Wayne Corporation - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Wayne Corporation was a large manufacturer of bus

Bus

A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...

es and other vehicles branded with the trade name

Trade name

A trade name, also known as a trading name or a business name, is the name which a business trades under for commercial purposes, although its registered, legal name, used for contracts and other formal situations, may be another....

"Wayne." The corporate headquarters were in Richmond, Indiana

Richmond, Indiana

Richmond is a city largely within Wayne Township, Wayne County, in east central Indiana, United States, which borders Ohio. The city also includes the Richmond Municipal Airport, which is in Boston Township and separated from the rest of the city...

, in Wayne County, Indiana

Wayne County, Indiana

Wayne County is a county located in the U.S. state of Indiana. As of the 2010 census, the population was 68,917. The county seat is Richmond.-History:...

, in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Wayne became a leading producer of school bus

School bus

A school bus is a type of bus designed and manufactured for student transport: carrying children and teenagers to and from school and school events...

es in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

.

Among innovations Wayne introduced were the first school bus application of the now popular cutaway van chassis

Cutaway van chassis

Cutaway van chassis are used by second stage manufacturers for a wide range of completed motor vehicles. Especially popular in the United States, they are usually based upon incomplete vans made by manufacturers such as Chrysler Corporation, Ford Motor Company, and General Motors which are...

and the first large school bus bodies featuring continuous longitudinal panels to reduce joints and improve structural integrity a number of years before FMVSS standards were required for all US school buses. After 1980, Wayne faced difficulty competing in a market with overcapacity. Declaring bankruptcy, the company discontinued operations in 1992 and the assets were liquidated.

Overview

Wayne is a name in school transportation that predates the familiar yellow school bus

School bus

A school bus is a type of bus designed and manufactured for student transport: carrying children and teenagers to and from school and school events...

seen all over the USA and Canada. Beginning in the 19th century, craftsmen in Richmond, Indiana

Richmond, Indiana

at Wayne Works and its successors built horse-drawn vehicle

Horse-drawn vehicle

A horse-drawn vehicle is a mechanized piece of equipment pulled by one horse or by a team of horses. These vehicles typically had two or four wheels and were used to carry passengers and/or a load...

s, including kid hack

Kid hack

A kid hack was a horse-drawn vehicle used for transporting children to school in the late 19th and early 20th century in the United States. The word hack, meaning a horse-drawn cab, is short for hackney carriage. The vehicle was actually powered by both horses and mules, and usually loaded at the...

s, evolving into automobiles and virtually all types of bus bodies during the 20th century. Wayne products eventually included school buses, transit bus

Transit bus

A transit bus , also known as a commuter bus, city bus, or public bus, is a bus used for short-distance public transport purposes...

es, highway coaches, military and shuttle buses

Minibus

A minibus or minicoach is a passenger carrying motor vehicle that is designed to carry more people than a multi-purpose vehicle or minivan, but fewer people than a full-size bus. In the United Kingdom, the word "minibus" is used to describe any full-sized passenger carrying van. Minibuses have a...

, ambulance

Ambulance

An ambulance is a vehicle for transportation of sick or injured people to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury, and in some instances will also provide out of hospital medical care to the patient...

s and even huge bus bodies pulled by tractor trailers

Trailer bus

A trailer bus or articulated trailer bus is a bus formed out of a bus bodied semi-trailer pulled by a conventional tractor unit in the same way as a conventional articulated semi-trailer truck....

used to haul oil field workers in the Middle East.

Among many innovations, Wayne pioneered the guard rails on the sides of all school buses today, inboard wheelchair lifts, and even high-headroom doors (a special accommodation for mobility-challenged persons requiring head and neck support from above). The company was the first with a school bus based upon a cutaway van chassis

Cutaway van chassis

, the Wayne Busette, a chassis design which more than 35 years later remains one of the most popular in use in North American markets. The crowning safety achievement was the Wayne Lifeguard structural design introduced in 1973, which featured continuous interior and exterior longitudinal panels. The Lifeguard's design helped pave the way for the all-important U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) for school buses, most of which became applicable on April 1, 1977. In the years after, Wayne continued to be a leader in bus safety engineering.

Wayne went through many owners. During the second half of the 20th century, the business underwent periods under Divco-Wayne, Boise Cascade

Boise Cascade

Boise Cascade Holdings, LLC, which uses the trade name Boise, is an American pulp and paper company, ranked as the thirteenth largest forest products company in the world....

, Indian Head, and Thyssen-Bornemisza conglomerate ownership, and moved to a greatly expanded facility adjacent to Interstate 70

Interstate 70

Interstate 70 is an Interstate Highway in the United States that runs from Interstate 15 near Cove Fort, Utah, to a Park and Ride near Baltimore, Maryland. It was the first Interstate Highway project in the United States. I-70 approximately traces the path of U.S. Route 40 east of the Rocky...

in 1967, where it became a familiar landmark to millions of travelers. After encountering a difficult market cycle and industry downturn due to over-capacity beginning in the early 1980s, Wayne Corporation finally closed up and went out-of-business in 1992. Several efforts to continue to utilize portions of the assets and build school buses ended in 2000.

As of 2006, thousands of Wayne buses remained in service, although the numbers are dwindling each year as new buses replace them in school and commercial operations. Some have been converted to motor homes and other uses. The former Wayne Corporation property along Interstate 70 is becoming re-utilized for a number of retail and industrial enterprises.

Early history

After starting out as Wayne Agricultural Works in Dublin, Indiana

Dublin, Indiana

Dublin is a town in Jackson Township, Wayne County, Indiana, United States. The population was 790 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Dublin is located at ....

in the mid 19th century, all manufacturing was centralized at Richmond, Indiana

Richmond, Indiana

. It is important to note that most bus bodies consisted of in-house manufactured parts and purchased components manufactured by others, combined into bus bodies in assembly operations. Thus, the major two functions of the Richmond, Indiana plant were manufacturing of parts, and assembly.

Wayne bus bodies were also assembled at multiple locations of truck body dealers around the US and at a Canadian assembly plant, Welles, Ltd. in Windsor, Ontario

Windsor, Ontario

Windsor is the southernmost city in Canada and is located in Southwestern Ontario at the western end of the heavily populated Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. It is within Essex County, Ontario, although administratively separated from the county government. Separated by the Detroit River, Windsor...

. Kits were also shipped overseas even after all North American assembly was eventually centralized in Richmond, Indiana and Windsor, Ontario in the early 1960s.

Kid hacks

Wayne's predecessor, Wayne Works, was founded in the United States of America

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

in 1837. Wayne Works began by making horse-drawn vehicles. By 1886, and possibly earlier, it is known that Wayne Works was making horse-drawn school carriages which many people referred to as "school hacks," "school cars," "school trucks," or "kid hack

Kid hack

s." As education in the United States shifted from small "one room schools" to fewer but larger multi-room schools, less children lived within walking distances. Initially, as many students who needed transportation lived in rural areas, the need was filled by adapted farm vehicles. Soon, these practices and operations evolved and expanded into today's school transportation systems

Student transport

Student transport is the transporting of children and teenagers to and from schools and school events. School transport can be undertaken by school students themselves , they may be accompanied by family members or caregivers, or the transport may be organised collectively, using buses or...

