Parkinson Coach Lines 2000 goes the distance

"Busing is my life," says Jamie Murray, owner of Parkinson Coach Lines 2000 of Brampton, Ontario. It's also been his legacy and his love. While it's not all that unusual for a motor coach company to boast three generations of family ownership, as Parkinson has, it is certainly unusual for a motor coach operator to be so enamored of his product that he decides to marry on it.

That was the scene at the 2005 United Motorcoach Expo in Las Vegas, when Murray married his longtime sweetheart, Lynn, aboard an MCI coach. The bride was already used to walking that particular aisle, having started her Parkinson career as a driver.

It wasn't the first time the Murrays bucked tradition. Back in the 1920s, the company was known for its Prohibition tours from dry Ontario to swinging, swigging Buffalo, New York. Murray likens the Prohibition tours to today's cross-border shopping runs — just part of being flexible enough to identify and meet customer needs as they arise.

But much of Parkinson's story has also been about adapting to challenges.

David Murray, Jamie's grandfather, started his business in 1922 when he worked at a factory in London, Ontario, and was chosen to drive the company bus, a wooden-wheeled 16-seater that took workers to and from work. The owner of the factory decided to divest himself of the vehicle and the responsibility. David Murray was happy to take on both. Success in London didn't last, though. The city formed a transit system that forbade private operators like David Murray from competing, so he moved to Toronto and named his new company Roseland Coach Lines. Toronto, too, eventually proved to be an anti-competitive market, and the Murrays sold their company to another transit operator. The family still had the bus bug, though, and in 1952, Jamie's father, George, bought Parkinson Coach, which at that time was running with a single bus. In honor of Harold Parkinson, who started the company in 1946, the Murrays kept the Parkinson name.

From then on, the growth was all Murray. The company started running Brampton Transit and won its first school contract in the early 1960s. Jamie's mother, Joan, spearheaded the company's move into senior tours in the 1970s. The company acquired its first new MCI coach in 1976, an MC-8.

Today, Parkinson runs a fleet of 15 coaches — all MCIs — as well as about 85 school buses as well as various mini-coaches and vans. It's expecting a new MCI® J4500 — its third — this spring. Murray is looking forward to the delivery. "So far, [the J4500] has been bulletproof," says Murray, who started his Parkinson career as an apprentice mechanic. He has been especially happy with MCI's after-sales service, as embodied by fleet support manager Guy Tessier. Says Murray, "Guy has always been there to help me out."

For nearly 20 years now (he started managing the company in 1989 and bought it in 2001), Murray has guided the company through a period of consistent, conservative growth. He took the company back into touring (the family had abandoned that part of the business following Joan Murray's death). He's expanded the fleet, more than doubling it over the past six years, and grown the charter business. He also has been probing new school and public transit revenue streams. "One of our strengths is that we're diverse," says Murray. "I like to say we're a reactive company. We're footloose. We do a good job of taking the bull by the horns and solving the issue of the day."

And finally, he's gotten a fourth generation involved. His son Scott has started working in the shop as a mechanic, and his youngest son, David, may join the company at some point as well. His wife's kids started working at Parkinson, one as a driver and one as a mechanic, but moved west to pursue other opportunities. Says Murray, "I think they'll be back."

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