# New Rural Bus Services



## Swadian Hardcore (Nov 14, 2014)

Here's some news on new rural bus services.

*Road Runner Stage Lines* has started a new Grand Junction-Durango service. The route runs once daily and appears to use a MCI 102DL3 with retrofitted wheelchair lift. The DL3 departs Durango in the morning at 7:00AM, gets to Grand Junction at 12:43 PM right after noon, turns around to head back at 1:45 PM, and arrives back in Durango at 7:44 PM.

This route is interesting in that it doesn't take the fastest route on US 550, but instead detours over to Cortez and Telluride. Got to be a scenic ride for sure.

Website here: http://roadrunnerstagelines.com/. 

Grand Junction-Durango the fast way on US 550 was operated by TNM&O for many years with 102A/C/D3 equipment and later by Greyhound with 102DL3 equipment, as part of the Salt Lake City-Albuquerque route which was cancelled a few years ago.



*Elevated Transit *has started new Salt Lake City-Blanding and Salt Lake City-Richfield routes with unidentified equipment. Both routes run once daily. Thursday-Monday there's an extra Salt Lake City-Richfield round-trip. Again these seem to be scenic routes and neither of them have been operated recently by other operators. I was unable to identify the equipment though I do believe they are 35-footers.

Website here: http://www.elevatedtransit.com/. 



*Mountain State Express *operated by AllTrans, a subsidiary of Gray Line Tours, now runs scheduled service Salt Lake City-Jackson via Kremmrer. Unlike Salt Lake Express, which goes north on I-15 and east on US 26, this one takes I-80 east and then US 189 and 191 north. Runs once daily. The schedule is very hard to read, though. Scenery should be a mix of mountains and typical Wyoming flatlands.

Equipment unknown.

Website: http://www.mountainstatesexpress.com/. 



There's also some new miscellaneous companies operating curbside "Chinatown" bus service, most of which have no website and appear to be flying under the radar: http://www.kfhgroup.com/aibra/pdf/UPDATES47.pdf.


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## railiner (Nov 15, 2014)

Interesting....most of those routes were former Continental Trailways routes....

I am trying to 'read-between-the-lines' on a couple of those websites....Roadrunner seems obsessed over passenger behavior, which makes me

wonder if they have a problem inherent on that route?

And what is up with all that 'Title VI' stuff on Elevated Transit's site?

I had no idea there were so many curbside operator's....that 'Go To Bus' booking service is a good source to find them....


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## rickycourtney (Nov 15, 2014)

railiner said:


> Interesting....most of those routes were former Continental Trailways routes....
> 
> I am trying to 'read-between-the-lines' on a couple of those websites....Roadrunner seems obsessed over passenger behavior, which makes me
> 
> ...


Elevated Transit appears to be receiving funding from Utah. I'm guessing the Title VI disclosure is required by the state.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Nov 15, 2014)

Does anybody know what equipment Elevated Transit uses? I've never seen a bus like that before.


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## rickycourtney (Nov 15, 2014)

They appear to be from a company called Glaval Bus, the model is "Synergy." I've never seen them before.

What I can find online leads me to believe they are built on an off the shelf Freightliner chassis.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Nov 15, 2014)

I went to Glavel Bus' website and failed to find the Synergy. All I found were front-engine cutaways.

Do you think the Synergy would be a good vehicle for intercity use? It is a body-on-frame, apparently. Maybe a Temsa TS30 would be better, but I've heard bad things about those.

Edit: I think Elevated Transit uses Torino VIP seats. That's very amusing because I thought the Torino VIP didn't meet the newest FMVSS.


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## rickycourtney (Nov 17, 2014)

I'm not a bus driver or bus owner... so I really have no clue.

On paper, the Synergy seems like an interesting concept. It's shorter than anything MCI or Prevost offers, but it has all of the creature comforts of a motorcoach (bathroom, underfloor baggage storage) unlike the cutaway buses that are used on Greyhound Connect. Plus passengers get to look out the windshield as opposed to the view of the roof you get on a cutaway.

I'm not sure I understand why body-on-frame would be a good or a bad thing... but it's smart that Glavel used a Freightliner chassis. That should make it pretty easy for Elevated Transit to find someone who can service it.


