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Bus Maintenance and Repair

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 The Vehicle Maintenance Department operates five full-service garage facilities within the Transportation Bus Yards. These garages perform all facets of heavy duty vehicle repair, and maintenance. This includes diagnostics, brakes, transmissions, and complete diesel engine rebuilding.

  In 1956 the newly formed Clark County School District started the first bus yard at the Monroe Robertson Transportation Center with one technician working out of a small shed located on the north end of the property. Most of the buses at this time were manufactured by the Bluebird Body Company and powered by Ford gasoline engines with air-assisted steering. The first diesel equipped buses for school uses were introduced into the fleet in 1977. These were Thomas Built Buses with a 3208 Caterpillar V8 engine or an 1160 Caterpillar V8 engine.

1983 - The District purchased its first Type B school buses, the Bluebird Minibird equipped with a 6.2 liter General Motors diesel engine. Four to five of these buses were retrofitted with the first air conditioning systems on a bus for CCSD.

1985 - The District began outfitting its Type D Bluebird All American buses, which were powered by a Detroit Diesel 8.2 liter-diesel engine, with an air conditioning system that was powered by a separate Kubota 4 cylinder diesel engine which was mounted on the side of the bus underneath the floorboards. This system could be run and cool the bus without the main bus engine running. All future buses would be purchased with factory-installed air conditioning.

1987 - Disc brake systems were first introduced on District school buses. These were manufactured by Kelsey-Hayes and were eliminated after three years due to excessive maintenance and costs.

1990 - The first Bluebird All American buses were purchased with the Cummins 5.9 liter in-line six cylinder diesel engines. Also, all Transportation yards were equipped with GasBoy fuel dispensing systems. This used a pre-programmed “fuel card” to obtain fuel. The system read a unique card for each vehicle to track fuel usage electronically.

1996 - The first “Rear Engine” buses were purchased from Thomas Built Buses, the Saf-T-Liner MVP. These were also equipped with the Cummins 5.9 liter diesel engines. The rear engine bus proved to be a very popular configuration and would become the standard for all future General Education bus purchases. The majority of the bus fleet was purchased from Thomas Built Bus.

1997 - The new Thomas Built Buses were equipped with the larger, more powerful Cummins 8.3 liter engines. This would remain the standard engine configuration until 2005.

2005 – All new Thomas Built Buses came equipped with the Caterpillar C7 diesel engine.

2008 – All new Thomas Built Buses came equipped with a Mecedes Benz MB 928 diesel engine. This was due to Daimler becoming the parent company of Thomas Built Bus. The District purchased 14 Bluebird 80 passenger buses to evaluate. They were equipped with the Caterpillar C7 engine.

2009 – The District purchased 45 Bluebird Type C conventional buses for Special Needs routes. These buses were equipped with the Caterpillar C7 ACERT engine. This was the last year that any District bus would be equipped with a Caterpillar engine. Caterpillar subsequently ceased production of its “On Highway” engines.

2010 – present – Bluebird and Thomas are the winning bidders to provide buses to the District. Bluebird provides the Special Needs Type C conventional buses equipped with the new Cummins ISB 6.7 liter engine and Thomas Built Bus provides the General Education Type D buses equipped with the new Cummins ISL 8.3 liter engine. Both engines meet the new EPA 2010 emission standards.

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The White Fleet is composed of District vehicles other than school buses. The white fleet has 1,223 vehicles consisting of passenger vans, sedans, small utility vehicles, trucks (small and large), specialty vehicles and electric carts, mowers, and forklifts. These vehicles are utilized by departments in the District, such as Facilities/Maintenance, School Police, and Food Service.

Driver Training
and Bus Safety

Types of Buses
and Uses

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