industries. NABI produces Optima and NABI transit buses, and is owned by the Dutch company Traxis Group BV. Blue Bird will build buses on most chassis presumably, but International seems to have the lead by my casual observation. Blue Bird has two factories, both in Georgia, and no longer builds buses in Canada.

So the next time you see a school bus, be aware that there is more going on than meets the eye.

see: http://www.thomasbus.com/

and http://www.nabusind.com/ from there you can find out more about Blue Bird and the other brands.

Daimler and Traxis also have their own web sites.

Wow bus

Trius Tours of Charlottetown have decorated one of their Setras for the University of Prince Edward Island's teams, the Panthers.

The graphics tend to conceal the actual good looks of the Daimler built bus, but the Trius folks have conveniently provided a direct link to Setra on their own website. You can then click through and get all the specs, and see the undecorated version.

http://www.triustours.com/

(photo taken April 4, 2010)