Eagle - The Movie - Part 4 (VTS 01 4)
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- Опубликовано: 21 авг 2024
- When Prevost started coming on strong, some of their cars became part of the Trailways system by some of their small contractors. However that didn’t sit well with management in Dallas, who thought that all Trailways cars should be Eagles.
The suburban Eagle, with the single rear axle, was soon seen on the streets.
Eagle built a second plant in Harlingen, Texas, not too far from the Brownsville plant, when they were spending money like crazy which did not help their financial situation and contributed to their downturn.
Brownsville was making a lot of money and even reengineered the A/C system and an upgraded instrument panel that was the envy of the industry. Eagle cars started to become popular for entertainer coaches and for air force bases. Around this time, Eagle was spending money like drunken sailors, which was a real concern for some people, when they should have been reinvesting it into their future.
The Eagle Model 15 was a big improvement, with even better A/C systems and with a new front cap that dressed it up significantly. This was the first full 102” wide body bus. They built a high-level entertainer coach as well as a 45’ model. They even built a 35’ bus which was used for a few conversions, but didn’t sell well for seated coaches for obvious reasons, i.e. more seats = more money, with a relatively fixed asset, a bus with a driver.
In 1987, another group purchased Greyhound and soon there were Eagles parked in front of Greyhound terminals and MCI buses were parked in front of Trailways terminals.
The Model 20 then came out but was only a 96” wide. Eagle was beginning to start their downward spiral.
Brownsville then began using inferior parts in their buses, and that came back to bite them quickly, of course. Eventually, they ended filing for bankruptcy.
A Mexican consortium then bought Eagle, and they started building buses south of the border. They also started building executive coaches which were very nice.
Love this video. DART in Dallas and Metro in Houston ran Eagles as part of their commuter fleets.
I miss the Eagle model coaches including the NJT buses
Those Eagle model 10 coaches in factory specifications are completely rare because most of them got modified but still probably living and some got scrapped
Thank you great video
Excellent info. Thanks for posting! These Eagles look amazing in the Trailways paint!👍
NJT had 114 of them Eagle Model 20 commuter coaches back then and The driver’s didn’t like them that much
Very interesting and informative. EAGLE tried but many stupid and childish attitudes caused their downfall. I think they believed that competition wasn’t as serious as they gave them credit for. On the other hand, too much brand loyalty is rather silly too.
I am retired Greyhound driver, I am 83 and drove just about every bus and coach style built up to the early 2020s, I just want to say that the Eagle. which I drove after Greyhound acquired them was the most awful vehicle to drive, I hated it as much as the MC5 which also was awful, the best I ever drove was the Prevost H3 45.
How was the Scenicruiser to drive?
back in the 60s it was the best, until the MC6 that was a head of its time
But the 50 1988 Eagle 15's that Greyhound bought after the merger were maybe the best Eagles ever built. About half were in the classic Trailways scheme and half in Greyhound colors. Best riding Eagles I've ever experienced. The bus numbers were 7901 through 7950. Oh, where are they now? 😀
One thing that Eagles did not do that MCI equipment did was lean on turns or curves in the road.