Federal Coach To Close Doors
By Ben Boulden
Times Record · [email protected]
Saturday, December 19, 2009 11:42 AM CST

Federal Coach, a manufacturer of funeral hearses, limousines and buses, will shut down its Fort Smith plant permanently in the spring, eliminating 140 jobs.

It will lay off the first workers March 12 and vacate the plant before June 30 when its lease expires, said Bill Flint, vice president of sales and marketing for the J.B. Poindexter & Co. Specialty Vehicles Group. Poindexter & Co. is the parent company of Federal Coach.

“Federal Coach has been experiencing a significant downturn in business,” Eric Yeager, company vice president, wrote in a Dec. 11 letter to Fort Smith Mayor Ray Baker. “We have decided to combine certain of our lines currently being manufactured in Fort Smith, to plants in other locations. As a result, the company will be forced to engage in significant layoffs and ultimately to close its facility in Fort Smith.”

The letter was contained in a file of documents given to the Fort Smith Board of Directors in advance of their regular meeting and released to media.

Flint said the Federal Coach bus line has been sold to Starcraft in Goshen, Ind., and equipment that is part of the sale will be moved there.

The Federal Coach brand of funeral hearses will continue to be marketed, but the vehicles will be manufactured at Poindexter’s Eagle Coach plant in Amelia, Ohio.

Bus sales had declined to the point that it just made sense to sell the line to Starcraft, said Flint.

He said cremations and their increasing popularity have diminished the need and demand for hearses.

Starcraft conducted interviews with some of the employees in the Fort Smith plant to see if they had any interest in relocating to Indiana and no one was, said Flint.

Closing of the facility will mark the end of a long chapter in local history.

The first stretch limousine in the United States was created by a Fort Smith coach company called Armbruster, which merged with Stageway Coaches to become Armbruster-Stageway in 1962, according to information from Black Tie Limousine & Shuttle Service.

The merged company was sold to Federal Coach in the late 1980s.

Cheaper to manifacture in Indiana than Arkansas?

Well, I know when I die I want to be cremated for this simple reason-If the world is still here by that point, I don't want some scientist digging me up in 3000 years like they do to the Egyptian mummies. The Egyptians were buried in that manner because of their religious beliefs. Muslim, Christian, Jew, Athiest or other, out of respect for religious and personal beliefs in general we need to let the dead stay in their resting place,

LOL, when I first read the thread's title, I thought it meant it was becoming popular to be cremated with your AR!

So did I

I want to be cremated as well. I don't want to rise from the grave and kill people.

Burn me and flush my ashes down the toilet.  I don't understand our traditions of dealing with the dead.  Waist relestate or mantle space, doesn't make a lick of sense to me.

Exactly... official cemetaries are the ultimate suburban sprawl.  Nonproductive and you can rarely if ever do anything with the land again.

Sounds like he just got burnt out.

also considered a pun on the term "Burn!"

It's a dying business

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

Fuck cremation. I will be maggot food.

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I did a case a few years ago where a cemetery was allegedly double stacking graves and selling premium plots then dumping bodies into other graves in unmarked areas.

We got court orders to open 3 graves and verify the decendents...I had to video and photo the openings.

My orders are YOU BURN MY ASS when my time comes...and BTW, don't waste money on a premium casket. Save your money for the best seal you can find.

Donate your body to the Body Farm at the U of Tenn.

 Funerals are a huge expense. People are going to cut back in tough times.

Naw im going over the top.

of the Himalayas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial