More Greyhound cutbacks and comparison with airlines

[Willbridge]

By the end of January there will be almost nothing left of Greyhound in the Pacific Northwest. New-style FlixBus service will replace Greyhound trips with faster runs gained by bypassing small cities. Some trips between Portland and Seattle will make one or no stops, repeating Greyhound experiments of the 1960’s.

Depending on the direction of travel, the changes will begin on January 17th. Greyhound already has been replaced east of Portland and is down to one daily trip east of Seattle. That trip is to be replaced by the end of the month. Like most of the Portland <> Seattle Flix runs, that replacement trip will serve Sea-Tac International Airport.

Stops to be deleted or reduced in the shuffle from Greyhound Lines to FlixBus include Weed (1 to 0), Grants Pass (1 to 0), Woodburn (1 to 0), Kelso (1 to 0), Centralia (1 to 0), Olympia (3 to 2), Tacoma (5 to 4), and Mt. Vernon (2 to 1). One of the highlights will be a “dawn to dusk” express from Seattle to Sacramento.

With the exception of Weed, these cities are all served by Amtrak or Amtrak Thruway. Weed is about 18 miles from Amtrak's Dunsmuir station. Grants Pass service is oriented toward California.

These changes are themselves subject to change, as the transitions sometimes develop complications.

Once upon a Greyhound (pulling out into SW 5th Avenue at Portland's 1937 Union Bus Depot).

 

[Amtrak25]

Now look at Canada. Greyhound ceased to exist totally without any sort of orderly transition to another bus company, not even an inept one like Flixbus. 10 years ago, GLC ran 3 or 4 transcons a day. The Trudeau government is as bad as the Harper government - nothing beyond Toronto - QC much matters.

The Hurley, NY based NY Trailways is running Toronto - Detroit via Ontario. Ontario Northland bus will get you to Winnipeg with a couple of enroute transfers once a day. I think beyond there to Regina, there is another company that runs once a week. The last I heard which is not recently, there was a 100+ mile gap of nothing in Saskatchewan, and the Calgary-Vancouver portion runs twice a week.

Transport Canada based their 90% reduction of west of corridor VIA Rail service in the 1980's and 1990's on parallel bus service. Yet with Greyhound gone, it is beneath them to consider any sort of bus replacement, or even doing anything, bus or rail, along the CP. Converting the White River RDC to conventional equipment and extending to Thunder Bay or Winnipeg ought not to be that difficult.

 

[Willbridge]

Now look at Canada. Greyhound ceased to exist totally without any sort of orderly transition to another bus company, not even an inept one like Flixbus. 10 years ago, GLC ran 3 or 4 transcons a day. The Trudeau government is as bad as the Harper government - nothing beyond Toronto - QC much matters.

The Hurley, NY based NY Trailways is running Toronto - Detroit via Ontario. Ontario Northland bus will get you to Winnipeg with a couple of enroute transfers once a day. I think beyond there to Regina, there is another company that runs once a week. The last I heard which is not recently, there was a 100+ mile gap of nothing in Saskatchewan, and the Calgary-Vancouver portion runs twice a week.

Transport Canada based their 90% reduction of western of corridor VIA Rail service in the 1980's and 1990's on parallel bus service. Yet with Greyhound gone, it is beneath them to consider any sort of bus replacement, or even doing anything, bus or rail, along the CP. Converting the White River RDC to conventional equipment and extending to Thunder Bay or Winnipeg ought not to be that difficult.

Canada is where I developed my theory that there is only one generation of bus customers left after the rail service that they parallel is discontinued. It was easier to see than in the U.S. because the rail service was more comprehensive in the 1960's and early 1970's.

The 2018 deletion of western service by GLC was right on time if measured from the 1990 VIA cuts.

1972 photo - Bought out by Greyhound Lines of Canada, an Alberta regional carrier's bus pressed into service on the then hourly Edmonton-Calgary run. After the Edmonton-Calgary VIA Rail service was discontinued, parallel GLC service was steadily reduced.

 

[AmtrakMaineiac]

Canada is where I developed my theory that there is only one generation of bus customers left after the rail service that they parallel is discontinued. It was easier to see than in the U.S. because the rail service was more comprehensive in the 1960's and early 1970's.

That also fits with the observation that parallel bus and train service often complements rather than competing. This was seen in PA in the 1980s when the train service from Philadelphia to Reading and Allentown was discontinued. The parallel bus service also lost patronage. I guess with the loss of flexibility for many people it was easier to just drive.

