Jump to content

Greyhound in the news


A. Wong

Recommended Posts

3 hours ago, INowKnowwhY said:

Working out east, the excuse was always "We aren't making enough money." When I started in 2011, we used to have yearly safety meetings and by 2015 they were already planning on cutting service west of Winnipeg. They said new buses would be a possibility once that happened, with the addition of securing government subsidies.

I can't speak much on the maintenance department but, I know GLI forced them to only order parts when necessary and 1998 MCI parts were increasingly getting further out of reach with nothing being stored. We all had that same repetitive experience where we'd come in for a shift anytime of the day and there were no buses available.

30 buses sitting out of service in the yard or inside the garage going through "house cleaning" and drivers were always lined up, waiting for the next inbound bus headed for the garage to be taken over, or being cabbed up to the station waiting for an inbound bus stuck in traffic somewhere, or stealing a bus from an out of town driver on layover.

Sometimes we were lucky if an extra GLI was available. They used to charge us by the mile once that bus number was entered into the system, which I'm sure you all have seen on the tracker.

This practice is the same exact reason why Adirondack Trailways sued Greyhound and pulled out of the pool for a number of years.

We also lost all of the MLB teams because of how old our buses were and only maintained a handful of them due to the drivers fighting with dispatchers to use an 86000+ Prevost X3-45

That ordering when necessary mentality confused me. Stuff as basic as DEF one time I had to wait because they had it coming in from New Jersey when it was available locally probably for cheaper. They really did not like storing vital parts or even have them because to upper management it looked like money sitting on the shelf that could be spent somewhere. 

I never knew they did charters until I had seen only 1 time with my own eyes a Greyhound doing a cruise transfer. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Yeah Greyhound will take over with higher prices? If Greyhound owned Bolt, why not just run the service with out the $1 service and charge regular prices. If the coaches belong to Greyhound its going to cost them to repaint the coaches or are they intending to run the Bolt coaches in the Bolt colours but just run as Greyhound by adding a Greyhound dog to the coach? Like wheen Greyhound owned Trailways they added the Greyhound Dog to some coaches but kept it as Trailways?

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, MCIBUS said:

Yeah Greyhound will take over with higher prices? If Greyhound owned Bolt, why not just run the service with out the $1 service and charge regular prices. If the coaches belong to Greyhound its going to cost them to repaint the coaches or are they intending to run the Bolt coaches in the Bolt colours but just run as Greyhound by adding a Greyhound dog to the coach? Like wheen Greyhound owned Trailways they added the Greyhound Dog to some coaches but kept it as Trailways?

 

 

It’s always been a greyhound service using greyhound owned coaches.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, MCIBUS said:

But will they now repaint the Bolt Coaches into Greyhound colours?

I doubt it. Bolt coaches had been in the regular pool as is for some time. They might put lettering or logos on them but many of Bolts coaches are kind of older. I wonder if they’ll wrap them in the blue scheme like the Canadian ones?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/1/2021 at 11:46 PM, ns8401 said:

It’s always been a greyhound service using greyhound owned coaches.

Yes, and no...At first it was a joint venture with Peter Pan Bus, at least in the US Northeast corricor.  In fact, they used the Peter Pan Secaucus, NJ garage as their base.  Later, Greyhound bought out PP's share when the two companies parted ways.

The driver's and manager's were pulled from both companies.  They were "on loan", and had a separate seniority, but could 'go back', if they wanted to later...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, traildriver said:

Yes, and no...At first it was a joint venture with Peter Pan Bus, at least in the US Northeast corricor.  In fact, they used the Peter Pan Secaucus, NJ garage as their base.  Later, Greyhound bought out PP's share when the two companies parted ways.

The driver's and manager's were pulled from both companies.  They were "on loan", and had a separate seniority, but could 'go back', if they wanted to later...

Oh yeah… I completely forgot about that part… thanks for filling in the gap there. Who owned the buses then in those days?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Greyhound will sell its 1969 built Columbus terminal to city bus agency COTA with intercity service moving to a COTA facility by the fall. The station will then be demolished and a new COTA muti-use transit center will be built on the site.

