BusTalk

[Dieseljim]

Before Coach USA bought and (later destroyed) Blue Bird Coach Lines of Olean, NY, one odd thing about their fleet not found with other bus lines of its size was that not only did Blue Bird's fleet feature a mix of highway, transit, and school buses, but many of the school buses were so numbered to be mixed in with the highway coach fleet rather than having a seperate set of numbers assigned to the school buses. Blue Bird held a number of contracts with Western New York School districts and upon the purchase of Blue Bird by Coach USA, did they sell off the entire school bus fleet before CUSA bought them out? The former school bus operation of D&F Transit was incorporated into Fisher Bus Service when Niagara Scenic bought them out in the 1980s. How many other motor coach companies also operated school buses on the side besides, Blue Bird. At one time Empire Trailways had Wirth Bus Lines, which operated schoolies as well as hand me down highway coaches. Must have been some interesting, if strange operations.

[roymanning2000]

Jim,

I believe the Blue Bird school bus operation was sold to Laidlaw not long before the rest of the company was acquired by CoachUSA. I agree they had a pretty interesting fleet of buses.

Roy

[Dieseljim]

Their last new coach orders were for Prevost coaches rather than MCI's.They even retained such older MCIs as MC9s or 96A3s for line run work, while concentrating their newer coaches on charters and tours and they had quite a tour program. I went on one of their tours once. Very well done.