# The beauty of the UK's loneliest bus stops...



## caravanman (Feb 18, 2014)

Where are the Greyhound equivilents?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26036885

Ed


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## oregon pioneer (Feb 18, 2014)

Oh, wow, in my yonger days, I have boarded or alighted some mail buses in the "middle of nowhere" in northern Scotland. What a beautiful experience!

It's not exactly Greyhound, but our little Grant County People Mover bus heads 150 miles each way from John Day to Bend, oregon three days a week. In the first 110 miles, there are only three towns: Mount Vernon (pop 517), Dayville (pop 147), and Mitchell (pop 129). If you live in between those little towns you may, with advance notice, have the bus pick you up or drop you off at a corner or a driveway. Certainly those stops qualify as "the middle of nowhere."


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## fairviewroad (Feb 18, 2014)

oregon pioneer said:


> our little Grant County People Mover bus


After carefully reading that website, I have just one question: Do they haul freight??? 

To the OP, cool article. Thanks for sharing. I doubt Greyhound can come anywhere close to matching any of those stops, as their business model these days seems to be only serving towns along interstate highways.

I'd bet there are oddball local services like the Oregon one mentioned that could come close, but it depends on how you define "bus stop" since

on-demand flag stops could be pretty much anything.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 18, 2014)

Nice bus stops! Would like to ride some buses out there. Note that I'm pretty sure these routes use transit buses, not the intericty buses that Greyhound operates.

True, most Greyhound routes go on controlled-access highways so these stops would be impossible, however, please realize Greyhound's intercity buses would be horribly ineifficient on these little roads. If Greyhound had the same kind of rural buses that run in the UK, they might have kept some of their rural routes.

Greyhound has indeed bought a few cutaways to run shuttle routes but I don't think even they don't make flag stops like this.

But there's a catch: Greyhound's famous Dawson Creek-Whitehorse route has loads of flag stops which can surely match the UK in loneliness. Look at this: http://extranet.greyhound.com/revsup/csked/pdf/720.pdf.


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## oregon pioneer (Feb 19, 2014)

fairviewroad said:


> oregon pioneer said:
> 
> 
> > our little Grant County People Mover bus
> ...


Unfortunately, they had to stop doing that. It was such a wonderful service, but it was not in their charter so the freight and parcel companies complained about the competition. But really, UPS and FedEx go everywhere out here in the "middle of nowhere."

And yes, I have taken the People Mover to catch an Amtrak train, ha, ha! You have to change buses, and travel from 7am to late afternoon, to get to PDX or Chemult (the nearest Amtrak stops). Ed, how many hours and how many changes does it take to get from the "middle of nowhere" in the UK to the nearest train stop? I'll bet it's more convenient than eastern Oregon!


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## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 19, 2014)

oregon pioneer said:


> fairviewroad said:
> 
> 
> > oregon pioneer said:
> ...


Hey, at least Greyhound still hauls freight!


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## railiner (Feb 19, 2014)

Interesting arcticle, If you want to really see a bus stop "in the middle of nowhere", I don't think there would be many places to compare with the fictional "Prairie Stop, Hiway 41" depicted in Alfred Hitchcock's classic film, "North by Northwest".....you know....the one with the cropduster scene.  .

For a real comparison, I would have to go back into the late '60's when there was bus service along "The Loneliest Road in America"....US-50, across western Utah and Nevada.

Lewis Brother's Stages ran from Salt Lake City to Ely, and Nevada Central from Ely to Carson City. The stops were a hundred miles of desert apart, although they were typically better than the shelter's depicted in the UK....typically agencies in hotel's or service station's.......


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## fairviewroad (Feb 19, 2014)

In terms of lonely transportation stops in North America, I bet some of the VIA Rail stops along the Canadian and the Churchill train could top the list.


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## caravanman (Feb 19, 2014)

Thanks for the replies.

I am not sure where the middle of nowhere in the UK is, I will try to find the UK spot farthest from rail service, guess it may be in Scotland.

As to the Lonliest Road in the US , I have driven that a few years back! Great experience, came about when something went wrong with my Amtrak rail pass schedule, and I just cancelled it and on impulse hired a car and set off to the golden west.. Got to San Francisco (and back) from Chicago, and had a superb time, even with you guys driving on the wrong side. That Route 50 was just amazing!

Ed


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