.

Beginning in the early 1930s through the 1940s, several automobile

Automobile

An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...

designers and manufacturers were located in Richmond. Among the automobiles manufactured there was the "Richmond" which was built by the Wayne Works, the "Rodefeld", and the Crosley

Crosley

The Crosley was an automobile manufactured by the Crosley Corporation and later by Crosley Motors Incorporated in the United States from 1939 to 1952.-History:...

.

The Wayne County Historical Museum in Richmond, Indiana

Richmond, Indiana

has a rare 1907 "Richmond" on display, along with horse-drawn "kid hack" also manufactured by the Wayne Works.

First buses

According to several sources, in 1914 Wayne Works mounted a wooden kid hack onto an automobile

Automobile

An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...

chassis, creating a predecessor to the modern motor school bus

School bus

A school bus is a type of bus designed and manufactured for student transport: carrying children and teenagers to and from school and school events...

. In the vehicle bodies for school transportation that the company produced during this era, passengers sat on perimeter seating, facing the sides rather than the front of the bus. Entry and egress was through a door at the rear, a design begun in non-motorized days to help avoiding startling the horses. This feature was retained, becoming the rear emergency exit seen on today's buses; the primary mode of ingress/egress was now through a curbside door.

Safety innovations

By 1927, Wayne Works was building all-steel bus bodies. In the following few years, the school bus bodies began to include a group of heavy-duty "collision rails" or "guard rails" as an added safety feature. Wayne Works was one of the earliest school bus companies to offer glass in place of the standard canvas curtains in the passenger area; glass did not become a common feature until the 1930s.

Although not the first to introduce the type, in the 1930s, Wayne Works was among the first manufacturers to produce transit-style school buses; a body with a more or less flat front-end design. Initial production of Wayne's "forward control" bus bodies were conversions of conventional bus chassis. However, the "conventional" design, with a cowled chassis (known as Type C on modern school buses) would be the bulk of Wayne's sales until production ended in 1992.

World War II – wooden bodies and trailer buses

To conserve steel for war use, Wayne Works and other manufacturers reverted from all-steel construction to building some bus bodies with wooden components during World War II. The company also developed trailer-type bodies

Trailer bus

A trailer bus or articulated trailer bus is a bus formed out of a bus bodied semi-trailer pulled by a conventional tractor unit in the same way as a conventional articulated semi-trailer truck....

for military use which could transport up to 150 passengers, pulled by a truck. Thousands of military ambulance bodies were also produced. The company also did some reconstruction on older buses and trucks to extend their lives during the war years, as did other bus body manufacturers.

In 1944, as the end of World War II approached, Wayne returned to building all-steel bodies.

Welles: Canadian bus assembly

Welles Corporation in Windsor, Ontario

Windsor, Ontario

, was named for Halsey V. Welles who founded H. V. Welles Ltd. in 1925. Originally named Warford Corp. of Canada, it was first established to distribute Warford transmissions. Expanding into after-market products primarily for Ford trucks, in 1948, Welles Corp. became the sole Canadian distributor of Wayne Works school buses.

In 1963, under New York-based financier Newton Glekel, Divco-Wayne acquired Welles Corp. Ltd., and incorporated it as a new subsidiary division of Divco-Wayne.

Diversification

Wayne Works began to diversify into other fields besides bus production through several acquisitions in the mid-1950s. These acquisitions primarily brought Wayne into the world of professional car production.

The company purchased Meteor Motor Car Company in Piqua, Ohio

Piqua, Ohio

Piqua is a city in Miami County, Ohio, United States. The population was 20,738 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area.Piqua was one of the cities that experienced severe flooding during the Great Dayton Flood of 1913....

in 1954. Meteor built professional cars, such as limousines and ambulances. Two years later, in 1956, Wayne acquired A.J. Miller's professional car building company of Bellefontaine, Ohio

Bellefontaine, Ohio

Bellefontaine is a city in and the county seat of Logan County, Ohio, United States. The population was 13,069 at the 2000 census. It is the center of the Bellefontaine Micropolitan Statistical Area, as defined by the United States Census Bureau in 2003...

. The A.J. Miller Company had begun in 1853 by making horse carriages and then started making automobile

Automobile

An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...

s in the early part of the 20th century. However, the small company found it could not compete with the larger automobile makers, so they began specializing in hearses and ambulances. Over the years the Miller hearses became known and used throughout the world.

The Miller Co. was combined with Wayne's existing professional car subsidiary, Meteor Motor Car Company, forming the new Miller-Meteor (M-M) division of Wayne. The 2 companies competed in 1956, but were doing business as a combination by 1957.

Divco-Wayne Corporation 1957–1968

In 1957, under the leadership of Newton Glekel, Divco Corporation bought the Wayne Works, a school bus builder in Richmond, Indiana, and renamed itself, Divco-Wayne Corporation. Divco-Wayne, also known as D-W, was a conglomerate involved in the manufacturing of trucks, school buses, hearses, ambulances and mobile homes, and apparently also had had an electronics section involved in aerospace technology.

Divco

Divco stands for Detroit Industrial Vehicles COmpany. Founded in 1926, Divco was well known for its pioneering delivery vehicles, especially milk trucks. From 1926 to 1986, Divco produced multi-stop delivery trucks

Multi-Stop truck

Multi-stop trucks are a type of light-duty and medium-duty truck created for local deliveries to residences and businesses. They are almost always forward-control vehicles, designed to be driven either sitting down or standing up, and often provide easy access between the driver and goods, hence...

unlike any others. Only the VW Beetle stayed in production with the same basic model for a longer period of time. Divco trucks have become popular collectible vehicles today. The company's history (including the time it was part of Divco-Wayne) has been researched in some depth by the Divco Club of America, and more information from before and after the corporate marriage to Wayne beyond the scope of this article can be found at Divco History.

During the Divco-Wayne era, the truck manufacturing of Divco-Wayne continued to be through the former Divco

Divco

Divco was a brand name of delivery trucks in the United States. Divco is an acronym which stands for Detroit Industrial Vehicles COmpany. Founded in 1926, Divco was well-known for its pioneering delivery vehicles, especially the home delivery milk trucks. From 1926 until 1986, Divco produced...

portion. Some Divco trucks were modified with seats and windows from the Wayne Works to produce a Divco Dividend Bus; very few of these units were built between 1959 and 1961. Virtually all bus and ambulance manufacturing was through the Wayne Corporation portion of Divco-Wayne, and subsidiary units Miller-Meteor and Cotner-Bevington.

Export

Wayne Export was another division, and it specialized in selling disassembled Wayne bodies (CKDs) to points outside North America. The CKDs were then handled by 20 overseas distributors and assembly facilities. By 1957, Wayne bus bodies were in use in 60 different countries. In 1963, Wayne licensed the Spanish S.A. Bosuga to build in Barcelona coach bodies based on Wayne's technology and designs. These were marketed as Bosuga Wayne, utilizing mainly Pegaso

Pegaso

Pegaso was a Spanish make of trucks, omnibuses, tractors, armored vehicles, and, for a while, sports cars. The parent company, Enasa, was created in 1946 and based in the old Hispano-Suiza factory, under the direction of the renowned automotive engineer Wifredo Ricart...

and Barreiros

Barreiros (manufacturer)

Barreiros was a Spanish manufacturer of engines, trucks, buses, tractors and automobiles.-Barreiros Diesel:The company was founded in 1954 as Barreiros Diesel S.A. by Eduardo Barreiros and based in Madrid...

