Bruck (vehicle)

In Europe they are known as Kombinationsbus (German), seka-auto (Finnish), kombibuss (Norwegian) and godsbuss (Swedish), with even the nickname skvader.

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.

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.

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.

A few were also built on rear-engined chassis from Scania, including some 4.2-metre (14 ft) tall doubledeckers in Sweden being bodied by Helmark Carosseri and Van Hool.

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.

The company built both new brucks, and some were rebuilt from other buses, for Canadian Coachways,[2] who operated a number of these in the far north.

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.

Unlike other types of brucks, it had sideways-mounted folding seats so that the same space could be used for either cargo or passengers, and probably a combination too.

The service is however operated with conventional buses with underfloor luggage compartments and with trailers, so they have technically little in common with actual brucks.

The manual loading and unloading of milk churns was one of the main reasons for an open air compartment, and when this was not a factor anymore, brucks started to become more like the modern versions.

Today only one Finnish bus operator, the Rovaniemi-based Gold Line (subsidiary of Koiviston Auto), use modern type brucks with tail lift in route traffic.

With the exception of highly populated areas around Oslo, including areas where railway lines had been built in the late 19th century, brucks could be found in most of the country up to the 1980s, when standardised buses started to become more common, and the costly brucks were considered ineffective.

The largest population of brucks in the world has most likely always been and still is in Sweden, where they are still used on many long distance routes in the northern parts of the country.

[9] Sending of packets and goods with brucks in Sweden is organised through the brand Bussgods, where both private customers and business customers can send different types of letters and packets or larger types of cargo by bus throughout the entire country.