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## fairviewroad (Nov 17, 2014)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> This route is interesting in that it doesn't take the fastest route on US 550, but instead detours over to Cortez and Telluride. Got to be a scenic ride for sure.


I'm guessing the circuitious route is based on a combination of factors. One of those might be the requirements of the local non-profit 

agency that is operating the route. It's possible their funders might be better appeased if certain communities are served by the bus

at the expense of providing faster service for the actual passengers. Goodness knows it wouldn't be the first transit route determined

by local politics.

The other reason for that routing may be to provide service to the resort town of Telluride. I'm not sure how many skiiers

would care to ride this bus, and a once-daily service doesn't really work for resort employees, but it still might be a factor here. I don't

believe Telluride is accessible from Hwy 550, certainly not year-round at least.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Nov 17, 2014)

Silver State over here in Nevada running Doyle-Las Vegas gets govt funding. First of all the Doyle stop is useless. It's just north of Reno and nobody ever goes there. The Carson City stop is pretty useless too, but even more useless are stops like Fallon, Beatty, or Pahrump. All those waste time for nothing.

If that Synergy is good, it better be better than the Van Hool I rode with Silver State. That Van Hool was actually integral.


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## railiner (Nov 17, 2014)

Personally, I prefer an integral coach over a 'conventional' body-on-chassis. Those seem too much like fancy school buses to me. I will admit that the body on chassis can have advantages...lower initial cost, and could also be better in extreme conditions, where they can offer much higher ground clearance. In addition, they can probably be repaired at any truck stop if necessary....


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## MikefromCrete (Nov 17, 2014)

fairviewroad said:


> Swadian Hardcore said:
> 
> 
> > This route is interesting in that it doesn't take the fastest route on US 550, but instead detours over to Cortez and Telluride. Got to be a scenic ride for sure.
> ...


I'm a little nervous getting into a conversation with a bunch of bus nerds, but wouldn't the routing be to actually serve these communities, rather than bypass them. Isn't that the purpose of a locally-funded bus route?


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## MikefromCrete (Nov 17, 2014)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> Silver State over here in Nevada running Doyle-Las Vegas gets govt funding. First of all the Doyle stop is useless. It's just north of Reno and nobody ever goes there. The Carson City stop is pretty useless too, but even more useless are stops like Fallon, Beatty, or Pahrump. All those waste time for nothing.
> 
> If that Synergy is good, it better be better than the Van Hool I rode with Silver State. That Van Hool was actually integral.


Again, wouldn't the purpose be to serve these communities. If you want to go to these communities, then the stops aren't useless.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Nov 17, 2014)

The problem is that nobody wants to ride a bus to Tonopah. Everybody in Tonopah has a car and the Silver State bus is horribly expensive and horribly uncomfortable. For one, when I rode Silver State, the air-conditioning coughed up and died (the HVAC failed). For two, the seats didn't recline. For three, the lavatory had no sink nor did it have sanitizer. And for last, their coach had a horrible ride quality, like a school bus.

So that leads me to seriously wonder what Silver State is doing with their government funding. And I'm fearful that other government-funded services are going to be just as bad.

At this point the Silver State service is so bad that's it's pretty much unusable. I mean, imagine riding 10 hours across the desert with no air-conditioning, a terrible suspension, and fixed-back seats. Or you can get off in the middle but that's the middle of nowhere in the middle of the desert.


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## railiner (Nov 18, 2014)

MikefromCrete said:


> fairviewroad said:
> 
> 
> > Swadian Hardcore said:
> ...


Don't be nervous...it's nice to get some fresh input around here.... 

The reason for the questioning, is that the last scheduled bus service linking Durango and Grand Junction used the much more direct routing of US 550 "The Million Dollar Highway"....this new route loops around to reach all those other communities, and consequently takes much longer to link the end points. So it will please some folks, and discourage use by other's....as they say, you can't please all of the people, all of the times.....


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## rickycourtney (Nov 18, 2014)

MikefromCrete said:


> I'm a little nervous getting into a conversation with a bunch of bus nerds, but wouldn't the routing be to actually serve these communities, rather than bypass them. Isn't that the purpose of a locally-funded bus route?


I fancy myself more of a general transportation geek instead of a train/bus/plane nerd, but I digress.