 

[JWM]

The transportation system in North America is a disgrace. You either drive or fly and if you can't afford those two, hitchhiking has almost disappeared in this dangerous era. We need a national transportation policy that does not isolate small towns and gives those who can't afford the above modes a viable option.

 

[Trollopian]

That also fits with the observation that parallel bus and train service often complements rather than competing. This was seen in PA in the 1980s when the train service from Philadelphia to Reading and Allentown was discontinued. The parallel bus service also lost patronage. I guess with the loss of flexibility for many people it was easier to just drive.

I'm an economist by training so my instinct is to assume that a whole lotta things were going on at once and that correlation doesn't equal causation. I'm a boomer, and when I was growing up several of my aunts, and many of my friends' moms, didn't drive. Really. Most families had one car (if that). But things were changing...not the kind of things that this budding economist noticed then, but they were. The growth of the suburbs (abetted by GI loans and the new interstate highway system), rising prosperity, the huge movement of women including married women with children into the paid labor force in the 1970s-mid 1990s (which was itself tied to other social changes and to improved contraception), all influenced transportation and development patterns. An earlier generation took the bus or train everywhere and schlepped their shopping bags to the closest "market town" and considered that normal. Also, airline deregulation in the 1970s brought down fares and probably cannibalized what was left of passenger-rail demand.

In my lifetime I've seen bus and rail travel, once an option for the masses, stigmatized as something for down-and-outs who can't afford a car or who lost their license. My hope is that a new, "greener" generation will question the appalling environmental costs of that mindset.

 

[caravanman]

I confess that I have not viewed the Youtube video... I always feel that a millionaire you tube presenter is going to point out "extremes" in order to grab clicks, and become even richer.
Having said that, I know the Greyhound service is falling apart, good job Amtrak is such a good alternative!

 

[TheVig]

I confess that I have not viewed the Youtube video... I always feel that a millionaire you tube presenter is going to point out "extremes" in order to grab clicks, and become even richer.
Having said that, I know the Greyhound service is falling apart, good job Amtrak is such a good alternative!

I watched it. It's not as bad as it could have been.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

To add to what Trollopian said (and I have said and posted it before, maybe even on this thread), another factor is that cars are longer lasting and more reliable. Due to this they, cars that could be driven longer distances when they were older and required less repairs, filtered down to lower income people who chose to drive rather than take transit. I know this sounds like trickle down, but there are scholarly articles (as far such an esoteric subject can muster) documenting this iirc.

 

[Willbridge]

In honor (?) of the end of Greyhound Lines service out of Portland, Oregon in this past week, I pulled a few things together. South from Portland came into the Greyhound system as Pacific Greyhound Lines, owned by the SP. North from Portland it was North Coast Lines, a Stone & Webster interurban property, that ended up in Greyhound Lines. Various bus competitors throughout the regulated bus era included Pickwick Stages, Continental Trailways, and hippie lines. Short overlaps north of Eugene included Inter-City Buses, Yacolt Stages, Portland-Vancouver Bus Co., Tacoma Suburban Lines, and Metropolitan (Seattle).

Here are samples from the 1932 PGL service.






During WWII speed limits were lowered to save on rubber and fuel. This made the 1943 schedules slower than in 1932. Condensed tables in the Union Pacific Stages timetable show PDX<>SEA. UP Stages also went into Greyhound. From Portland, it served routes to Spokane and the Overland Route.




Consolidated as Western Greyhound and taking advantage of the first segments of the Interstate Highway system. The new highways, however, made local runs on the old Pacific Highway seem excruciatingly slow. Elsewhere, railway competition was stepping aside. For various reasons, that did not happen on the PDX<>SEA<>VCR corridor.




In the Willamette Valley, competition from the SP was almost gone when the schedule below was issued. Continental Trailways ran three trips a day in this corridor, with one and sometimes two trips being reserved Golden Eagle service.



In this period, the SP Cascade ran daily and their Shasta Daylight ran daily during summer months.

 

[Old MM]

Amazing, wasn't it!

 

[Trollopian]

In honor (?) of the end of Greyhound Lines service out of Portland, Oregon in this past week, I pulled a few things together...

During WWII speed limits were lowered to save on rubber and fuel. This made the 1943 schedules slower than in 1932. Condensed tables in the Union Pacific Stages timetable show PDX<>SEA. UP Stages also went into Greyhound. From Portland, it served routes to Spokane and the Overland Route.

View attachment 35523

The one that tickles me is the phone number for the Cheyenne bus depot. "7744." In an era when we punch 10 digits to reach our neighborhood pizza joint (or would, if it weren't in our phone's contact list).