 

https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2021/07/21/cota-buy-greyhound-station-redevelopment-transit-center/8038610002/

  • Sad 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/21/2021 at 10:54 PM, ns8401 said:

Greyhound will sell its 1969 built Columbus terminal to city bus agency COTA with intercity service moving to a COTA facility by the fall. The station will then be demolished and a new COTA muti-use transit center will be built on the site.

 

https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2021/07/21/cota-buy-greyhound-station-redevelopment-transit-center/8038610002/

That is indeed truly sad.   I remember all the hoopla when that terminal opened.  It was considered "state-of-the-art" for a bus terminal, and was very similar to the one also opened around that time in Indianapolis.   During that era, around 1969-1970, the Greyhound Corporation was opening a new terminal somewhere at the incredible rate of one-a-month.  Which was amazing considering they also were in the midst of a huge diversification, merger and acquisition making them about number 28 in size on the Fortune 500 list.   And they still saw fit to re-invest into the core bus line.  Credit is due to then CEO Gerald Trautman...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, traildriver said:

That is indeed truly sad.   I remember all the hoopla when that terminal opened.  It was considered "state-of-the-art" for a bus terminal, and was very similar to the one also opened around that time in Indianapolis.   During that era, around 1969-1970, the Greyhound Corporation was opening a new terminal somewhere at the incredible rate of one-a-month.  Which was amazing considering they also were in the midst of a huge diversification, merger and acquisition making them about number 28 in size on the Fortune 500 list.   And they still saw fit to re-invest into the core bus line.  Credit is due to then CEO Gerald Trautman...

Indeed. I may take a day trip down there and spend a couple hours there. Much interchange traffic still flows through there in several directions. Most of my southbound passengers go through or change in Columbus. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, traildriver said:

That is indeed truly sad.   I remember all the hoopla when that terminal opened.  It was considered "state-of-the-art" for a bus terminal, and was very similar to the one also opened around that time in Indianapolis.   During that era, around 1969-1970, the Greyhound Corporation was opening a new terminal somewhere at the incredible rate of one-a-month.  Which was amazing considering they also were in the midst of a huge diversification, merger and acquisition making them about number 28 in size on the Fortune 500 list.   And they still saw fit to re-invest into the core bus line.  Credit is due to then CEO Gerald Trautman...

Its a shame. State of the art was also how they described Richmond Terminal, when it first opened. However it seems like somewhere along the way, Greyhound forgot that they had to maintain the terminals. 

I believe the 1981 strike was really the nail in the coffin when it comes to how much the former Greyhound (Dial) Corp cared about the bus line. After that strike, the corp simply threw in the towel, and sold the entire US op to Fred Curray. Things were looking up up until the 1990s strike, which I believe they never recovered from. Add on to it was the 2003-2005 service reductions, and Greyhounds been on a permanent state of decline ever since.

Dial Corp kept Greyhound Canada, which was still thriving at that time ironically, even introducing its highly successful Parcel service, as well as trialing greyhound air service in Canada. Eventually Laidlaw took over both services and GLC somehow went into a freefall starting from 2008 on, declining to nothing.

I don't think that First group is interested in maintaining terminals anymore. they are probably liquidating as many assets as they possibly can.

One thing to note was how much Trailways Inc (Contiential Trailways) have declined right before it was purchased by Greyhound. Many routes were down to one/two trips per day back when Greyhound had well over 4. Ironically, during the last days of Trailway, the schedule looks very similar to what Greyhound have today.

 

32 minutes ago, ns8401 said:

Indeed. I may take a day trip down there and spend a couple hours there. Much interchange traffic still flows through there in several directions. Most of my southbound passengers go through or change in Columbus. 

I wonder if Greyhound will start interchanging traffic somewhere else, now that they don't own the terminal anymore. Ever since they sold their Norfolk Terminal, all buses are routed to Hampton, VA.

