The Ford 6.0 engine has a bad reputation and is considered by many to be trouble prone. I have no personal experience with them. You should go on Youtube and search for "Ford 6.0 powerstroke problems". You'll get a lot of opinions, good and bad, that will help you with your decision.
School buses are commonly built in 2 parts, the chassis and the school bus body. The chassis is the mechanical part of the bus, the engine, transmission, driveshaft and axles, brakes, etc. The bus body is where the kids get stuffed for their ride to school. Thomas doesn't build the chassis they use, they buy them from vehicle manufacturers like Ford or GM (the 2 biggies).The Ford E450 chassis is a common chassis and there should be a lot of information about them available, probably not so much if you look for it as a Thomas bus. Obviously I not looking at any pictures but I'm going to assume that bus is built on a cut away chassis which means everything behind the 'cab' was 'cut away' so Thomas could drop the bus body on the frame. It's only the school bus body that is Thomas. Not sure if that helps you or not.
Ford makes a series of trucks designated EXXX. Below is a link to a PDF showing the 2009 Ford E-series sales brochure, have a look, it'll help you understand.
https://teddy-tokyo.com/images/broch...09E-Series.pdf
Couple more things after re-reading your post. It's a midwest bus - SO - if you're serious about it . . . CRAWL UNDERNEATH it and LOOK FOR RUST. If you see a lot of rust, run away as fast as you can.
There's nothing inherently wrong with the Ford E450 but if that's the route you go better to go with one of the gas engines.
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