Twin coach

A 1940 Seattle twin coach trolleybus (1990)

Twin Coach was an American vehicle manufacturer from Kent, Ohio that existed from 1927 to 1962. The main product of the company were omnibuses and trolleybuses , it also manufactured trucks , engines and aircraft parts. The company was founded in 1927 by the two brothers Frank and William Fageol, who had previously founded several companies in the vehicle construction sector . As in the previous companies, Frank was also significantly involved in the development of new buses, which is why the company was sometimes referred to as Fageol Twin Coach . After the Second World War, the addition Fageol was also officially used by the company. The original goal of the Twin Coach company was to manufacture and sell buses with a new type of forward control arm construction and two engines. The use of two motors gave the new type of bus after which the company was named.

history

prehistory

One of the trams built in 1915 at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition

Frank Fageol gained his first experience in vehicle construction as early as 1900 when he and his brother Rollie were building an automobile in his father's barn. In 1906 he bought an auto repair shop in Oakland, California and hired his brothers. Through this workshop, through which the Rambler brand cars were sold on the west coast, the Fageols gained notoriety in the industry. In 1914 Frank and Rollie finally founded Fageol Auto Train Inc., his first company to manufacture vehicles. For the Panama-Pacific International Exposition , which took place in San Francisco in 1915 , walkways were made to transport visitors to the exhibition grounds. In 1916 the Fageols sold the auto repair shop and Frank and William founded the Fageol Motors Company - also in Oakland - with the aim of manufacturing trucks . However, the first product was a luxury automobile, trucks and tractors did not follow until the following year.

From 1920, Frank Fageol drove the sale of trucks in the eastern United States more and more, which led to the fact that the Fageol Motors Company of Ohio was founded, based in Cleveland . Nevertheless, the first bus designed by Frank Fageol left the factory in Oakland in 1922. These vehicles, sold under the name Safety Coach , sold so well that a decision was made in 1923 to rent a factory in Kent, Ohio, to locally build bodies on the chassis made in California .

After the American Car and Foundry (ACF) and JG Brill Company bought more and more shares in Fageol Motors Company , Fageol Motors Company of Ohio and their engine supplier Hall-Scott Motor Car Company , the Fageol brothers lost power the Company. Frank Fageol resigned as vice director of the newly formed ACF company when it announced that it would move from Kent to Detroit .

Beginnings

Frank Fageol's resignation also meant that his design for a city ​​bus with two engines and 43 seats was not built by ACF. That is why Frank and William Fageol, together with Paul H. Brehm, founded the Twin Coach Company in January 1927 , named after the bus that was to be built. Twin Coach bought the vacated factory halls in Kent, Ohio from ACF as a production site, so the new company was also based in Kent. As early as August 1927, the first bus rolled out of the Fageol Motors Company's factory in Oakland. The series-built buses with the designation Model 40 offered space for 37 to 41 seated passengers. As early as September 1928, more than 300 twin coach buses were on the road for various transport companies in America. While the first buses still had engines from Waukesha Engines , in 1928 a new hall for the construction of bus engines was set up at the Hercules Engine Co. in Canton , Ohio, because Waukesha refused to adapt the engine construction for Fageol. Over time the product range was expanded: in 1929 a smaller bus with 21 seats and only one engine followed, versions with a capacity of 15 and 26 seated passengers respectively. In addition to gasoline engines, variants with propane and diesel were also available as fuel. Trolleybuses and 21  gas-electric buses were also built. In 1932, Twin Coach built a two-way bus with train wheels that could be lowered from the driver's workstation. Also in the early 1930s, delivery vans for dairy products and bakeries came into the range and became a success.

