More Greyhound cutbacks and comparison with airlines

Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I've rode Greyhound as a kid in the 90s, years after the bankruptcy took place. I never got a dirty bus, but I have seen buses that looked shabby on the exterior. I made trips from Florida to New York City, then from New York City to Montreal and back. For the bus fans, I rode on 102A3s coach and an MC-9 in 1996, which were the workhorses of the fleet at the time, while the MC-12s were the new kids on the block. The D3s and DL3s had not yet appeared for Greyhound yet.

When I see Greyhound now, and I hear all the stories. Like the drama that happens on the bus, the shabby bus terminals, the buses being beat up, and the many cuts they've made over the last two and half decades, I look back on my experiences riding them as a kid. Despite reducing their fleet by 1/3 of what it use to be, the Hound seemed to go everywhere even in the 90s.

That to me folks is where I choose to remember Greyhound, even if it wasn't as good as it use to be in the previous decade. To revisit an older post on what happens to Greyhound buses after they retire, it's a very broad question. Up until recently, Greyhound sold large numbers of buses off to whoever bought them.

Everyone on this forum, their maybe an old Greyhound bus still running around in your state. I've lost count how many ran in Florida. The process to retire buses, first they painted the buses all white (except for the stainless steel sides as that is suppose to remain silver cause why paint over stainless steel).

Then they were sold in large batches to bus leasing merchants such as ABC Companies or Hausman Bus Sales to name some examples. The leasing companies would then advertise these buses to anyone who wanted them, whether someone wanted a motorhome, charter and tour bus companies, and for export to countries like Canada and South America. Old Hounds went everywhere.

Greyhound up until the bankruptcy, usually kept buses for about 12-16 years (with exceptions of course). After the bankruptcy, they ran their buses for as long as they could until replacements arrived. Many of the old MC-9s were over 20 years old when they retired in 2000.

These days, Greyhound has sold many of their buses directly to scrap merchants, due to how badly worn out and corroded they get. The lack of maintenance doesn't make the situation any better. I'll conclude this post for now and hope I gave some insight.
 
I've rode Greyhound as a kid in the 90s, years after the bankruptcy took place. I never got a dirty bus, but I have seen buses that looked shabby on the exterior. I made trips from Florida to New York City, then from New York City to Montreal and back. For the bus fans, I rode on 102A3s coach and an MC-9 in 1996, which were the workhorses of the fleet at the time, while the MC-12s were the new kids on the block. The D3s and DL3s had not yet appeared for Greyhound yet.

When I see Greyhound now, and I hear all the stories. Like the drama that happens on the bus, the shabby bus terminals, the buses being beat up, and the many cuts they've made over the last two and half decades, I look back on my experiences riding them as a kid. Despite reducing their fleet by 1/3 of what it use to be, the Hound seemed to go everywhere even in the 90s.

That to me folks is where I choose to remember Greyhound, even if it wasn't as good as it use to be in the previous decade. To revisit an older post on what happens to Greyhound buses after they retire, it's a very broad question. Up until recently, Greyhound sold large numbers of buses off to whoever bought them.

Everyone on this forum, their maybe an old Greyhound bus still running around in your state. I've lost count how many ran in Florida. The process to retire buses, first they painted the buses all white (except for the stainless steel sides as that is suppose to remain silver cause why paint over stainless steel).

Then they were sold in large batches to bus leasing merchants such as ABC Companies or Hausman Bus Sales to name some examples. The leasing companies would then advertise these buses to anyone who wanted them, whether someone wanted a motorhome, charter and tour bus companies, and for export to countries like Canada and South America. Old Hounds went everywhere.

Greyhound up until the bankruptcy, usually kept buses for about 12-16 years (with exceptions of course). After the bankruptcy, they ran their buses for as long as they could until replacements arrived. Many of the old MC-9s were over 20 years old when they retired in 2000.

These days, Greyhound has sold many of their buses directly to scrap merchants, due to how badly worn out and corroded they get. The lack of maintenance doesn't make the situation any better. I'll conclude this post for now and hope I gave some insight.

I look back to 50 years ago when not only did Greyhound and Trailways offer service everywhere but in the Northeast, there was reliable regional airline service to many smaller cities.

My last truly pleasurable Greyhound experience was taking a legitimate express from Orlando to New York in the early 90s.
 
There is more shuffling of carriers and connecting points in the Great Northwest, compounded by confusion in the merged Greyhound Lines / Flixbus web sales and info system. I hope that this screen shot from minutes ago is legible, as it must set some kind of record for trying to be helpful and failing big time. Clue: what state is Portland in?

1683167211191.png
 
Thanx. At present, bus passengers can find out information on stations and their surroundings easier than ever, but it's back to the 1920's (pre-regulated days) for the actual facilities.
It all started going downhill 20-25 years ago when the Chinese buses took off and then Coach USA launched Megabus.

I can easily see Greyhound using 95th-Dan Ryan as their terminal in the future in Chicago.

I was amused by this video Miles posted tonight

 
Last edited:
In November 2022, as reported in "Various Short Trips Around the Willamette Valley," Greyhound Lines discontinued serving Salem, Oregon. Salem is the state's capital city and ODOT had recently renovated a station for them. Four buses a day now call at Woodburn, half an hour north of Salem.

In other Oregon news, Greyhound has lost its last schedule between PDX and SPK. Amtrak Trains 27 and 28 are now the only direct surface route. The truck stop location at Stanfield was not pretty but permitted SEA<>Stanfield<>BOI and PDX<>Stanfield<>SPK connections. The lone I-84 Greyhound trip (PDX<>BOI) now diverges to Pasco for connections and no longer stops in Stanfield. The new arrangement keeps connections SEA<PSC>BOI but requires an overnight layover in Pasco for PDX<PSC>SPK. At Pasco they are in the publicly provided intermodal station.

Pasco, Washington
View attachment 30569
View attachment 30570
What the heck is happening at Greyhound? That American icon started out with American ingenuity and backing. Now it's OWNED by a Scottish organization! How can that be? And do those Scotts know how to actually RUN a national bus line? It seems EVERYTIME a company is bought out, (if a service company) the service provided gets WORSE not better. Idiots are at the helm. %!!//+<@!!
 
What the heck is happening at Greyhound? That American icon started out with American ingenuity and backing. Now it's OWNED by a Scottish organization! How can that be? And do those Scotts know how to actually RUN a national bus line? It seems EVERYTIME a company is bought out, (if a service company) the service provided gets WORSE not better. Idiots are at the helm. %!!//+<@!!
What Scottish organization? I thought Greyhound is now owned by Flix, which IIRC is originally a German outfit. They actually run some pretty good bus and better than good rail service in Europe. But of course the US is a separate matter with its exceptional everything. :D
 
Prior to Flix, Greyhound was owned by FirstGroup, a UK (Scottish) company, right? But, yeah, Greyhound has been owned by Flix since 2021.
 
Prior to Flix, Greyhound was owned by FirstGroup, a UK (Scottish) company, right? But, yeah, Greyhound has been owned by Flix since 2021.
Yes. You are right of course.

Flix appears to be on a mission to acquire every available bus company in Western and Central Europe, and North America!
 
Actually, Greyhound has been though quite a few ownerships since it was sold by Dial (soap). Before the British outfit it was owned by Laidlaw, a Canadian company. Flixbus has a good reputation but has a big project in taking over Greyhound. And, as with Amtrak, they lost some momentum during the pandemic.

The Greyhound internal Revsup site has been inactive since March. I hope that it's because something new and better is coming!
 
To cla
Actually, Greyhound has been though quite a few ownerships since it was sold by Dial (soap).
To clarify, the original Greyhound Corporation, a Delaware corporation dating back to 1926, in 1962 started a program of diversification outside of its core bus transportation and related travel subsidiaries. Among the many other acquisitions was Armour-Dial. By that time, Greyhound Corporation reached 28th place on the Fortune 500.
The bus industry had started a long decline, and the Corporation looked to reinvest in more profitable businesses, and finally divested the bus line to other investors in 1987. Then they changed their name to Dial Corp, to avoid confusion with the bus line.
 
In the Northeast Peter Pan has been plotting for decades to be in total control.

The Picknelly family will fight to the death to stop Massachusetts from upgrading passenger rail between Springfield and Boston.
Sometimes adding additional options will actually increase patronage as now people have more options for car free travel between those points and might consider train one way, bus the other.
I have seen the opposite happen. When Conrail discontinued service from Philadelphia to Reading PA in the 1980's the parallel bus service actually saw a drop in patronage.
 
