Thomas Built Buses
Thomas Built Buses, Inc. is an American bus manufacturer. Best known for its production of yellow school buses, Thomas produces other bus designs for a variety of usages. Currently, its production is concentrated on school buses and activity buses, along with their commercial derivatives.
Founded in 1916 as Perley A. Thomas Car Works, the company was renamed in 1972 to better represent its primary product lines. Headquartered since 1916 in High Point, North Carolina, Thomas has been a subsidiary of Daimler Trucks North America since 1998. Prior to its acquisition, the company was operated by the Perley A. Thomas family, the final major school bus manufacturer operated under family control.
Since 1936, Thomas has produced school buses in High Point, North Carolina. In addition to bus bodies, the company also produces vehicle chassis for its Saf-T-Liner/Transit Liner EFX2 and HDX2 buses.
History
Foundation
The oldest surviving school bus manufacturer in North America, Thomas Built Buses traces its roots to 1916. Following the closure of streetcar manufacturer Southern Car Company, Perley A. Thomas founded a company specializing in fireplace mantels and home furnishings. In the summer of 1916, Thomas shifted from furniture to streetcar construction, as he secured a contract to enclose existing streetcars in Charlotte, North Carolina, renovating them in a car barn.In the summer of 1916, Thomas Car Works was founded; with a $6,000 loan, Thomas acquired the equipment of Southern Car Works at an auction, opening an assembly facility in a former ice manufacturing plant in High Point. During 1917, the company renovated 9 streetcars for the United States Navy in Mobile, Alabama, and for the city of Montgomery, Alabama.
1918 marked several milestones for the company, as Thomas Car Works began the production of brand-new streetcars; 25 were produced. All-steel bodies were produced by the company for the first time, quickly overtaking wooden designs. At the end of 1918, the company began the construction on a larger factory, a 30-acre facility outside of High Point allowing for both construction and repair of streetcars.
1920s
While best known from their use in New Orleans, Perley Thomas streetcars produced during the 1920s would also be utilized by communities across the United States, including Charlotte, NC; Chicago, IL; Detroit, MI; Miami, FL; Mobile, AL; New York City; Philadelphia, PA; Washington, DC, and exported as well, with Havana, Cuba as a user.In total, Thomas Car Works produced approximately 400 streetcars from 1918 to 1930; at its peak, the company was the fourth-largest manufacturer of streetcars in the United States.
New Orleans streetcars
In 1921, Thomas Car Works secured its largest order for streetcars. In New Orleans, NOPSI decided to standardize their streetcar fleet upon 150 Thomas-designed streetcars, delivered from 1921 to 1924. Unable to fill the massive order on their own, Thomas subcontracted a portion to Philadelphia-based competitor J. G. Brill.In September 1922, after Thomas delivered 25 streetcars to NOPSI, the High Point factory was destroyed by fire, causing $225,000 in damage and destroying 14 streetcars under construction. Following the fire, Perley Thomas secured a $100,000 advance from NOPSI, rebuilding the factory and securing parts to build 55 more streetcars; 25 more were completed by the end of 1923.
As of 2020, the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority operates 35 Perley Thomas 900-series streetcars in active daily use ; the streetcars date from 1923 and 1924.
1930s
In 1930, Thomas Car Works was reincorporated as a stock company, with Perley Thomas making his family stockholders in Perley A. Thomas Car Works, Inc. For the last time, the company received an order for streetcars, producing 4 for Mobile, Alabama. While rail-based streetcars offered higher capacity, for public transit, automotive-based buses grew in popularity as they offered a greater degree of routing flexibility. In a transition away from streetcars, Perley Thomas produced its first trolley bus in 1933; while still drawing power from overhead wires, a trolley bus was constructed from a bus chassis; the company ultimately built a total of only two trolley buses, for Greensboro, North Carolina. For 1934, the company produced 10 transit buses for South Carolina-based Duke Power.Following the collapse of its primary source of revenue, Thomas Car Works diversified its work, expanding into automotive refinishing and construction of bus and truck bodies. From 1929 to 1934, the company workforce decreased from 125 to nearly 10. Eventually, a company creditor filed for receivership, with the lack of potential buyers allowing for the survival of the company.
Transition to bus construction
In 1936, Thomas Car Works secured part of a bid to produce 500 school bus bodies for North Carolina. As the company was only financially able to acquire materials for 200 bodies, North Carolina split the bid between Thomas and Hackney Brothers. Dependent on length, Thomas offered wood-bodied school buses for $195 to $225. Following the completion of its second school bus bid in 1937, the company focused nearly all production on school bus bodies. In what is a long tradition that continues to the present day, Thomas remains the primary supplier of school buses to North Carolina.In 1938, several major innovations were introduced by the company to its school bus design, including its first steel-bodied school bus. While Perley Thomas streetcars had adopted steel construction in 1918, school bus design had slowly evolved from farm wagons, with wooden body construction continuing into the 1930s. Although not the first to construct an all-steel body, Thomas introduced one-piece roof bows, internal roll bars welded to each side of the floor/frame structure. While the design has been updated for added strength, the one-piece roof bow is in use in all school buses manufactured in North America today. In another innovation, Thomas introduced an outward-opening entry door, designed to aid egress in emergency evacuation situations.