Second generation with rear engine

A Twin Coach 23-R in Toronto

In 1934 Twin Coach presented the new model 37-R with 37 seats and a transversely mounted rear engine that developed around 128 hp (94 kW). To prevent dusty air from being sucked into the passenger compartment, the air inlet for the passenger compartment was placed on the roof. The cooling air for the engine was sucked in from the roof by two fans on the sides and pushed out again. The smaller 30-R and 23-R models with 30 and 23 seats respectively followed, and the latter even built five buses with a folding fabric top for use on Santa Catalina Island in 1936 . Before the Second World War, 300 diesel-electric buses were sold to various companies in the New York City area. Based on the two-axle series vehicles, the first four-axle articulated bus , the so-called Super Twin , was created in 1938 . The vehicle, which was available both as a bus and as a trolleybus, offered space for 58 seated and up to 120 standing passengers. In contrast to today's articulated buses, the joint of the 47 foot (14.33 meter) long Super Twin could only be bent vertically. When cornering, the wheels of the last axle turned in the opposite direction to the front axle, like a trailing axle. After no orders for such vehicles were received, the diesel-electric demonstration car was sold to Cleveland , for which it was converted into a three-axle trolleybus. In 1939 the design of the twin coach buses was redesigned, including a larger windshield . Shortly afterwards, however, bus production was shut down due to the Second World War . Instead, were in the production halls of Twin Coach pontoon boats and gondolas for airships type Goodyear K class for the United States Navy built.

Aircraft Bonds

A Twin Coach 58-D Super Twin (1950) from Omaha in the Seashore Trolley Museum

In August 1946, Twin Coach was able to rent a factory in Buffalo, New York or its suburb of Cheektowaga , in which aircraft parts had previously been manufactured for Curtiss-Wright . At this location, Twin Coach primarily produced vehicles for customers in the northeastern United States. In 1946 the new generation of twin coach buses was presented, which consisted of five basic models. The range offered buses with 34 (34-S), 37 (38-S), 40 (41-S) and 44 (44-S / 44-D) seats. The longest version with 44 seats was again available as the 44-D with two engines. By default, all vehicles had with a six-cylinder gasoline engine powered, which carried with gasoline as fuel 182.5 hp and a torque converter drive the rear wheels. Further innovations in the new series were a rubber suspension from BF Goodrich , which was advertised as Torsilastic Rubber Spring Suspension , inward pivoting doors and an aluminum body and chassis. For the weight-saving riveted aluminum construction, they were inspired both technically and optically by aircraft construction. This was not only demonstrated by the round shape of the buses, but also by a poster that referred to the new large windshield with the downward sloping partial windows as the bomber nose . Believing the pre-war articulated bus concept was good, Twin Coach built another Super Twin in 1946 . This demonstration car with the designation 58-DW, originally equipped with two gasoline engines, was converted into a trolleybus in 1948 and sold to the Chicago Transit Authority . This time around , some orders came in, the US Postal Service bought one as a rolling post office, and the City of Omaha, Nebraska ordered five urban vehicles, which were added ten more buses in 1950.

A Fageol super freighter as a moving truck

New products against sales problems

While many cities still ordered new vehicles shortly after the Second World War and so there were enough orders for most bus manufacturers, Twin Coach could hardly sell any more vehicles from 1949. In contrast to 1947, in which 2,200 buses were sold, the order volume in 1949 with 420 vehicles was just a fifth and in 1950 only 30 buses were sold. General Motors buses with diesel engines , which had been on the market since the late 1930s and represented great competition, were also partly responsible for this . This led on the one hand that you turn with LPG -powered engines introduced. This promised two advantages: on the one hand, LPG was cheaper than gasoline, and on the other hand, due to the higher octane rating of the gas, the engine developed 278.8 HP instead of 182.5 HP as with the gasoline variant. Thanks to this expansion of the product range, Twin Coach was, according to its own advertising, the only bus manufacturer to offer engines for petrol, diesel and LPG. The LPG buses on offer were well received, and 751 buses were delivered again in 1951. Due to the sales problems, they were also looking for new products such as the Fageol super freighter , a truck with an integrated cabin and underfloor engine . This should offer a higher loading capacity than standard trucks and weigh less and be shorter than articulated trucks .

In 1951 the US Army placed an order for 1650 vehicles with Flxible and Twin Coach. These should be used as buses, trucks or ambulances as required. The new civilian series, called Fageoliner , was derived from the military bus designated as F-32 . However, the buses, which had a smaller capacity than their predecessors and were available with engines from Cummins , Mack and Fageol-Leyland , were not a success and only 155 copies were built.

Setting of the bus branch and name change

The Loudonville, Ohio company Flxible had previously made a name for itself building ambulances , hearses, and coaches . However, no city buses were manufactured at Flxible until September 1952, which changed when the company worked with Twin Coach to build buses for a Brazilian operator. This cooperation should enable both companies to access the capacities of the other company for larger orders. This should guarantee a faster delivery of the vehicles. The first experience with the principle had been gained a few months earlier when building buses for the US Army. But already in 1953 Twin Coach handed over the production of buses completely to Flxible, which produced buses in the twin coach design as Flxible Twin Coach until 1960 . With 900 LPG buses, the Chicago Transit Authority was the most important customer of the Flxible Twin Coach series, of which a total of 1034 were produced. For the Canadian market, twin coach buses were manufactured by Leyland Motors of Canada Ltd. in the 1950s . made in Longueuil .