Sometimes adding additional options will actually increase patronage as now people have more options for car free travel between those points and might consider train one way, bus the other.
I have seen the opposite happen. When Conrail discontinued service from Philadelphia to Reading PA in the 1980's the parallel bus service actually saw a drop in patronage.
I've been observing that. When the Pioneer was launched in 1977, Greyhound Lines added a fourth PDX<>SLC schedule with limited stops. That was supplemented in the Columbia Gorge by two PDX<>SPK trips and a Yakima<>PDX trip. They dropped the fast run pretty quickly, but service levels otherwise remained the same at the 1997 end of the Pioneer "competition". THEN the cutbacks started and today there is one trip through the Columbia Gorge.

We saw hints of this back in 1975 when ODOT did the Oregon Intercity Bus Study that I uploaded here before. That's the origin of the Willamette Valley having state-sponsored bus and train service. We concluded that the best way to get good bus service was to have good train service.

It won't impress any "scientific" studies, but with allowance for demographic and economic changes, my rule of thumb is that there is one generation of customers left when a rail service is discontinued (or radically restructured, a la the Canadian). So, around twenty to thirty years after the rail service is gone, the regular route bus service will either disappear or be radically restructured.
 
Sometimes adding additional options will actually increase patronage as now people have more options for car free travel between those points and might consider train one way, bus the other.
I have seen the opposite happen. When Conrail discontinued service from Philadelphia to Reading PA in the 1980's the parallel bus service actually saw a drop in patronage.
Probably for the same reason, a “cluster” of fast food restaurants at a location do better than if all alone…
 
I was actually behind on my Miles in Transit content, and didn't know how involved this race was.
The only "problem" with the videos is that they engage in so much wackiness, that the serious points they are making can be less apparent than they should be.
 
I was actually behind on my Miles in Transit content, and didn't know how involved this race was.
The only "problem" with the videos is that they engage in so much wackiness, that the serious points they are making can be less apparent than they should be.
@Matthew H Fish - They are college kids and some of them might be our future transit planners. But IF the wackiness appeals to their generation it is worth the trade-off.
 
@Matthew H Fish - They are college kids and some of them might be our future transit planners. But IF the wackiness appeals to their generation it is worth the trade-off.
The thing is, they do make the serious points somewhere in there---and it is probably for the best that they aren't another transit channel with a man sitting in front of a map talking. Its nice that they get right in the action! It gives a good sense of how hectic travelling is. Also, they are fair, admitting when transit is inefficient and uncomfortable.

So back on the subject of Greyhound and Flixbus and their integration, yesterday I was taking the Flixbus to and from Portland. I get to the boarding point (just outside of Union Station) at 7:20 PM...and see people waiting. I ask, and they say that there bus is leaving at 7:25...my ticket says 8! And some of them are also going to Redding and Sacramento.
After some time, I find out that the 7:25 PM Greyhound is now a Flixbus, but it is a long distance Flixbus. When it arrives, it has the Flixbus scheme and the like.
So some of the Greyhound routes are now Flixbus routes, and some of them aren't. Also, in this case, I think this Flixbus now stops in Salem, (I heard someone asking about that), but not at the Greyhound station, just at the boarding point for Flixbus.
Maybe this integration is leading somewhere, but I can't make heads or tails of it.
 
Episode 3


The interesting thing about this is that even though some of the teams who took the airplanes arrived fastest, it wasn't that much faster than those arriving by bus and train. Also, the fact that the bus was competitive time-wise with the train just shows that Metro-North and Amtrak need to do something about the slow running between New Rochelle and New Haven.

I wonder what a Washington - New York bus/train/plane race would look like.
 
The interesting thing about this is that even though some of the teams who took the airplanes arrived fastest, it wasn't that much faster than those arriving by bus and train. Also, the fact that the bus was competitive time-wise with the train just shows that Metro-North and Amtrak need to do something about the slow running between New Rochelle and New Haven.

I wonder what a Washington - New York bus/train/plane race would look like.

I think it will also be interesting if they include both an objective accounting for cost, and a subjective accounting for comfort.
 
Back
Top