 

[railiner]

And the one that got my attention was the notation on the bottom of that colorful first table to “Destroy all previous issues”…
Back then, carrier’s spared no expense in producing what they considered useful marketing tools, that also extolled the virtues of their service.

And yesterdays “trash”, is often today’s treasures. At least on Ebay…

 

[railiner]

Continental Trailways ran three trips a day in this corridor, with one and sometimes two trips being reserved Golden Eagle service.

Between Seattle and Portland in that era, besides the three trips Continental Trailways ran to California, they ran three additional trips pooling with Pacific Trailways, on to Boise, SLC, Denver, and Dallas.
Around the mid-70’s, they added a San Francisco-Portland limited stop express, that they advertised as having “the fastest land time” (compared to Greyhound and Amtrak), between those two points…

 

[Willbridge]

The one that tickles me is the phone number for the Cheyenne bus depot. "7744." In an era when we punch 10 digits to reach our neighborhood pizza joint (or would, if it weren't in our phone's contact list).

The Art Deco bus depot in Cheyenne, across the street from parent company Union Pacific's landmark station, has been torn down. Buses stop at a truck stop on the outskirts.

 

[Willbridge]

Between Seattle and Portland in that era, besides the three trips Continental Trailways ran to California, they ran three additional trips pooling with Pacific Trailways, on to Boise, SLC, Denver, and Dallas.
Around the mid-70’s, they added a San Francisco-Portland limited stop express, that they advertised as having “the fastest land time” (compared to Greyhound and Amtrak), between those two points…

It may have been the Portland-San Francisco run that was added to the three Seattle-Los Angeles runs in April 1972. It was a "Shasta Daylight" type schedule, but via I-5, which was almost complete by then. Southbound runtime was 14:20, northbound was 13:55.

At the same time, Greyhound had the fastest ever Portland to San Francisco run, southbound at 13:00. Northbound runtime was 13:55. Unlike the Continental Trailways daylight trip, the southbound Greyhound speedster ran overnight. These fast trips were a result of the fight with Pacific Trailways.

For readers not familiar with it, Greyhound and Pacific Trailways had been operating a through service from Spokane to San Francisco via US97 through Central Oregon. Greyhound controlled the Washington and California segments and with the new freeway operation began routing passengers from Spokane on the all-Greyhound route through Portland. That became part of a noted anti-trust case. It also became part of a deadly crash in the Siskiyous, when a third section driven by an extra board driver went off the highway.

Here's a 1970 CTS schedule. The Portland<>Seattle trips are, as railiner described, extensions of PT's route from Salt Lake City. Trailways only had interstate rights north of Portland, which explains the "Discharge Only" note at intermediate stops. Golden Eagle service is in the tinted columns.

The three runs to Los Angeles + one run to San Francisco is what CTS went into the Energy Crisis with. Implementation of the 55 mph speed limit added about two hours to the fast San Francisco-Portland schedules. By the 1980's CTS service began to decline, with the fast daylight run being first to get the axe. With the lower speeds it developed the same problem as its SP predecessor, departures and arrivals from the big terminal cities at marginal hours.

 

[railiner]

The Art Deco bus depot in Cheyenne, across the street from parent company Union Pacific's landmark station, has been torn down. Buses stop at a truck stop on the outskirts.

What a shame...I went thru there so many times. Besides the UP station, and the Overland Greyhound Station, also in close proximity was the Burlington - C&S station, and close by were the Plains Hotel, and the Albany Hotel, where Burlington Trailways, later American Buslines (Continental Trailways) operated from. The original Greyhound depot was expanded into the grassy area, sometime in the 50's or early '60's.

This website contains a treasure trove of old bus photo's, including several of Cheyenne...
https://www.angelfire.com/al/silverball/don.html

 

[Willbridge]

What a shame...I went thru there so many times. Besides the UP station, and the Overland Greyhound Station, also in close proximity was the Burlington - C&S station, and close by were the Plains Hotel, and the Albany Hotel, where Burlington Trailways, later American Buslines (Continental Trailways) operated from. The original Greyhound depot was expanded into the grassy area, sometime in the 50's or early '60's.

This website contains a treasure trove of old bus photo's, including several of Cheyenne...
https://www.angelfire.com/al/silverball/don.html

The Plains Hotel was the last location for the Amtrak Borie bus connection.

I don't have a photo of the classic Greyhound station, but in 2004 did get a photo of its short-lived replacement out by the Interstate. This was after Coach USA bought Powder River which had succeeded CTS.

 

[railiner]

The Plains Hotel was the last location for the Amtrak Borie bus connection.