Under the name Fageol Products Co. , the company continued to build engines that were sold to commercial vehicle manufacturers. A modified version of the bus engine developed by Fageol was also offered as a ship engine. The marine engine division was transferred to Crofton Mfg. Co. ceded from Los Angeles. Twin Coach itself continued to successfully manufacture parts for the Boeing B-52 in the Buffalo halls before the company was finally renamed Twin Industries in 1962 .

Bus exports

A Twin Coach / Hercules 38-SDT (1948) from the Lucerne public transport company

Twin Coach exported most of the vehicles to Canada , where a Twin Coach plant was located in Fort Erie, Ontario between 1948 and 1951 . A company called Twin Coach of Canada, Ltd. also existed during this period . in Canada, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of the American company. Most of the other exports went to South America , but vehicles also went to Cuba , Curacao , Puerto Rico , Portugal , Turkey , Switzerland , the Netherlands and the Philippines .

Distribution in Europe

After the Second World War, a total of 18 Twin Coach buses came to Europe directly from the factory:

number	Type	Serial no.	operator	Place of use	Remarks
1	34-S	692B	TAP Airlines	Lisbon (P)
2	38-SDT	1B-2B	Titan AG	Zurich (CH)	Diesel engine, demonstration vehicle sold to the Lucerne public transport company in 1953
1	41-S	278	NEDAM's Autobus Onderneming	Roermond (NL)	1953 sold to Maarse & Kroon
9	41-S	27; 279-281; 441-445	Maarse & Kroon	Aalsmeer (NL)	1958 sold to Ridderkerk
5	44-SDT	1B-5B	Lucerne public transport company	Lucerne (CH)	Diesel engine

Note: Vehicles with the letter B after the serial number were built in Buffalo, New York.

Eight Type 34-S vehicles also made it to Istanbul, and individual Twin Coach buses were also used in the Turkish cities of Izmir and Ankara .

Of the buses delivered to Europe in 2014, a 44-SDT and a 38-SDT still existed in an operational condition, a 38-SDT made it to Hungary after its deployment in Lucerne , where it was used as a reception at a campsite, this vehicle also still exists .

Later use of the name Twin Coach

In 1962, Highway Products Co. bought part of Twin Coach's former production facility to primarily manufacture delivery trucks for the US Postal Service . In 1965, they also added a 25-seater bus to their range that was marketed as a twin coach . In 1969 this was replaced by a newer model with 29 seats, which was produced until 1975. A total of around 900 twin coach buses were manufactured by Highway Products Co.

Web links

Commons : Twin Coach Vehicles  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad} Twin Coach Co. at www.coachbuilt.com
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Fageol Motors Co. at www.coachbuilt.com
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Twin-Coach catalog urban type coaches from 1947
4. ↑ ^{a b c} twin coach catalog The American Public wants to ride in coaches from 1928
5. ↑ ^{a b} Twin Coach 50 Series on www.omot.org
6. ^ Twin Coach Company bus advert, 1952 on transpressnz.blogspot.com
7. ↑ Twin Coach FL "Fageoliner" Series at www.omot.org
8. ↑ ^{a b c d} Twin Coach 41 Series at www.omot.org
9. ↑ ^{a b} Twin Coach 34 Series at www.omot.org
10. ↑ ^{a b} Twin Coach 38 Series at www.omot.org
11. ^ ^{A b} Paul F. Schneeberger: Verkehrsbetriebe der Stadt Luzern, 100 Years Tram, Autobus und Trolleybus. Minirex, Lucerne 1999, ISBN 3-907014-12-X
12. ↑ ^{a b} buses at www.vbl-historic.ch
13. ↑ ^{a b} Twin Coach Bus ( Memento of the original from September 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on www.busexplorer.com 
14. ↑ ^{a b} 1948. Twin Coach at www.sva-museumbussen.nl
15. ↑ Twin Coach 44 Series at www.omot.org
16. ↑ Faegol Twin Coach at www.oldtimerpark.hu