-AEC chassis. The venture was short-lived, since the Spanish market for coach bodies was crowded.

Other Products

As Wayne had become part of a conglomerate, the late 1950s and early 1960s saw the brand move into industries far removed from bus manufacturing and even the automotive industry in general.

Professional Cars

The professional car

Professional car

A professional car in modern times is an automobile that has been modified with extensive coachwork for service in livery transportation or in funeral home operations...

(quoted from a leading trade association) "is loosely defined as a custom-bodied vehicle, based on passenger car styling, and used in the funeral, rescue or livery services." Such vehicles may be hearse

Hearse

A hearse is a funerary vehicle used to carry a coffin from a church or funeral home to a cemetery. In the funeral trade, hearses are often called funeral coaches.-History:...

s, flower car

Flower car

A flower car is a type of vehicle used in the funeral industry, used to carry flowers for the burial service, or sometimes to carry the coffin under a bed of flowers. Built on the same commercial chassis as a hearse, the flower car has half-height rear bodywork on the rear similar to a pickup truck...

s, service cars, ambulance

Ambulance

s, limousine

Limousine

A limousine is a luxury sedan or saloon car, especially one with a lengthened wheelbase or driven by a chauffeur. The chassis of a limousine may have been extended by the manufacturer or by an independent coachbuilder. These are called "stretch" limousines and are traditionally black or white....

s, or cars specially built to combine two or more of these different functions, such as combination

Combination car

For the railroad vehicle, see Combine car.A combination car was a vehicle built upon a "professional car" chassis which could be employed either as a hearse or as an ambulance, and had the capability of being swapped between those roles without much difficulty...

hearse-ambulances, sedan ambulances or invalid coaches. These body styles were all hand built. The roof, glass, and doors are all manufactured and/or modified by expert craftsmen. The commercial chassis and the front and rear clips of these cars are the only parts shared with their donor cars.

Divco-Wayne gained entry into the professional car market in the late 1950s and early 1960s by acquiring manufacturers Miller, Meteor and Cotner-Bevington. Divco-Wayne and the later parent companies of Wayne Corporation stayed in the professional car market until the end of the 1970s, when changing federal regulations caused a number of body manufacturers to close down.

Miller-Meteor

Professional car manufacturers Miller and Meteor, newly combined as Miller-Meteor, were brought into the fold of Divco-Wayne as the newly formed conglomerate was developing its opportunities in this field. Although the recently combined Miller-Meteor company was initially based at Bellefontaine, Ohio

Bellefontaine, Ohio

, originally the home of the A.J. Miller Company, under Divco-Wayne ownership, it was later relocated to Piqua, Ohio

Piqua, Ohio

, Meteor's old hometown nearby. The Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters is a 1984 American science fiction comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. The film stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, and Rick Moranis and follows three eccentric parapsychologists in New York City, who start a...

' Ecto-1 was a 1959 Cadillac

Cadillac

Cadillac is an American luxury vehicle marque owned by General Motors . Cadillac vehicles are sold in over 50 countries and territories, but mostly in North America. Cadillac is currently the second oldest American automobile manufacturer behind fellow GM marque Buick and is among the oldest...

Miller-Meteor ambulance.

Cotner-Bevington

Divco-Wayne acquired Cotner-Bevington (C-B) in 1964 and it became a subsidiary of Wayne Corporation. Comet Coach Company was based in Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....

. In 1959, the coach builder had sold its "Comet" trade name rights to the Lincoln-Mercury division of Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...

for use on Mercury's version of the Ford Falcon. Starting with the 1960 model year the former Comet Coach Co. was renamed Cotner-Bevington, after the company's two founders. They moved from Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis, Tennessee

a few miles north to Blytheville, Arkansas

Blytheville, Arkansas

Blytheville is the largest city in and one of the two county seats of Mississippi County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 15,620 at the 2010 census....

. C-B stayed in business through the 1975 model year, building only on Oldsmobile automobile chassis and truck-based ambulances after about 1964.

Wayne's line of truck-based ambulances ("Sentinel" Suburbans starting for the 1968 model year, "Vanguard" Chevrolet vans for 1971, and "Medicruiser" Dodge vans for 1973) were built in the Blytheville facility. The Sentinel Suburbans received a headroom increase for 1971, but were only built through the 1972 model year. After that, the Sentinel brand name was used on Wayne's line of Type I (pickup chassis) modular ambulances. Body shells were produced at the Richmond, Indiana bus plant for Care-O-Van ambulance units, based upon cutaway chassis and Wayne Busette body.

Non-Automotive Divisions

Divco-Wayne Corporation manufactured housing

Manufactured housing

Manufactured housing is a type of prefabricated housing that is largely assembled in factories and then transported to sites of use...

brands included Kozy, Elcar, Star, and National. Electronics and aerospace products were offered through D-W Electronics, in Cincinnati, Ohio

Cincinnati, Ohio

Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...

.

The Divco-Wayne conglomerate also had a financial arm, Divco-Wayne Acceptance Corporation, which was also known as Divco-Wayne Financial, Wayne Acceptance or Financial Corporation and Wayne Financial Sales Corporation. The financing division handled customer financing and leasing arrangements as well as dealer inventory financing for other Divco-Wayne divisions.

New Factory

During the earlier years of the school bus industry, the factory manufactured most of the parts used to assemble a bus body, but it was customary for these to be shipped unassembled (often by rail) to body dealers at various points around the United States and Canada, for assembly onto an incomplete truck chassis. Gradually, as highway transportation of completed buses became more practical, and school bus bodies became more sophisticated; the assembly of complete bodies onto truck chassis in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

became centralized at locations owned by the body companies. The companies often continued to ship "kits" overseas.

By the mid 1960s, several other body companies (notably Blue Bird Body Company and Perley A. Thomas Car Works) maintained assembly plants at multiple locations in the United States. Instead of establishing multiple assembly points in the U.S., Wayne chose to replace the overcrowded and aged Wayne Works facility on E Street near downtown Richmond with a single large new plant big enough to handle both manufacturing and United States assembly. Due primarily to Canadian import tariffs, the separate Canadian assembly plant (Welles, Ltd.) had been long-established and was maintained for Canadian production.

As early as 1964 Divco-Wayne started plans for the construction of a new plant. Initially, a site was selected in Florence, Kentucky

Florence, Kentucky

Florence is a city in Boone County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 29,951 at the 2010 census.-History:The Florence area was originally known as Crossroads, because of the convergence of several roads from Burlington and Union at Ridge Road...

, where the company purchased an option to acquire 107 acre (0.43301402 km²) in an industrial park. The community in Richmond, Indiana responded to the possible loss of the plant and jobs with provision of a 100 acre (0.404686 km²) parcel conveniently located near the intersection of Interstate 70

Interstate 70

and US 35 northwest of the city.

