The History of School Transportation in Mercer County, WV

1991-92

Mercer County reverted to Blue Bird during the 1991-92 school year...its first large order with the company's dealer body in six years. Blue Bird would continue to be the state's foremost school bus supplier until the 2000s, when the company's competitive stature was reduced by the collusion of other body builders with chassis suppliers. This year's school buses were conspicuous by the absence of later-required safety features.

Due to the timing of Mercer County's school bus order, most of the vehicles from this batch carried 1991 VINs, same as the previous year's buses...yet were designated "1992" on the Blue Bird body plate. Model years became increasingly muddled as the 1990s progressed...and a given batch of buses could contain VINs from the current year, the next year, or even both years mixed together depending on what chassis were on hand at manufacturing time.

#471, a late 1991 Blue Bird/International, waits by the curb in this scene from the author's high school. An older 1988 Wayne (number unknown) is parked in front. Note the crossing gate, which was retrofitted to the bus in a mid-'90s safety upgrade. [PikeView High School yearbook, 2002]

The author strongly suspects that this activity bus owned by an oppressive Christian "school" near the Summers-Mercer county line was one of the 1991 Blue Bird/Internationals in Mercer County's fleet...possibly even #471, the exact same bus as the last. [Photo by the author, 2013]

1992-94

In 1992, school buses in West Virginia began to bear many new and previously-unseen safety and conspicuity features. Driver's seats gained high whiplash-resistant seatbacks with lap-and-shoulder belts. Side mirrors now consisted of flat and convex panes of equal, rectangular shape and size, and the passenger-side mirror began to be mounted further forward in order to ensure greater visibility. Reflective tape was added to side and rear flanks, and the roofcap-mounted "School Bus" signs also gained a reflective backing. Instead of having a single emergency exit per side, newly-ordered buses now came with two or three per side depending on their capacity and length. Strobe lights were added to roofs, and the lights on the stop arm were also changed to strobe rather than pulse with the flashers.

Most of these changes were motivated by the objective of collision avoidance. Even though school buses were inherently safe vehicles, their visibility was often imperilled by early-morning lighting conditions...and a not-insignificant number of collisions resulted from cars blindly careening into school buses stopped in their way. This situation was exacerbated by many schools in the state moving to earlier opening hours, resulting in more and more buses traversing the roads before the break of dawn. Strobe lights and reflective materials were effective remedies to make buses visible in dim lighting, fog, and inclement weather, and many other states and provinces later followed West Virginia's lead.

Visually, 1993 Blue Bird/International models had yellow grille emblems; 1994 had chrome. The county briefly broke away from homogeneity in this timeframe with the purchase of at least one Blue Bird/GMC CV200 bus, although its fleet number is unknown.

At left is a poorly-developed shot of #485 (a 1994 Blue Bird/International) taken on hand-rolled film for a high school photography class. At right is Cornbread Ridge Road in central Mercer County...seen through the windshield of the exact same bus. [Photos by the author on the ride home, 2000]

#488, a similar 1994 Blue Bird/International model. Note the redesigned two-piece side mirrors, with separate flat and convex lenses. [Daily Telegraph, 1998-10-30]

#489, yet another 1994 Blue Bird and a twin to the last. As of 2013 this vehicle had become the oldest bus in the district's possession, and it had already had its signage defaced in preparation for decommissioning. [Photo by the author, 2013]

1994-95

In 1993 the American Transportation Corporation, successors to Ward School Bus Manufacturing in Arkansas, rebranded their entire product line as "AmTran." Little more than a year later, Mercer County's school bus contract was awarded to a dealer of AmTran, yielding a batch of familiar-looking bus bodies bearing a new name and a host of new features: Thinner rub rails, thinner-framed doors, lighter-hued interiors, and the same roster of safety features that had premiered statewide two years before.

These school buses were the last in Mercer County to bear the "sagging" windshield that had been a characteristic feature of the Ward body design since the 1960s. These also had incredible longevity, with many of the buses in this lot being maintained for twenty years...a duration that would have been unheard of in the 1980s!

