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How many transit bus manufacturers are left ??

I know that Flxible is no more. Flyer became New Flyer. There is NABI who took over American Ikarus, Orion, and NovaBus. Does GMC still make buses or are they done ??

Also, what about rail cars. There are a limited number of manufacturers there too !!! How many of those are remaining ??

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In addition, there are Gillig and Neoplan USA. BTW, the USA and German Neoplans are not related. The German one is apparently now part of MAN, and licenses its [old] design to USA. Apparently Gillig and Neoplan USA are the only American companies. NABI and American Ikarus are not related, although they had various deals with Ikarus in Hungary. NovaBus closed its New York assembly plant after it finished the CTA order and is out of the U.S. FTA supported transit market.

There are various companies making mid-buses, but except for Eldorado National, appear to use English parts.

GM sold out in the mid 1980s to MCI (which formed TMC), which directly or indirectly sold to NovaBus, which sold the RTS to Millennium.

There was some buzz when GM claimed credit for the hybrid bus, but they only suppplied the hybrid drivetrain for a New Flyer bus.

Rail cars are foreign: Alstom, Bombardier, and whoever imports from Japan. Metra locomotives come from Motive Power of Boise, which is what's left of Morrison-Knudsen.

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I happened to find this from a September 22, 1995 FTA Bus Industry Summit, containing a speech from the President of Flxible on problems in the bus manufacturing industry (apparently very shortly before Flxible went under). Some things, like the holdback money, haven't changed in 10 years (as indicated by the dispute between CTA and NABI).

It also says what happened to Transbus.

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