In 1967, Wayne Corporation relocated from the former Wayne Works plant to the new site on Industries Road about 5 miles (8 km) northwest of downtown Richmond. The site had over 1/2 mile of frontage on Interstate 70, and acres of land for storage of truck chassis and completed buses. The new $3.5 million facility had 550000 square feet (51,096.7 m²) under a single roof. It featured fully modern steel manufacturing presses, rust-proofing equipment, paint booths, and could handle assembly lines for all product lines. From 1967 until its closure in 1992, travelers along busy Interstate 70 could view what seemed to be oceans of yellow school buses outside the massive facility.

Distribution Network

More than a few Wayne dealerships were operated by school bus contractor

School bus contractor

A school bus contractor is a private company or proprietorship that provides student transport services to a school district or non-public school. Of the 450,000 school buses operating in the United States, it is estimated that approximately 39% are operated by school bus contractors...

s. ARA Transportation and Laidlaw

Laidlaw

Laidlaw, organized as Laidlaw International, Inc. , was a predecessor corporation of First Student , a US subsidiary of the Scottish transport firm FirstGroup plc...

were the largest. Others included Bus and Bodies of Plaistow, New Hampshire

Plaistow, New Hampshire

- External links :* * * * * * * *...

, Town & Country Transportation of Warren, Rhode Island

Warren, Rhode Island

Warren is a town in Bristol County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 10,611 at the 2010 census.-History:Warren was the site of the Indian village of Sowams on the peninsula called Pokanoket , and was first explored by Europeans in 1621, by Edward Winslow and Stephen Hopkins...

, Rohrer of Duncannon, Pennsylvania

Duncannon, Pennsylvania

Duncannon is a borough in Perry County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,508 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Harrisburg–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area. The center of population of Pennsylvania is located in Duncannon. It is named after the coastal town of...

, Virginia Overland Transportation

Virginia Overland Transportation

Virginia Overland Transportation was an organization in Virginia in the United States which operated new and used bus dealerships and a number of intrastate urban-suburban bus lines for about 30 years in the late 20th and early 21st centuries....

of Richmond, Virginia

Richmond, Virginia

Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...

, and School Bus Services of Shawnee Mission, Kansas

Shawnee Mission, Kansas

Shawnee Mission, Kansas is a name created by the United States Postal Service to describe an area of Johnson County, Kansas that contains numerous towns. Parts of southern Overland Park are not part of Shawnee Mission as they were annexed from unincorporated Stanley and use zip code 66085...

. These school bus contractors, several of whom were also involved in contracting paratransit

Paratransit

Paratransit is an alternative mode of flexible passenger transportation that does not follow fixed routes or schedules. Typically mini-buses are used to provide paratransit service, but also share taxis and jitneys are important providers....

services, found having a dealership provided both a source and an input to product design at Wayne, as well as a natural outlet for sale of surplus equipment at the end of contract periods.

Breakup

In 1967, the Divco-Wayne conglomerate was sold by Newton Glekel to Boise Cascade

Boise Cascade

Boise Cascade Holdings, LLC, which uses the trade name Boise, is an American pulp and paper company, ranked as the thirteenth largest forest products company in the world....

, a company which was primarily seeking the housing manufacturing subsidiaries. Boise Cascade resold Wayne and its subsidiaries to Indian Head, Inc., another conglomerate. About the same time that Divco-Wayne was sold to Indian Head, the Divco portion was separated and divested. Production of Divco products was to continue until 1986.

Wayne Corporation: an Indian Head Company: 1968–1975

Divco-Wayne had formed a union and had expanded into a moderate sized-conglomerate, with all facilities basically within 500 miles (804.7 km) of Wayne's Richmond, Indiana base. In contrast, Indian Head was already a large and diversified corporate conglomerate when it purchased Wayne Corporation and its subsidiaries in 1968. Indian Head Inc. acquired Wayne Corp., which its history recorded as "maker of school buses, ambulances, hearses, professional cars" from Divco-Wayne. The Wayne acquisition included:

Welles, Ltd, (the Canadian bus assembly plant)

Miller-Meteor in Piqua, Ohio

Cotner-Bevington in Blytheville, Arkansas

In 1969, the new Indian Head logo and corporate type face were introduced in the company's Annual Report. Also that year, Indian Head purchased Machinery Corp. and United Vintners, part of Hublein Co. Inc. There were 18,700 employees, 60 plants (5 glass container companies, 5 metal and automotive companies, 12 specialty textile firms and the start of an Information Technology division) located in U.S., Canada and the Netherlands. The multi-industry acquisitions continued.

Indian Head's roots were in the textile industry

Textile industry

The textile industry is primarily concerned with the production of yarn, and cloth and the subsequent design or manufacture of clothing and their distribution. The raw material may be natural, or synthetic using products of the chemical industry....

, which was in decline in the United States in the mid and late 20th century. The owners of Indian Head eventually realized that they could earn more money doing almost anything else, and basically said so in testimony before the United States Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

Indian Head roots: textiles

In February, 1953, Indian Head Mills Inc had been formed by James Robison, formerly the division head with Textron. He purchased Nashua Mfg Co. and the Indian Head brand name. Nashua became Indian Head Mills Inc.

Robison's credo as CEO became a legend in the business world. His one basic company policy for Indian Head was that if both parties didn't benefit from the deal, he didn't want to do it – "Integrity: play it straight, forthrightly and honestly; admit mistakes and correct them; we will not welsh, weasel, chisel or cheat and we will not be party to any untruths, half truths or unfair distortions." Under Robison, Indian Head Mills had greatly expanded the textile lines, primarily through acquisitions. In 1960, Indian Head Mills was ranked among the best USA firms.

In 1961, founder Robison took on the US government, saying cotton mills were getting a raw deal and that the US Congress should desert the cotton price support program. Robison asserted that it was costing taxpayers $500/yr each to subsidize cotton crops, and that the textile industry, one of the largest and most important in the country, had been seriously weakened through erosion of capital values, loss of employment, inadequate research, and the lagging modern growth of synthetic fibers.

Between 1954 and 1962, Indian Head Mills had added 11 established, unrelated specialized companies. In 1962, it decided to get out of textiles and to get in to just about anything else where return was higher.

In 1964, it purchased Metal Products & Auto Parts. In 1965, the company purchased Detroit Gasket & Mfg. Co. In 1966, it acquired Demco (Detroit Engine & Machine Co.), Roxboro, Street and Pyramid Mouldings Division.

Finally, in 1966, the word "Mills" was removed from the corporate name, which became Indian Head Inc. As a conglomerate its lines now included auto bumpers, power steering parts, licenser's of Banlon finishes and panty hose for Fruit of the Loom

Fruit of the Loom

Fruit of the Loom is an American company which manufactures clothing, particularly underwear. The company's world headquarters is in Bowling Green, Kentucky. It is currently a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.-Company profile:...