I completely agree with you. Publicly funded routes should be serve to improve mobility in as many of the communities (big and small) along the way as possible. In my opinion, bus routes like these provide an important public service for people who, for whatever reason, can't or choose not to drive.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Nov 18, 2014)

You're right but there's a few problems. First of all, some of those places may generate single-digit ridership per year. Then there's the problem of what's going on behind the scenes of these companies. For example, Silver State. They received funding to operate the Doyle-Las Vegas route. But where did the funding all go? The fares are so expensive that I could go from Reno to Vancouver for the same price. Maintenance? Near zero. Equipment? They don't even own it, it's leased. It's the worst equipment you can get and the seats don't even recline. And it has no wheelchair lift.

So, what if these other rural buses are doing just the same stuff Silver State is doing? And what is Silver State doing with its funding? Seriously, their equipment's worse than a suburban and they want to use it for a 10-hour trip?


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## rickycourtney (Nov 18, 2014)

How do you know that Silver State received funding? Who's funding the route? The state or the federal government?

If you can answer those questions I suggest you complain to the agency that gave Silver State the contract.

If you can't answer that question, maybe the answer is that Silver State is a small operator who's just barely making enough to keep the buses on the road.

This is the price you pay for deregulation, smaller operators and government agencies are left to fill the void when Greyhound ditched the less profitable lines.

Also I'd point out that even if ridership for a stop is low, say 5 passengers a month, that's still 5 more paying passengers. The trick is creating a booking system where buses stop at that city only when needed.


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## rickycourtney (Nov 18, 2014)

Actually a few minutes on Google turned up an article with all the answers: http://busride.com/2014/08/silver-state-mainline-now-connects-rural-nevada/

I didn't realize how new this service was.

Silver State has a website dedicated to the route along with contract and customer complaint information: http://silverstatemainline.com


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## fairviewroad (Nov 18, 2014)

MikefromCrete said:


> I'm a little nervous getting into a conversation with a bunch of bus nerds, but wouldn't the routing be to actually serve these communities, rather than bypass them. Isn't that the purpose of a locally-funded bus route?


The circuitous (and much longer) routing will _definitely_ increase costs (fuel and driver pay) and _probably_ scare off riders between the "tent post" big cities at either

end of the route. Given those factors, you have to calculate whether the revenue gained from riders in those smaller communities will offset the increased costs

of serving them and offset the decreased revenue from riders in larger communities.

If, at the end of the day, serving the smaller communities causes the route to be financially unsustainable, and the route is axed, then _no one_ is served. But yes,

if the route is better for local residents, and they actually use it, then it does make sense.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Nov 18, 2014)

Silver State's definitely funded by the Nevada DOT but I really, really, don't understand why it goes to Doyle.

Also, I don't mean 5 pax a month, I mean like 5 pax a year might ride from Doyle.

Greyhound never even served this route. Reno-Las Vegas was served by LVTR (Las Vegas Tonopah Reno Stage Lines) and later by K-T (Kerrville-Texas Bus Lines) but never by Greyhound. And I don't believe Doyle has EVER had bus service. But going to Doyle means Silver State must meet CA Emissions Standards.

I bet LVTR and even K-T provided much better service than Silver State! So where did all the funding go?


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## rickycourtney (Nov 18, 2014)

You make it sound like Silver State is getting a ton of money to operate this service and pocketing a portion of it. That's a pretty bold accusation.

This doesn't sound like an operation that is getting much funding.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Nov 18, 2014)

Well then at least put a can of sanitizer in the lavatory, fix the HVAC, and unlock the seat recline.

Yeah, I _am _accusing Silver State of improper usage of funding. Doesn't mean to say that they are pocketing it. Perhaps they used the money to pay for the leased bus' lease fees instead of paying for maintenance. Or perhaps they used the money to pay for charters in order to attack that highly-competitive market.

Whatever the case, Silver State has major problems. And their service costs far too much to be truly useful.


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## tp49 (Nov 18, 2014)

If they're going to Doyle why not just go all the way to Susanville...


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## Swadian Hardcore (Nov 18, 2014)

'Cause Sage Stage already goes to Susanville so Silver State would not have gotten any funding for such a route.


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