I wonder if Greyhound will start prioritizing transfer passengers more at Pittsburgh, PA, Cincinnati, OH and Cleveland, OH  

  • Sad 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Rapidbus said:

Its a shame. State of the art was also how they described Richmond Terminal, when it first opened. However it seems like somewhere along the way, Greyhound forgot that they had to maintain the terminals. 

I believe the 1981 strike was really the nail in the coffin when it comes to how much the former Greyhound (Dial) Corp cared about the bus line. After that strike, the corp simply threw in the towel, and sold the entire US op to Fred Curray. Things were looking up up until the 1990s strike, which I believe they never recovered from. Add on to it was the 2003-2005 service reductions, and Greyhounds been on a permanent state of decline ever since.

Dial Corp kept Greyhound Canada, which was still thriving at that time ironically, even introducing its highly successful Parcel service, as well as trialing greyhound air service in Canada. Eventually Laidlaw took over both services and GLC somehow went into a freefall starting from 2008 on, declining to nothing.

I don't think that First group is interested in maintaining terminals anymore. they are probably liquidating as many assets as they possibly can.

One thing to note was how much Trailways Inc (Contiential Trailways) have declined right before it was purchased by Greyhound. Many routes were down to one/two trips per day back when Greyhound had well over 4. Ironically, during the last days of Trailway, the schedule looks very similar to what Greyhound have today.

 

That's a pretty good capsule history of GLI's sad decline.  I worked for both GL and CTS in the sixties and seventies.  Back then, GL's fleet was close to 6,000 buses.  And CTS had about 2,300.  Not to mention hundreds more of the independent Trailways carrier's.   Now GLI's fleet is down to what, a little over a thousand?

I think what really did the long distance bus network in was deregulation.  Both bus and air.  And the advent of the low-cost carrier's in both modes...

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/23/2021 at 4:20 AM, traildriver said:

That is indeed truly sad.   I remember all the hoopla when that terminal opened.  It was considered "state-of-the-art" for a bus terminal, and was very similar to the one also opened around that time in Indianapolis.   During that era, around 1969-1970, the Greyhound Corporation was opening a new terminal somewhere at the incredible rate of one-a-month.  Which was amazing considering they also were in the midst of a huge diversification, merger and acquisition making them about number 28 in size on the Fortune 500 list.   And they still saw fit to re-invest into the core bus line.  Credit is due to then CEO Gerald Trautman...

I changed coaches in 2005 at Columbus. It was a massive station. Even 16 years ago, it was way oversized for the modern day Greyhound operation.

On 6/12/2021 at 6:14 PM, translink fan said:

That ordering when necessary mentality confused me. Stuff as basic as DEF one time I had to wait because they had it coming in from New Jersey when it was available locally probably for cheaper. They really did not like storing vital parts or even have them because to upper management it looked like money sitting on the shelf that could be spent somewhere. 

I never knew they did charters until I had seen only 1 time with my own eyes a Greyhound doing a cruise transfer. 

Financial accounting rules mean that inventory on the shelf is literally "money sitting on the shelf." 

When the inventory is purchased, the cash spent is reflected on that month's statement of cash flows. However, the same amount is also recorded on the balance sheet as an asset (inventory). 

When the part is used - placed on a bus, it is removed from inventory on the balance sheet, and shows as an expense on the income statement, in the month that it is used.

If you're really watching your cash flows, you want to avoid buying assets and keeping them in inventory for any period of time.

Many managers are also enamored with "just in time procurement." This means you keep very low inventory, but are able to source your inventory quickly. It is widely successful in many industries (for example - Boeing has seats arrive from a seating manufacturer the same day that they are to be installed in a plane - which means they don't have to build a warehouse to store them).

It doesn't seem to work so well in bus maintenance, because a lot of parts are OEM, or, even if they are available aftermarket, you're subject to the vagaries of two or three distribution centers nationwide, which lengthens shipping and lead time. 