, Rudi Gernreich

Rudi Gernreich

Rudi Gernreich was a Austrian-born American fashion designer and gay activist.-Biography:Born in Vienna, Gernreich fled Austria at age 16 due to Nazism, and later migrated to the United States, settling in Los Angeles, California...

and Pucci

Pucci

Pucci may refer to:*Members of the Pucci family, a major Florentine political family**Antonio di Puccio Pucci , Florentine politician and architect**Puccio Pucci , Florentine politician, son of Antonio...

. In 1967, Indian Head began buying glass companies specializing in beverage bottles: It purchased Obear-Nester Glass, Northwestern Glass, Pierce Glass, Laurens Glass, MGM Brakes and Mason.

New-Generation School Buses

The late 1960s and early 1970s led to the development of new platforms suitable for use for small school buses. Additionally, to improve the basic structural integrity of full-size school buses, Wayne engineers went back to the drawing board and changed how school buses were constructed with an all-new body design.

Papoose

In the early 1970s, the principal platform for school buses smaller than conventional types but with more than 4 wheels was the truck chassis in widespread use for commercial delivery work: the step van. These were commonly known as "step vans." Within the school bus body industry, this type were often called 'P' chassis. In addition to Wayne, Blue Bird, Carpenter, Superior, Thomas, and Ward each developed school bus bodies based upon 'P' chassis produced by either General Motors, Ford, or both.

Wayne's body product for the step van chassis was called the Papoose. The front-end of the design of the Papoose was designed to afford maximum visibility and use flat glass, resulting in an appearance which was not aesthetically pleasing. It was described by some observers as "severe," and the funny-looking little bus had other nicknames even less kind.

In addition to its unusual appearance, the Wayne Papoose faced another disadvantage in the Wayne product line. The market was highly competitive with all five other major school bus body builders participating, making it a commodity. Wayne's marketers wanted something more radical to differentiate a small capacity Wayne product from its competition.

Busette

In the early 1970s, Wayne designed another small school bus, one even smaller than the Papoose. The Busette, as the product line was named, was unique because it was one of the first school buses to be built on a cutaway van chassis. Previously, small school buses were adaptations of full-size vans or large SUVs (such as the Chevrolet Suburban or International Travelall). The Busette featured dual rear wheels on the rear axle, which provided extra stability and capability over conversion vehicles. Introduced in 1973, the Busette (and its Transette commercial variant) would set a precedent for how all small buses are designed-not just school buses. The Busette and Transette also were among the first small buses to be fitted with wheelchair lifts.

Lifeguard

In the early 1930s, Wayne was one of the first school bus manufacturers to introduce guard rails and all-metal construction into school bus design. While safer than wooden body construction, riveted metal body panels posed some problems of their own. In a crash, a weak point of the body was identified as the joints where body panels were fastened together. In 1967, safety engineers at Ward Body Works of Conway, Arkansas

Conway, Arkansas

Conway is the county seat of Faulkner County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 58,908 at the 2010 census, making Conway the seventh most populous city in Arkansas. It is a principal city of the Little Rock–North Little Rock–Conway Metropolitan Statistical Area which had...

(a competing bus manufacturer) subjected one of their school bus bodies to a multiple roll test, and noted the separation at the joints. Ward noted that many of their competitors were using far fewer rivets and fasteners. This resulted in new attention by all manufacturers to the number and quality of fasteners.

After the Ward rollover test brought new light to the importance of joints, Wayne engineers felt a new approach was necessary. In their own tests, no matter how many fasteners were used, the joints were always the weak point under high stress loads. They also noted how the continuous guard rails used on the sides tended to spread the stress from a point of impact, allowing it to be shared and dissipated at portions of the body structure further away.

As opposed to simply adding more fasteners, Wayne engineers proposed eliminating the body panel joints entirely; essentially, the entire side of the bus would have to be formed from a single piece of metal. The roof panel would be manufactured in the same fashion: one piece, cut to length. Fasteners would only be needed for the interior structure, the guardrails, and at the rear of the bus. In 1973, Wayne introduced the new design, branded the Lifeguard. Although Wayne needed specialized equipment to manufacture the Lifeguard's body panels, the design also reduced overall body weight and man-hours required for assembly.

In the years after Wayne introduced the Lifeguard, competing body manufacturers also began to use larger side panels and a lesser number of joints. However, none had become as progressive as Wayne's use of the full-length panels when the focus on structural integrity resulted in the joint requirements of the all-important U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards for school buses, most of which became applicable on April 1, 1977. After that date, most manufacturers including Wayne added special structural adhesives to other fasteners at body joints.

Indian Head and Thyssen

In 1973, Indian Head established a joint business venture with Thyssen-Bornemisza Group N.V., a Dutch holding company. That year, Indian Head sold off its pantyhose, cotton yarn and commission finishing divisions. The next year, it acquired Tri-Wall Containers, leading international manufacturer of heavy-duty shipping containers.

In 1975, the rest of Indian Head Industries was sold to (and folded into) Thyssen-Bornemisza, a conglomerate based in Monaco

Monaco

Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...

, which was owned by one man: Baron Hans Heinrich (Heini) Thyssen-Bornemisza

Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza

Hans Henrik Ágost Gábor Tasso Freiherr Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon et Impérfalva , a noted industrialist and art collector, was a Dutch-born Swiss citizen with a Hungarian title, a legal resident of Monaco for tax purposes, with a declared second residency in the United Kingdom, but in actuality...

The Thyssen-Bornemisza Years 1975–1984

It seems that most of what one can learn about Indian Head after the Thyssen-Bornemisza acquisition is very limited. As a privately owned entity, there were no requirements for annual reports or public filings. However, what can be found seem to indicate that Thyssen spent much of the next 8–10 years selling off or closing its North American investments.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the portions of Thyssen-Bornemisza which formed the Wayne Corporation went through a period of decline.

In 1982, Thyssen sold its Textile Specialties Group to Hanson Trust, an English holding company which had established a group of companies called Hanson Industries. This group was renamed Carisbrook Industries. At time of sale, Thyssen was operating in 274 locations in 27 countries and 29 U.S. States.

Wayne Professional Cars: RIP

The professional car industry was negatively and profoundly impacted by three factors in the late 1970s. At the time, many units served as both ambulances and funeral vehicles, called "combinations." Combinations disappeared from general service in the late 1970s. The downsizing of America's biggest luxury cars, beginning with the 1977 model year, forced major changes upon professional car builders, who were dependent upon car frames purchased from General Motors and Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company

to begin their conversion processes.

Regulatory Changes
At the same time, changes in the federal ambulance regulations governing minimum width, headroom and equipment levels generally required larger vehicles. These were part of the 1973 National EMS Systems Act, which was passed by Congress in 1974, and implemented four years later (in 1978), required that communities receiving federal funds for their programs had ambulances that met new federal specifications. Three design styles meet the criteria and are still in use today:

Type I uses a 1 ton truck chassis with a modular compartment
Type II has a heavy duty van body with a raised roof
Type III has a cutaway van chassis with a modular compartment.

Passenger-based vehicles were purposely excluded from legislation and the last American-made automobile-based ambulance was built in 1978.