#492 served an afterlife in the fleet of River Expeditions, a whitewater tour operator in Oak Hill. Fortuitously, they left the original fleet number intact! [Photo by Ryan Dunn, 2020]

#493, one of several 1995 International/AmTran buses that lingered in the county's fleet for many years. This may have been the only one equipped with a wheelchair lift, though. [Photo by the author, 2013]

#494, a midsize 59-passenger example. All the buses in this order had a stretched first-row side window, allowing for a slightly staggered seating arrangement. [Photo by the author, 2013]

#495, identical to the previous number in the fleet. The author rode this very bus during a portion of his high school years. [Photo by the author, 2013]

#496, the longest specimen of the lot. [Photo by the author, 2013]

1995-97

Fleet numbers hit the magic "500" mark during the 1995-96 school year. Mercer County's body contract reverted to Blue Bird (via Matheny Motors of Parkersburg), and roughly thirteen buses were purchased in phases over the next two years, split between conventional and transit-style (Type D) varieties in four capacities. Buses also began to bear an asymmetrical side mirror arrangement.

#501 and #503, two identical 1996 Blue Bird All American Type D models. Note the wide entrance door and rectangular headlights that had been implemented in Blue Bird's Type D design by this point. [Colour photo by the author, 2013; Daily Telegraph, 2002-02-07]

#504, a 35-passenger 1996 Blue Bird/International. This bus remained a part of the county's fleet until the late date of October 2021...by which point it was likely the single oldest school bus still in active use in West Virginia. Conventional school buses also don't get much shorter than this! [Photos by the author, 2013]

#506, a 47-passenger model equipped with a wheelchair lift. Note that the Blue Bird roof "streamer" has been offset higher from its usual position in order to clear the wheelchair door. [Princeton High School yearbook, 1999]

#509, another 1996 conventional model of more typical 71-passenger length and proportions. At the time of photography, this bus had been waylaid by an inspection failure. [Photo by the author, 2013]

#510, one of two 89-passenger Blue Bird All American Type D buses acquired for the 1996-97 school year. In terms of appearance and specification, these were identical to the Type Ds acquired the year before. [Photo by the author, 2013]

1997-98

After spending 1995 and 1996 renewing its Type D fleet, the next seven years saw the Board of Education focus its purchase orders exclusively on conventionals. This year's Blue Bird buses were also the first to be equipped with outward-opening doors with black frames, lending a very sleek appearance to the entrance area.

Although most of the new buses that appeared in Mercer County during the 1997-98 school year bore Blue Bird bodies, an exception to this were two buses from AmTran. These vehicles were unique in several regards: First off, they were examples of AmTran's redesigned CS line with a wraparound windshield and redesigned driver's area, replacing the Ward Volunteer body design from the 1970s. The buses also had top-mounted wipers...an unusual feature that their maker abandoned as quickly as it embraced. Both had high-capacity bodies with wheelchair lifts, two qualities rarely found in combination. These were also undoubtedly the last AmTran buses in Mercer County. Both may have been used on midday routes to ferry people to and from the county's vocational technical school.

The author was surprised to stumble upon the chassis of #512 at an equipment shop north of Princeton in 2013; its original fleet number still barely visible on the bumper. What happened to the rest of it, though? [Photo by the author, 2013]

#515 and #516, two identical 1997 71-passenger Blue Bird/International models. [Photos by the author, 2013]

An identical 1997 Blue Bird, #517, served an afterlife for a number of years in the employ of an Oakvale church. [Facebook Marketplace, 2021]

#519, a 1997 AmTran/International. It's the odd bus out, being an unusual 77-passenger model with a wheelchair lift and being one of only two AmTran CS models with top-mounted wipers that ever appeared in the county's fleet. [Photos by the author, 2013]

Continued...

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©2020-23 Andrew Turnbull, exclusive of historical and submitted images.