School buses

[kphoger]

All the buses everywhere look the same now. 

Not in Ohio. The Safe-T-Liners stand out. But maybe soon that'll be the only model in use. (I hope not.)

Some Saf-T-Liners are flat-faced, and others are not.  Am I right?

Honestly I can't say I've noticed that.  I'm too distracted by the fugly trapezoidal tapering of everything above the bottom of the windows.

What I mean is that not all Saf-T-Liners are trapezoidal.
For example, this is also a Saf-T-Liner:

[Billy F 1988]

One's I've seen in Missoula are Internationals and small Ford E-Series and Chevy Express based buses. Out in Frenchtown where I've grown up most of my life, there is a tiny batch of Internationals, but most of the fleet consists of Blue Bird TC's, Saf-T's, and All Americans with CAT based engines. When I first started school, they had Ward based buses. One bus sits in the barn without the front end because it was destroyed in 1995 while heading to Frenchtown High School when it was rammed by a MDT snowplow. My sister was onboard that bus and the driver ended up with abbrasions and cuts. That same bus sits there today mainly as a parts shed. I think it was a 1982-85 TC series Blue Bird. Looks kind of like this one:

[Stephane Dumas]

I saw some photoshopped pictures of what if there was some Blue Bird school bus using Hino motor and chassis with the conventionnal model.
http://www.schoolbusfleet.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7089&whichpage=3   Hino planned to do with Starcraft, a conventionnal school bus (pictures dates from 2009-10), since then no news.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.445343594527.262268.95493799527

However, in some parts of Central America, there is some flat nose Blue Bird Hino http://busexplorer.com/PHP/MidPage.php?id=1353  and Down Under in Australia, the yellow school bus got a very different design http://www.busaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=240524&sid=f46f0b6432fa83fc5212e0ebac0015ac#p240524

[realjd]

Why do some school buses have the engine under a hood while some are flat fronted? I've always wondered why the two different designs and why communities pick one over the other.

[jeffandnicole]

Why do some school buses have the engine under a hood while some are flat fronted? I've always wondered why the two different designs and why communities pick one over the other.

Depending on the school district, often times they'll put out to bid listening various specifications (# of seats, lights, signs, engine size, etc).  The manufacturers will respond with what they have that meets those requirements.  It's possible the bid may or may not include location of the engine and other parts.

[roadman]

Did school buses have restrictions on overall length at one point (like tractor-trailers used to, which is why the cab-over-engine tractor design was popular for many years)?  If so, the flat front design would allow for additional capacity.