Change in EMS Providers
Ambulance service in many areas had often been rendered by the proprietors of funeral homes, and professional (combination) cars were often equipped for dual use. Despite high visibility, this activity was not a major profit center for funeral directors. Rising insurance costs and the increased skill levels required of ambulance personnel combined to motivate funeral home operators to leave first the emergency medical transport business, and eventually, the non-emergency medical transport business.

At the same time, just as the chassis they were built upon became smaller, the higher level of services rendered by emergency medical services (EMS) personnel at the pre-hospital level required more space and equipment than was available in professional cars. Fortunately for patients, this came at the very time that extended wheelbase vans and cutaway-type vehicles became more readily available. In the early 1970s Wayne introduced a full line of non care based ambulances; the Type III Medi-cruiser was based on the popular Dodge B-series van

Dodge B-series van

The Dodge B-Series was a full-size van marketed under the Dodge brand by the Chrysler Corporation and later DaimlerChrysler...

Tradesman panel van, the Care-O-Van was a Type II ambulance and the Type I Guardian, an early version of a 1 ton truck based modular ambulance. By the late 1970s, government standards and practical necessities were combining to make professional car based ambulances unsuitable for virtually all EMS transport work.

Downsizing
For 1977, the Cadillac commercial chassis

Cadillac Commercial Chassis

The Cadillac Commercial Chassis was basically a strengthened version of the long-wheelbase Cadillac Fleetwood limousine frame intended to carry the extra weight of the bodywork, rear deck and cargo area of funeral coaches and ambulances...

was downsized to reduce vehicle weight and fuel consumption. That year, the Cadillac Division built 1,299 of these special, lengthened units; of that total, only 21 Lifeliner Cadillac ambulances were manufactured by Wayne's Miller-Meteor subsidiary. For 1978, Cadillac's commercial chassis production further declined to only 852 units; Miller-Meteor received orders for only 4 ambulances. There were no 1979 Miller-Meteor ambulances. On December 13, 1979, the company, with roots tracing back to 1853, closed its doors. There would be no 1980 Miller-Meteor products. The company laid-off 252 employees and terminated the contracts of their 34 North American distributors.
By the late 1970s, as the situation became critical, Wayne Corporation, the parent of M-M and C-B, and Wayne's Thyssen owners chose not to invest heavily in either firm as would have been required in the uncertain futures of the diverging professional car and ambulance building industries. There were no buyers for either subsidiary as a going business. In 1980, Cotner-Bevington ambulance product line was sold to Gene Knisley, owner of Mid-Continent Conversion Co., which was an ambulance and medicar builder in Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

. The C-B plant in Blytheville, Arkansas

Blytheville, Arkansas

Blytheville is the largest city in and one of the two county seats of Mississippi County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 15,620 at the 2010 census....

was closed. A few years later, the rights to the Miller-Meteor name were acquired and resurrected by another professional car builder in Norwalk, Ohio

Norwalk, Ohio

At the 2000 census, there were 16,238 people, 6,377 households and 4,234 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,950.3 per square mile . There were 6,687 housing units at an average density of 803.1 per square mile...

which in 2004 was producing a line of funeral coaches and limousines on Cadillac and Lincoln chassis under the Miller-Meteor brand name.

Rabbitransit: 41-MPG Taxi

About the time of the 1979 energy crisis

1979 energy crisis

The 1979 oil crisis in the United States occurred in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Amid massive protests, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled his country in early 1979 and the Ayatollah Khomeini soon became the new leader of Iran. Protests severely disrupted the Iranian oil...

, Wayne's Engineering Department experimented with creation of a stretch conversion of the diesel

Diesel engine

A diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber...

-powered Volkswagen Rabbit which was under manufacture at VW

Volkswagen

Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer and is the original and biggest-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group, which now also owns the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, and Škoda marques and the truck manufacturer Scania.Volkswagen means "people's car" in German, where it is...

's Westmoreland Assembly Plant near New Stanton, Pennsylvania

New Stanton, Pennsylvania

New Stanton is a borough in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,906 at the 2000 census. New Stanton is often used as a control city in western parts of Pennsylvania, as I-70 joins the Pennsylvania Turnpike eastbound towards Breezewood, Pennsylvania in New...

. The "Rabbitransit" vehicle would have the potential to transport a large number of passengers (8–12) with very efficient fuel consumption in comparison with other automobiles. In a 1979 news article, Wayne president Dwayne Shields described the project:

"The Rabbitransit has a 104½” wheelbase, 10 inches longer than the regular VW Rabbit...it comfortably seats four passengers plus driver. Headroom in the passenger compartment is four inches (102 mm) higher and the interior is reportedly spacious with plenty of legroom...structural strength of the VW has been beefed up with additional strainers and bows. Yet, even with the added steel structures, the vehicle weighs only 190 pounds than the original...Wayne kept the weight down by making a number of parts changes using lightweight vacuumed-formed plastic techniques...gas consumption has been very close to that of the VW Rabbit which is 41 mpg, according to the EPA rating for the 1979 five-speed, fuel-injected diesel vehicle...

"...by the time the two prototype mini-taxis were built, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards required that such vehicles undergo expensive testing procedures...to make mini-taxis viable from the standpoint of cost, it became evident...they should be built from the ground up, rather than a modification of a completed vehicle...and VW officials indicated it would be some time before they would be in a position to supply components for this type of assembly."

The mini-taxi project was dropped by Wayne. For potential liability reasons, the frequently seen "Rabbitransit" at the Richmond plant could not be sold for highway use and it was later destroyed.

The End of The "Big Six"

In 1975, when the ownership of Wayne Corporation shifted from Indian Head to Thyssen, Wayne was one of six major school bus body builders in the United States. It is important to understand and review the market at this point to appreciate some of what happened next in Wayne's history.

Wayne apparently enjoyed some profitable years in the late 1970s, buoyed by sales of its smaller Busette and Transette product lines. By 1980, the company was one of the "Big Six" school bus body manufacturing companies in the United States, competing with Blue Bird Body Company, Carpenter Body Works

Carpenter Body Company

Carpenter Body Company, also known over the years as the Ralph H. Carpenter Body Company, Carpenter Body Works, Inc., Carpenter Manufacturing Company, Carpenter Industries, Inc., and Crown By Carpenter, was a bus body manufacturer based in Mitchell, Indiana, United States...

, Superior Coach Company

Superior Coach Company

Superior Coach was once a school bus body and professional car manufacturer, but today it focuses on building hearses and is located in Lima in Allen County, Ohio.-History:-Garford Motor Truck Company:...

, Thomas Built Buses, Inc., and Ward Body Works; the Big Six were joined by Crown Coach Corporation

Crown Coach Corporation

Crown Coach Corporation was a manufacturer of school buses and fire trucks located in southern California. Crown closed in March 1991 due to declining demand for school buses at the time.-History:Crown Coach Corporation was founded by Don M...

and Gillig Bros., manufacturers which traded primarily on the West Coast.

