By Dave Millhouser
Those of you intrepid enough to follow this column won’t be surprised to hear that my bus career had humble beginnings.
After successfully learning to sweep a bus and graduating to “mechanic’s helper,” I found myself lying on a piece of cardboard under a Brill parked on a gravel driveway. It was luxury cardboard (corrugated). It served as a creeper, while my boss and I installed a rebuilt head on the Hall-Scott pancake engine. (Okay, he installed, I handed tools).
The cardboard was, literally, our maintenance facility.
A couple of years later, I had advanced to working on a PD4104 in a 25-foot garage. For the uninitiated, a 4104 is 35 feet long, so we parked the end that needed repairs inside and draped a canvas tarp over the other end in the winter. The improved facility greatly enhanced efficiency. You worked fast, or you froze.
In 1980, as a newly minted bus salesman, I wandered in the garage door of a prominent Massachusetts operator. A sign hung from the ceiling stating, in bold letters, “NO EAGLES.” This didn’t bode well, because I sold Eagles. Turned out that parts of the building had ducts hanging low enough that an Eagle wouldn’t fit. Best guess is they learned the hard way to be careful about accommodating coach height.
That same year I called on a New York customer who had a crystal chandelier hanging in the wash bay. Talk about your luxury maintenance facility.
We are meandering towards a Goldilocks moment here. Porridge shouldn’t be too hot, or too cold, but just right. Garage size is like porridge—not too small, not too big. (Work with me here; good similes are hard to find.)
If you have too much building (or invest heavily in amenities and equipment that isn’t important) you’ve committed capital to space and stuff that doesn’t make you money. A maintenance facility is a tool, not a fashion statement.
On the other hand, you need enough space and equipment for your people to work safely, comfortably and efficiently. It never hurts to have a facility that impresses—and makes life better for—your safety inspectors. If your business is growing, that somehow has to fit into your thinking.
One small operator refused to buy 45-foot buses, because he had a 43-foot garage. Obviously he didn’t know about tarps.
He struggled to compete in a market that increasingly demanded bigger buses. Salvation came in the form of a blizzard that flattened part of his maintenance facility, and he rebuilt it large enough to accommodate 45-foot coaches. This is the meteorological method of business planning.
It’s important to strike a balance between a facility that is safe and efficient for your staff, that you’re proud to show customers, and one that is, as Texans say, “All hat, no cattle.” If you buy too many buses, you can sell some, but investing in too much building is a more difficult problem to remedy.
Dollars spent on “show” aren’t available to buy buses or pay bills. One of the most luxurious shops I ever saw belonged to a company that failed years ago, eaten up by overhead.
Speaking of overhead, the chandelier in the wash bay had been part of the building when my New York friends purchased it. While it gave the facility a refined look, they figured out that it needed to go, and sold it. They continue to thrive in a competitive market.
When my mechanical career advanced to the point where we had a pit, it was wonderful. I’ve never understood why being “in the pits” is a bad thing.