Do you happen to recall when they did that? Was it after the end of the SFZ? And then when the Pioneer returned, the UP station was no longer available?
When the SFZ went thru Wyoming, the UP provided the agents. When the Pioneer restarted, the agents were now Amtrak employees...

 

[Douglas Dunker]

Got stuck in CHI a couple of weeks ago. It was 9 below before the wind chill. I used Greyhound as most trains were canceled and I found that the new bus loading area is across Jackson form Union Station. No shelter and no way of knowing if the bus was waiting or even if it was on time.

 

[Willbridge]

Do you happen to recall when they did that? Was it after the end of the SFZ? And then when the Pioneer returned, the UP station was no longer available?
When the SFZ went thru Wyoming, the UP provided the agents. When the Pioneer restarted, the agents were now Amtrak employees...

I don't know the exact details, but the initial Borie connecting bus ran out of the UP depot. It was operated by Greyhound, which still had its hub in Cheyenne. When the service was restored, it ran from the Tivoli Bldg. at the Chamber of Commerce office a couple of blocks from the UP station. It finally ended up at the Plains Hotel, where they had a ticket counter.

I arrived in Denver after the reroute to the Moffat line, but a colleague told me about riding backwards between Denver and Cheyenne on the San Francisco Zephyr. Jeff Dunning took this photo after the move to Borie. Apparently, Greyhound never imagined a need to include Borie on rollsigns.

 

[Willbridge]

Pocatello also had the across-the-street relationship between Overland Greyhound and UP. In our ColoRail expedition in 2008, the last Greyhound had left forever, but it was being used by the transit system.







Bus station across street to the left of UP Pocatello station.

 

[railiner]

I don't know the exact details, but the initial Borie connecting bus ran out of the UP depot. It was operated by Greyhound, which still had its hub in Cheyenne. When the service was restored, it ran from the Tivoli Bldg. at the Chamber of Commerce office a couple of blocks from the UP station. It finally ended up at the Plains Hotel, where they had a ticket counter.

I arrived in Denver after the reroute to the Moffat line, but a colleague told me about riding backwards between Denver and Cheyenne on the San Francisco Zephyr. Jeff Dunning took this photo after the move to Borie. Apparently, Greyhound never imagined a need to include Borie on rollsigns.

View attachment 35576

They probably should have simply used the "Charter" destination...

I rode the SFZ all thru its years of operation. When it went to Cheyenne, it did run backwards between Denver and there. At Denver, they changed engines from BN to UP, or vice versa. The train was no longer turned, they simply added the new engines to the opposite end. At Cheyenne, they just ran the engines around the train to the opposite end.
When they started using Borie, an agent would dispatch the bus, so that if the train was late, they would wait in the Cheyenne station rather than sit on the bus out at Borie. An agent would ride the bus with the passenger's. At Borie, he would direct the driver, so as to make two stops when the train arrived...one for sleeper passenger's, and one for coach passenger's. He would also assist the driver and the train baggageman with checked baggage and express.

 

[railiner]

Pocatello also had the across-the-street relationship between Overland Greyhound and UP. In our ColoRail expedition in 2008, the last Greyhound had left forever, but it was being used by the transit system.

View attachment 35577

View attachment 35578

View attachment 35579

Bus station across street to the left of UP Pocatello station.
View attachment 35580

I love the Art Deco and Art Moderne architecture on those classic Greyhound depot's. Thanks for posting!
I also loved those "running dog" neon signs that would flash back and forth to show the dog running...

Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines was another division that shared many station's with its parent railroad, often in the same building, not in an "annex"....
Some that lived on to recent times include Newark, NJ and Harrisburg, PA....

 

[AmtrakMaineiac]

They probably should have simply used the "Charter" destination...

I rode the SFZ all thru its years of operation. When it went to Cheyenne, it did run backwards between Denver and there. At Denver, they changed engines from BN to UP, or vice versa. The train was no longer turned, they simply added the new engines to the opposite end. At Cheyenne, they just ran the engines around the train to the opposite end.
When they started using Borie, an agent would dispatch the bus, so that if the train was late, they would wait in the Cheyenne station rather than sit on the bus out at Borie. An agent would ride the bus with the passenger's. At Borie, he would direct the driver, so as to make two stops when the train arrived...one for sleeper passenger's, and one for coach passenger's. He would also assist the driver and the train baggageman with checked baggage and express.

If you ever watched the BBC series "Great Railway Journeys of the World" that was on PBS many years ago (and shows up on YouTube) the episode about the US has a scene where the narrator gets on the CZ at Borie in the winter, a dramatic view of what winter Railroading in North America can be like.