A downturn in North American school bus purchase volumes began in the late 1970s as the children of the Baby Boom

Baby boom

A baby boom is any period marked by a greatly increased birth rate. This demographic phenomenon is usually ascribed within certain geographical bounds and when the number of annual births exceeds 2 per 100 women...

completed their elementary and secondary educations. Bidding competition for reduced volumes became devastating to profits and even liquidity. In 1980, Ward declared bankruptcy, reorganizing as AmTran

AmTran

American Transportation Corporation was a builder of school buses in the United States. Founded in 1980, the company traces its roots back to Ward Body Works, which was established in 1933. AmTran was acquired by Navistar International in 1994-1995, a move that would begin a series of alignment...

the following year. Perhaps even more foretelling, in 1980, the Sheller-Globe Corporation

Sheller-Globe Corporation

Sheller-Globe Corporation was a U.S. auto parts manufacturer and industrial conglomerate based in Toledo, Ohio. Formed in 1966 on a heritage of much older companies, Sheller-Globe grew through the acquisition of many other businesses before it was acquired by United Technologies Corporation in...

industrial conglomerate closed its huge Superior Coach Company

Superior Coach Company

plant in Lima, Ohio

Lima, Ohio

Lima is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Ohio, United States. The municipality is located in northwestern Ohio along Interstate 75 approximately north of Dayton and south-southwest of Toledo....

. Sheller-Globe had reportedly been unable to find a buyer for its large enterprise.

Although not publicly reported (as corporate ownership under Thyssen was private), it is likely that Wayne and Welles began incurring losses around 1980 or 1981, and these continued into 1982. By 1983, Wayne dealers and union leaders were told that the annual losses at Wayne/Welles were reportedly in the millions, and the Thyssen owners were poised to end the relationship and financial hemorrhage, by sale or shutdown.

In 1984, following significant concessions by its unionized workers, members of United Auto Workers

United Auto Workers

The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers , is a labor union which represents workers in the United States and Puerto Rico, and formerly in Canada. Founded as part of the Congress of Industrial...

Local # 721 which were intended to make the company more efficient, Wayne Corporation (and its Canadian subsidiary, Welles, Ltd.) were sold by Thyssen to new owners.

Wayne Corporation: Richmond Transportation Corporation 1985–1992

In late 1984, Richmond Transportation Corporation (RTC) was formed by Jack M. Dekruif, a Long Beach, California

Long Beach, California

Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...

-based industrialist, and several officers who had served at Wayne for many years under the Indian Head and Thyssen ownership. RTC acquired Wayne Corporation and its Welles subsidiary in Canada in February, 1985. Terry G. Whitesell was named President of RTC. A civic leader in Richmond, Indiana, his prior responsibilities at Wayne included sales, marketing, and purchasing over a period of more than 15 years. Whitesell was well-known within the company, its dealer and supplier networks, and the industry.

Although as industrialist investor, Dekruif had a track record of liquidating troubled businesses, he was persuaded to allow the new organization to operate and compete. Several successful years followed. The Chaperone and Chaperone II products on cutaway van chassis

Cutaway van chassis

did well, and several Wayne dealer-contractors were expanding, most notably Laidlaw

Laidlaw

Laidlaw, organized as Laidlaw International, Inc. , was a predecessor corporation of First Student , a US subsidiary of the Scottish transport firm FirstGroup plc...

. In the fall of 1986, the company was preparing to launch an initial public stock offering (IPO) when "Black Friday" struck the stock market that October, forcing cancellation of the IPO.

The company's economic fortunes also seemed to go downhill from that point. School bus contractor

School bus contractor

Laidlaw

Laidlaw, organized as Laidlaw International, Inc. , was a predecessor corporation of First Student , a US subsidiary of the Scottish transport firm FirstGroup plc...

, then an operator of 30,000 school buses in the U.S. and Canada, and its own Wayne dealership, split its 1986 school bus body production orders between Wayne and Amtran. In May 1987, a major fire destroyed the Canadian (Welles) plant on Drouillard Road in Windsor, Ontario

Windsor, Ontario

. A bitter strike occurred at Wayne's Richmond, Indiana

Richmond, Indiana

plant in the spring of 1988. The strike lasted only 30 days, but several major orders were lost. The Welles plant was replaced by a newer facility. In conjunction with the City of Windsor, property was bought on the former Sheller-Globe

Sheller-Globe Corporation

plant site on Marentette Street.

Lifestar

By the late 1980s, the company's best hopes lay in its newest product, a transit-style (type D) school bus named the Lifestar. The first production versions were introduced in 1986. Featuring the same side-panel construction as the Lifeguard. Lifestar was to be targeted for the school bus market. Unlike its largest competitors (Blue Bird and Thomas), Wayne did not have the manufacturing equipment or capacity to build chassis in-house; consequently, chassis from an outside supplier was crucial. Supply problems outside of the company's control led to the use of several suppliers for the Lifestar over its production run.

Falling behind the competition

For the 1988 model year, competitor Blue Bird introduced its TC/2000

Blue Bird TC/2000

The Blue Bird TC/2000 is a Type D school bus built by Blue Bird Corporation which was introduced for the 1988 model year. Blue Bird introduced the TC/2000 as a lower-cost alternative to the long-running All American line of transit-style school buses...

, a transit model much less costly than its famous All American

Blue Bird All American

The Blue Bird All American is an American school bus produced by the Blue Bird Corporation . Introduced in 1948, the All American is the longest-produced transit-style school bus by an American manufacturer...

, which had always been marketed as a premium product offered with front engine and rear engine models. The TC/2000 was also marketed directly against the Lifestar. By the middle of the 1990 model year, officials at bus manufacturer AmTran projected the TC/2000 alone would capture a full 10% of U.S. school bus market.

Wayne continued to struggle for market share in 1990. In April 1990, it was announced that the Welles plant in Canada would close in mid-June 1990.

In early 1991, Navistar International Corporation, manufacturer of the International-brand school bus chassis announced that it had purchased a one third interest in American Transportation Corporation (AmTran)

AmTran

, the manufacturer of Ward

Ward Body Works

Ward Body Works was a manufacturer specializing in school buses based in Conway, Arkansas. Ward filed for bankruptcy in 1980, and its successor, AmTran continued the use of the Ward brand on its school buses until 1992.-History:D. H...

school bus bodies, and one of Wayne's long-time competitors. This was seen by many industry observers as an ominous sign for Wayne's future, as Navistar was the company's largest supplier of both conventional (Lifeguard) and transit (Lifestar) chassis. Wayne had no major alliance to guarantee a source of chassis, nor any in-house capacity to do so.

Richmond Transportation Corporation (RTC) was forced to declare bankruptcy in August, 1992. Assets were sold by a federal bankruptcy judge at auction that fall.

Superior by Mid Bus

Several small companies rose from the end of school bus production by industrial conglomerate Sheller-Globe's Superior Coach Company

Superior Coach Company

in Lima, Ohio. In 1981, Mid Bus

Mid Bus

Mid Bus was a corporation which specialized in manufacturing customized school buses. Formed in 1981 by former employees of Superior Coach Company in Lima, Ohio, it grew from a dozen employees working in a small facility in Lima to become one of the country's largest manufacturers of smaller school...

was formed by 3 former Superior employees, and along with 7 co-workers, they began manufacturing small school buses nearby. Initial Mid Bus production was conversions of vans to school buses with the addition of school bus windows and a new roof. In 1987, the "Superior by Mid Bus" name was dropped in favor of "Mid Bus" only.