1940s
In 1940, day-to-day operation of Thomas Car Works was turned over from Perley Thomas to his three children. John W. Thomas managed company operations along with sales, along with James Thomas handling the High Point factory. Following the outbreak of World War II, as with its competitors, Thomas bus production was shifted towards the armed forces. In a contract shared with Ward Body Works, Thomas also produced various bodies for the GMC CCKW truck.While the war had brought school bus production to a halt, the High Point factory remained utilized in civilian capacity. To supplement its armed forces production, Thomas Car Works was put to use by refurbishing streetcars. As rationing had placed increased demands on public transportation, the upkeep of existing equipment was considered a priority.
Following World War II, with a rise in student populations, Thomas Car Works began to expand its sales market beyond the South, opening dealerships across the eastern half of the United States. To better weatherproof its entry door, the company developed a reinforced rubber-covered door hinge; the rubber also covered the gap between the two door panels as they closed.
After World War II, a third generation of the family joined the company, with John W. Thomas Jr. and Perley Thomas II, with the former becoming director of sales and the latter taking over control of government contracts.
1950s
During the decade, Thomas Car Works began exports of its product lines, establishing satellite facilities in Ecuador and Peru. From North Carolina, bodies were shipped to South America in CKD form for final assembly on locally sourced chassis.In 1957, the Thomas Saf-T-Liner name made its first appearance, denoting updated bus bodies. Used full-time by 1972, the name remains in use for all full-size Thomas buses over 60 years later.
Company founder Perley Thomas died in 1958 at the age of 84; at the time of his death, Thomas retained his title of company president and also actively served as a design consultant.
1960s
In 1962, Thomas Car Works officially expanded its production beyond High Point as Thomas Built Buses of Canada, Ltd. was established in Woodstock, Ontario. At the time, the company became the third-largest producer of school buses in the United States.To demonstrate the strength of its internal roof bows, Thomas stacked a full-size school bus on the roof of another in 1964; the company has subsequently repeated the demonstration several times using more recent product lines.
For 1967, to reduce blind spots in front of the bus, Thomas developed a convex blind-spot mirror. Initially mandated in North Carolina, the device would be adopted by 16 other states in only two years. In various forms, blind-spot mirrors are currently required on all school buses in North America.
1970s
In the early 1970s, Thomas underwent a number of major transitions in company leadership and market positioning. Company president John W. Thomas died in 1972, giving leadership to his brother James Thomas, who retired within a year. A third generation of the Thomas family assumed control of the company leadership, with John Thomas Jr. and Perley Thomas II.As Thomas Car Works had ended its involvement with streetcars since World War II, the new generation of company leaders chose a new name for the company tied closer to its current product lines; in 1972, Perley A. Thomas Car Works was renamed Thomas Built Buses, Inc.
Expanded school buses
Since producing its first school bus in 1936, virtually all Thomas school bus bodies had been produced in the "conventional" style: a body mated to a cowled truck chassis. While the design was the most popular configuration, the transit-style configuration allowed for a higher passenger capacity. In the early 1970s, Thomas developed the Saf-T-Liner ER as an alternative to the Blue Bird All American. In line with other body manufacturers, Thomas was dependent on a second-party manufacturer for rear-engine chassis.In the early 1970s Thomas Built Buses introduced the first of its "Mighty Mite" series of buses and were the smallest conventional bus ever produced by Thomas. Most were built on Dodge D300 chassis but when production of this series ended at the main plant in High Point, NC, production was moved to Hamilton, Ontario and the Canadian built Mighty Mites used modified International Harvester Loadstar chassis.
For 1972, the Saf-T-Liner body underwent a major redesign. Along with extending the rub rails completely around the body, the front and rear roof caps were flattened, and the windshield was enlarged. Following the addition of safety upgrades to comply with safety mandates in 1977, the Saf-T-Liner body saw use in the Conventional through the end of 2006; in modified form, it remains in use with the EFX and HDX. At the smaller end of the size scale, the Saf-T-Liner body was resized to produce the Mighty Mite, a narrow-body school bus on a shorter-wheelbase conventional chassis.
In 1977, Thomas made a major change to the production of the Saf-T-Liner ER. Coinciding with a design update, Thomas introduced a company-sourced chassis, along with the front-engine Saf-T-Liner EF. With the introduction of the EF, Thomas became the first school bus manufacturer to produce its own chassis for both front and rear-engine school buses, ahead of Blue Bird by a decade. As a competitor to the Blue Bird Mini Bird and Carpenter Cadet, Thomas reintroduced the Mighty Mite as a Type B bus, a school bus body paired with a stripped chassis.