It's probably better to have a minimum of parts on hand at all times, with auto-reorder the moment you get below a certain inventory. And if its something you only use a couple of per year ... don't stock it at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

87008 In the “You don’t have to go far to go far” wrap ran off the road in Virginia while operating an Atlanta to New York schedule. 15 of the 43 people on the bus were transported to the hospital including the driver with non-life threatening injuries. I suppose the slogan on the bus was correct as the ditch is right off the road but they went a distance to the hospital. 
 

https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/tour-bus-crash-interstate-95-caroline-virginia

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, MCIBUS said:

The one thing you don't need to worry about that coach is the sun. Even though the windows are tinted, the wrap blocks the sun pretty good.

Very much so… wraps are very useful for that. The downside is that the wrap makes it lousy to look out the window.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

True, but it all depends on each individual. If you're a individual that likes taking pics out the window or likes to see the scenery as it goes by, YEAH IT SUCKS!!, but for those that could care less or likes to sleep on the trip it's great less glare from the sun especially if your trying to sleep.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, MCIBUS said:

True, but it all depends on each individual. If you're a individual that likes taking pics out the window or likes to see the scenery as it goes by, YEAH IT SUCKS!!, but for those that could care less or likes to sleep on the trip it's great less glare from the sun especially if your trying to sleep.

Very true.

In other news a Greyhound bus in Colorado became stuck 22.5 miles up a dirt mountain road usually traveled by 4 wheelers and 4x4’s as it used GPS to navigate around a mudslide on I-70 in Glenwood Canyon. 21 people had to be rescued and carted back down the mountain by emergency personnel. The bus suffered a torn oil Pan and hazmat had to come in to clean up the oil spill. 
 

https://www.9news.com/mobile/article/traffic/stuck-greyhound-bus-rescue-garfield-county/73-3d0e5ee6-c30b-4819-af45-9a41c8484d15

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, ns8401 said:

Very true.

In other news a Greyhound bus in Colorado became stuck 22.5 miles up a dirt mountain road usually traveled by 4 wheelers and 4x4’s as it used GPS to navigate around a mudslide on I-70 in Glenwood Canyon. 21 people had to be rescued and carted back down the mountain by emergency personnel. The bus suffered a torn oil Pan and hazmat had to come in to clean up the oil spill. 
 

https://www.9news.com/mobile/article/traffic/stuck-greyhound-bus-rescue-garfield-county/73-3d0e5ee6-c30b-4819-af45-9a41c8484d15

So much for BUS GPS. Don't they call dispatch for alternative routes?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/7/2021 at 2:09 AM, ns8401 said:

87008 In the “You don’t have to go far to go far” wrap ran off the road in Virginia while operating an Atlanta to New York schedule. 15 of the 43 people on the bus were transported to the hospital including the driver with non-life threatening injuries. I suppose the slogan on the bus was correct as the ditch is right off the road but they went a distance to the hospital. 
 

https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/tour-bus-crash-interstate-95-caroline-virginia

Thank Goodness no serious injuries. 

That type of one-vehicle accident is usually caused by a driver falling asleep, but the time of day it occurred (11:35 AM) is unusual...

10 hours ago, Shaun said:

So much for BUS GPS. Don't they call dispatch for alternative routes?

 

Following GPS, unless it is made for commercial vehicles, can lead to disaster, as a Megabus driver learned some years ago near Syracuse when he took the top off a Van Hool DD.

Some carrier's even forbid the use of personal GPS devices.   Clearly that driver made a poor decision.  Even if he was in an area with no cellular service to contact his dispatcher, he should have seeked directions from local officials before proceeding...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/27/2021 at 10:00 PM, ns8401 said:

First is stepping up its efforts to sell Greyhound and has “a number of interested parties”. They’ve sold $98 Million worth of property already as they seek to slim it down and make it more attractive. 
 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/greyhound-bus-owner-hastens-effort-to-sell-ailing-us-icon/ar-AAMCw9F

After selling off these properties, what else is left for the greyhound brand? Anyone else would be better off, starting a new company from scratch. 

First is not going to get a high bid for the service, unfortunately 

17 hours ago, Shaun said:

So much for BUS GPS. Don't they call dispatch for alternative routes?

 

I don't believe greyhound has an official GPS, on their normal runs, they still have paper turn by turn instructions. Any GPS will have to probably come from the operator

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...