In 1990, Wayne Corporation discontinued Wayne Busette production in favor of its newer Chaperone model. This coincided with the closure of the Welles plant in Canada, where Busette production had been located. An arrangement was made with Mid Bus to resume production of the Busette, which was still a favorite of Head Start agencies into the 1990s. The Busette production helped Mid Bus gain expertise with cutaway chassis for school bus applications.

Wayne Wheeled Vehicles (1992–1995)

After the bankruptcy of Richmond Transportation Corporation in 1992, in the fall of 1992, Wayne's product rights and many assets (but notably not the corporation and subsidiaries themselves with pensions and other liabilities) were purchased at liquidation auction by BMY, a military truck assembler owned by steel giant Harsco Corporation

Harsco Corporation

Harsco Corporation is a diversified, worldwide industrial company based in the United States. Harsco operates in 54 countries and employs approximately 19,000 people worldwide. The company provides industrial services and engineered products that serve some of the world’s largest and most...

. BMY management had been looking for a secondary product line to fill in slow periods between military truck orders. Several Wayne products were produced and sold between 1993 and 1995 under the brand name Wayne Wheeled Vehicles (WWV) at the BMY plant in Marysville, Ohio

Marysville, Ohio

Marysville is a city in and the county seat of Union County, Ohio, United States. The population was 15,942 at the 2000 census, and the Census Bureau estimated that it had risen to 17,621 by 2006.Marysville's longtime slogan is "Where the Grass is Greener"...

RD 9000: Ahead of its time

In 1995, WWV unveiled a prototype of an all-new transit-style school bus called the Wayne RD 9000, featuring many innovations never before seen in school buses. However, between several lost bids for more military trucks and questionable profitability of the WWV production, BMY shut down completely and closed the Marysville plant in 1995. The RD 9000 never entered mass production. Most of its groundbreaking features were eventually adopted by the other school bus builders, but not until 5–10 years later.

Crown by Carpenter

See Also: Crown By Carpenter

In 1991, Carpenter Industries (formerly Carpenter Body Works

Carpenter Body Company

) of Mitchell, Indiana

Mitchell, Indiana

Mitchell is a city in Lawrence County, Indiana, United States. The population was 4,567 as of the 2000 census.It is the birthplace of astronaut Gus Grissom, who flew on Liberty Bell 7, Gemini 3, and died in a launch pad fire at Kennedy Space Center in 1967....

purchased the tooling and product rights of Crown Coach Corporation

Crown Coach Corporation

, a recently defunct U.S. bus builder in California. Around 1995, Carpenter leased the former Wayne plant at Richmond, and moved from its aged facilities in Mitchell, Indiana. At this "new" location, Carpenter had the notable asset of an experienced team. Both the leadership and workforce based at Richmond included a number of veterans of the former Wayne operations there. As such, they brought considerable experience and knowledge of the plant and industry to the effort. Nevertheless, major outside forces still to be faced were a supply of suitable chassis and the overcapacity of the body industry.

At the former Wayne plant, the company began producing the full Carpenter product line under the Crown by Carpenter brand name. In adapting to the equipment at the Richmond plant, a change to the local techniques of welding the roof joints from the procedures used at Mitchell would later prove vital in limiting the number roof older Carpenter products which may have contained a crucial structural flaw. But that situation was not envisioned by anyone then and would only become an issue many years in the future. In an effort to diversify their product line, Carpenter introduced a delivery truck

Multi-Stop truck

loosely based on one of their school bus models.

In 1998, Carpenter was acquired by one of its largest chassis suppliers, Spartan Motors

Spartan Motors

Spartan Motors, Inc. is an engineering firm and manufacturer of custom-designed motor vehicle chassis and bodies. The company is based in Charlotte, Michigan with 870 employees and a net profit margin of 2.42% . It was started in 1976 by Charles Robert McManamey and a group of individuals whose...

of Charlotte, Michigan

Charlotte, Michigan

Charlotte is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 9,074. It is the county seat of Eaton County....

. Spartan Motors was a chassis supplier known for high-margin, low-volume markets like chassis for fire apparatus and luxury motorhomes (Spartan was a supplier for certain models of the Blue Bird Wanderlodge

Blue Bird Wanderlodge

Wanderlodge is a high end brand of Class A motorhome recreational vehicle that was built by Blue Bird Body Company now Blue Bird Corporation in Fort Valley, Georgia, from about 1963 until 2009. Production started with a gas powered forward control model and expanded to include larger diesel...

, for example). During the economic times around the millennium, lower initial capital costs for school buses seemed to trump their longevity. When it was time for purchasing decisions, financially pressed districts and contractors tended to select cheaper products with short life cycles. This was much the same dilemma faced by Wayne Wheeled Vehicles parent company Harsco-BMY

Harsco Corporation

, where a lesser quantity of higher quality products (at a correspondingly higher price) had also been the plant's historical output.

Carpenter had been struggling for almost 20 years when it too finally ended school bus production in 2001. Spartan, by then a ⅔ owner, did not see a solution to the market dilemma and felt the projected continued losses would exceed the value to their business plan, voting to end the venture.

Future of the Plant

The former Wayne Corporation plant, after standing idle for a number of years, was purchased by a group of investors in 2005 with the intention of using the plant and surrounding property for a business park. The investors intended to use the large plant to house a number of smaller companies, rather than looking for a single, large corporation. At the end of 2006, the property along Interstate 70

Interstate 70

was becoming re-utilized for a number of retail and industrial enterprises. Included was construction of new retail businesses such as restaurants and service stations near the busy Interstate highway exit which had been known for over 25 years for the massive bus factory and acres of yellow school buses and chassis of Wayne Corporation.

Products

Wayne Papoose school bus (1971–1973)
Wayne Lifeguard
Wayne Lifeguard
The Wayne Lifeguard is a type C school bus built by Wayne Corporation, introduced in 1973. Produced until Wayne Corporation declared bankruptcy and was liquidated in late 1992, the Lifeguard was also produced by successor Wayne Wheeled Vehicles until their closure in 1995...

school bus (1973–1995)
Wayne Busette school bus (1973–1990)
Wayne Transette bus
Wayne Transette XT bus
Wayne Chaperone school bus (1985–1995)
Wayne Chaperone II school bus (1985–1995)
Wayne Lifestar
Wayne Lifestar
The Wayne Lifestar is a front-engine transit-style school bus produced by Wayne Corporation and its successor Wayne Wheeled Vehicles. It was introduced in 1986 and production continued until the demise of Wayne Wheeled Vehicles in 1995.-Overview:...

school bus (1986–1995)
Wayne RD 9000 school bus (1995 prototype only; never mass produced)

Wayne Corporation Timeline

Bus Type

1970s

1980s

1990s

'70

'71

'72

'73

'74

'75

'76

'77

'78

'79

'80

'81

'82

'83

'84

'85

'86

'87

'88

'89

'90

'91

'92

'93

'94

'95

Type A

Busette

Chaperone/Chaperone II

Type B

Papoose

Type C

Conventional

Lifeguard

Type D

Lifestar

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.