Уэйне Корпорейшн: История Американского Автобусного Производителя

Defunct American bus manufacturer

The Wayne Corporation was an American manufacturer of buses and other vehicles under the "Wayne" marque. The corporate headquarters were in Richmond, Indiana, in Wayne County, Indiana. During the middle 20th century, Wayne served as a leading producer of school buses in North America. Among innovations introduced by the company were the first application of cutaway van chassis for a school bus and an improvement in structural integrity in bus body construction, involving the use of continuous longitudinal panels to reduce body joints; the design change happened before federal standards required stronger body structures in school buses. After 1980, Wayne faced difficulty competing in a market with overcapacity. Declaring bankruptcy, the company discontinued operations in 1992 and its assets were liquidated. Later in 1992, the Wayne brand was reorganized as Wayne Wheeled Vehicles, doing business through 1995.

Wayne is a name in school transportation that predates the familiar yellow school bus seen all over the United States and Canada. Beginning in the 19th century, craftsmen in Richmond, Indiana at Wayne Works and its successors built horse drawn vehicles, including kid hacks, evolving into automobiles and virtually all types of bus bodies during the 20th century. Wayne products eventually included school buses, transit buses, highway coaches, military and shuttle buses, ambulances and even huge bus bodies pulled by tractor trailers used to haul oil field workers in the Middle East. Among many innovations, Wayne pioneered the side mounted guard rails of modern school buses, inboard wheelchair lifts, and 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, the Wayne Busette, a body design that would set a precedent for small school bus design, more than 40 years after its introduction. The crowning safety achievement was the "Wayne Lifeguard" structural body design introduced in 1973, which featured continuous interior and exterior longitudinal panels. The body design helped pave the way for 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. Through nearly 160 years of existence, Wayne went through several ownership and name changes. From 1955 to 1975 alone, the business underwent periods under the ownership of Divco (as "Divco Wayne"), Boise Cascade, "Indian Head, Inc.", and the Thyssen Bornemisza Group. In 1967, Wayne opened the largest school bus manufacturing facility in the United States; adjacent to Interstate 70, the factory became a familiar landmark to millions of travelers. During the 1980s, the company struggled against an industry downturn fueled by overcapacity and a difficult market cycle. Following millions of dollars of losses, Wayne Corporation declared bankruptcy in 1992. During the 1990s, Wayne was briefly reorganized as Wayne Wheeled Vehicles, with the Richmond factory utilized by rival manufacturer Carpenter, building school buses from 1996 until its closure in 2000.

The ultimate beginning of Wayne Corporation traces back to 1837 in Dublin, Indiana, as the Witt family set up a foundry. Alongside the initial manufacturing of stoves, the foundry expanded its manufacturing to farm implements. In 1956, Newton Glekel began negotiations with Divco to undergo a merger with Wayne Works. After having inspected the Richmond factory for a potential 1949 sale, the New York based investor retained interest. At the time in the United States, Wayne controlled a 25% share of school bus manufacturing with Miller Meteor controlling a 50% share of professional car manufacturing.

The professional car (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 ambulances, funeral cars (hearses, flower cars, service cars), limousines, or combination cars, vehicles specially built to combine multiple functions (hearse ambulances, sedan ambulances or invalid coaches). From the 1930s to the 1970s, a common starting point for such vehicles was the Cadillac Commercial Chassis (or similar vehicles); using a heavy duty frame, the vehicle was a bare chassis aft of the dashboard, leaving all exterior and interior bodywork to be completed by coachbuilders (much of the vehicle was completed by hand). Divco Wayne Corporation acquired two professional car manufacturers, Miller Meteor and Cotner Bevington; both companies produced funeral cars and ambulances.

Wayne Works purchased Meteor Motor Car Company in Piqua, Ohio in 1954. Meteor built professional cars, such as limousines and ambulances.

Divco Wayne acquired Cotner Bevington Coach Company (C B) in 1965, making it a subsidiary of Wayne Corporation. A rear engine design, the RD 9000 featured significant advances and innovations, improving usage for both driving and servicing the vehicle. By moving to the Wayne facilities, Carpenter had the asset of combining its own team with former Wayne Corporation employees. 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. For 1996 production, Carpenter unveiled extensive changes to its body design. The body structure was strengthened with single piece roof bows and full length exterior lower guard rails; new welding procedures (allowed by the newer equipment at the Richmond factory) strengthened roof joints (without a crucial structural flaw later found in Mitchell produced buses). The tooling from the Wayne factory also provided some components to update the body, with the Wayne Lifeguard donating its windshield, driver control panel, and entry door for the redesigned Carpenter body. Though retaining its official corporate name, Carpenter considered the transformation of its bus line so extensive that it changed its branding to Crown by Carpenter. Resurrecting the first half of the Crown Coach name, the company introduced a revised version of a Crown Coach emblem introduced in the late 1980s. In an effort to further diversify its product line outside of school buses, the company introduced a delivery truck loosely based on its Cadet bus products. Facing a similar market situation as Wayne did at the beginning of the decade, Carpenter continued to struggle for market share through the end of the 1990s, leading to its closure. In 1998, the company was acquired by Michigan based Spartan Motors, one of its largest chassis suppliers. In a similar situation, AmTran and Thomas Built Buses were acquired by Navistar and Freightliner, respectively. At the end of the 1990s, lower initial capital costs for school buses began to trump their longevity; when it was time for purchasing decisions, financially pressed districts and contractors tended to select cheaper products with shorter life cycles. After 1999, Carpenter retired the Crown name and its small bus lines. In another redesign of the body, Carpenter kept the Wayne Lifeguard entry door; while the windshield was redesigned, the dashboard of the Lifeguard was adopted nearly in its entirety. In early 2001, majority owner Spartan Motors (holding a ⅔ stake) did not see any potential return on any further investments made on the company, voting to end the venture.

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 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.