A bruck (blended from the words bus and truck) is a type of bus or coach built to combine goods and passenger transport where it is most profitable or most convenient compared to separate vehicles. The word bruck was used in North America. In Australia they were known as passenger-freighters. In Europe they are known as Kombinationsbus (German), seka-auto (Finnish), kombibuss (Norwegian) and godsbuss (Swedish), with even the nickname skvader. They have for practical reasons mostly been built on front- or mid-engined chassis. In North America and Australia this type of bus was introduced in the late 1940s as a replacement for unprofitable railway lines, while in Europe they have been around since the first buses.
Concept
A bus of this type is different from an ordinary bus, in that it has a separate cargo compartment that can be either closed or open air, and is by specification built for carrying goods in route traffic.
When the first automobiles were put into route traffic in rural areas, in many places they often took both passengers and cargo, including the mail. Many routes differentiated into separate routes using separate vehicles for every purpose, but some remained multi-purpose routes. Very few are still operating this way. As buses started to be built on truck chassis and later on purpose-built bus chassis, this type of route needed a vehicle with the characteristics of a bruck. The first ones had open air cargo compartments for easy loading and unloading. Later models would feature a canvas roof, wooden cargo boxes, or have the cargo compartment integrated into the bus body. As demands for cargo and passenger transport varied, some buses had only a small cargo compartment, while others were more or less built as a crew-cab truck offering only a few passenger seats. From the early 1980s, cantilever tail lifts have become standard equipment on brucks, making loading and unloading a one-man operation. From the 1990s the cargo compartments have gradually become more boxy and taller than the rest of the bus for maximum capacity.
In general, most brucks have been front- or mid-engined to make best possible use of the cargo space in the rear end, and to make loading height as low as possible, in addition to a better weight distribution. In the Nordic countries front-engined chassis from Volvo and Scania were the most common, while many were built on Mercedes-Benz and DAF chassis too. When the front-engined chassis models disappeared from the European market in the early 1980s, mid-engined chassis from Volvo and DAF became the usual choice. A few were also built on rear-engined chassis from Scania, including some tall doubledeckers in Sweden being bodied by Helmark Carosseri and Van Hool. DAF stopped making mid-engined chassis in mid-1990s, so from then on brucks were almost exclusively built on Volvo chassis. With bus manufacturers taking over manufacturing of both chassis and body, the Volvo 9700 became the most common bruck model in the 2000s. Since Volvo also stopped making mid-engined chassis in late 2009, the production of brucks has dropped. Only around 40 rear-engined brucks have been delivered to Sweden since then. As of March 2015, the last known brucks were delivered to Swedish operator Bergvalls Busstrafik in June 2014.
Reuse
Brucks are often quite popular on the second hand market, as their unique construction is handy for many different uses. In unconverted form, they can be used by charitable organizations, as band buses, for touring theatre troops, or any group of people needing space for heavy and voluminous luggage. In converted form they are popular for motorsports, where one can use it as a mobile garage. They are also popular to convert to mobile homes, with enough luggage space for most people. They can also be converted to transport horses.
History
North America
Canada
The first brucks in North America were introduced in Canada by Western Flyer Coach in 1943. This is also where the word bruck comes from. The company built both new brucks, and some were rebuilt from other buses, for Canadian Coachways, who operated a number of these in the far north. They had a storage compartment accessible from the outside by a rear door, replacing the last rows of seats.
United States
In the United States, the brucks were introduced in 1951, when Kenworth built a tri-axle one for Northern Pacific Railroad, which had a front part for 17 passengers and a taller, 18 ft long cargo compartment and a 136 hp Hall-Scott engine. Brucks were also available from Crown Coach, both as a 40 ft tri-axle carrying 20 passengers and with a 20 ft cargo compartment, or as a shorter 35 ft two-axle with 12 seats.