# Bus Nostalgia



## NS VIA Fan

From a trip in January 1979:

I wanted to get one last ride in on the 'Southern Crescent' before Amtrak took it over. I was riding the 'Floridian' north from Miami on a 'USA Railpass' but upon reaching Birmingham I found out the Southern Crescent was sold out from there but I could get a coach seat in Atlanta where additional cars were added.

Now what to do?.....Well Greyhound had a bus and with a quick taxi ride in Atlanta I was there in time to get the Southern Crescent to Washington.


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## cpotisch

Wow. Didn’t know that long distance busses ever made that many stops. Did that at all make it hard to sleep or rest?


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## Bob Dylan

cpotisch said:


> Wow. Didnt know that long distance busses ever made that many stops. Did that at all make it hard to sleep or rest?


Take it from we Old timers, it wasn't Fun on Long Distance Buses!


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## jis

I remember riding Greyhound's "nonstop" New York - Chicago service, which made only food stops on the way. The bus was pretty full. It was in the 1979 timeframe when I traveled one summer all across the US using a one month Greyhound Ameripass. I was a student with no spare money to speak of. The entire trip was planned to spend nights on the bus, unless I had a friend or acquaintance somewhere that I could crash at. And I actually had fun. But then I also have fun flying these days, so maybe I just have a strange idea of what is fun


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## BCL

Didn't Greyhound have a Seattle to Miami route that ran without an equipment change? Obviously it would require new drivers along the way. That would have been an interesting ride.


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## BCL

jis said:


> I remember riding Greyhound's "nonstop" New York - Chicago service, which made only food stops on the way. The bus was pretty full. It was in the 1979 timeframe when I traveled one summer all across the US using a one month Greyhound Ameripass. I was a student with no spare money to speak of. The entire trip was planned to spend nights on the bus, unless I had a friend or acquaintance somewhere that I could crash at. And I actually had fun. But then I also have fun flying these days, so maybe I just have a strange idea of what is fun


Found an article on unlimited transportation passes. Of course Amtrak had it, and so did several major airlines. The airlines kind of reduced the chances of students using them by requiring that at least two be booked at a time.

https://www.nytimes.com/1978/07/09/archives/unlimited-travel-by-air-bus-rail-a-single-ticket.html

At least two adults or one adult and two children between 2 and 11 years old must travel together. (Each child”s fare is about $200.) For families, this usually presents no problem, but it meant a bit of a hassle for Jeana Woolley of Portland, Ore., who would have preferred to travel alone when she went to Miami and Trinidad and Martinique early this year. “Instead, there were four of us,” she said, “including a couple of friends-of-friends whom I didn”t know. One of the others set up the itinerary, and I would have done some things differently myself. But overall, it was a tremendous opportunity. My travel agent said I had $1,300 worth of tickets for only $320, and such a trip would normally have been an impossible dream for me.”


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## cpotisch

BCL said:


> Didn't Greyhound have a Seattle to Miami route that ran without an equipment change? Obviously it would require new drivers along the way. That would have been an interesting ride.


If there was, it would be about 4000 miles. On a bus. That would literally be hell for me.


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## VAtrainfan

cpotisch said:


> BCL said:
> 
> 
> 
> Didn't Greyhound have a Seattle to Miami route that ran without an equipment change? Obviously it would require new drivers along the way. That would have been an interesting ride.
> 
> 
> 
> If there was, it would be about 4000 miles. On a bus. That would literally be hell for me.
Click to expand...

Buses are the one form of transportation that sets off my motion sickness. Trains, never a problem. Planes, nothing. Ferries, I was on a ferry during Hurricane Hugo and survived w/o puking.

But 4000 miles on a bus? I can barely go 4000 feet on a bus without Dramamine


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## flitcraft

Ah, the Greyhound Ameripass...99 bucks and unlimited travel as long as you didn't backtrack. In 1980, I did over 4000 miles on the Dog betweem Boston and Seattle, visiting friends in Georgia, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California on the way. I quickly learned that the optimum boarding strategy was to get to the end of the line for boarding if the line was long, because if the bus filled up they would put on a second bus which would often be only lightly filled. So you could stretch out to sleep that way, as well as getting privacy from passengers who wanted to be overly friendly with solo young female passengers.

I had a map of the US which I marked my route on with a Magic Marker, a Sony Walkman with plenty of cassette tapes, and a backpack.  Good times...

(Well, actually it was mostly fun...)


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## NS VIA Fan

New York's 'New' Port Authority Bus Terminal after a major renovation


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## cpotisch

NS VIA Fan said:


> New York's 'New' Port Authority Bus Terminal after a major renovation
> 
> View attachment 10863
> 
> 
> View attachment 10864
> 
> 
> View attachment 10865
> 
> 
> View attachment 10866


LOL. The days when people thought that the Port Authority Bus Terminal was somehow aesthetically pleasing and a nice place to start a trip.  :giggle:


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## NS VIA Fan

After the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad's 'Potatoland Special' and 'Aroostook Flyer' were discontinued in 1961.....passenger service to Northern Maine continued on railroad owned buses.

At Madawaska the bus briefly crossed the border to Edmundston, New Brunswick then went right back to the States and continued along it's run. (wonder how Customs handled that one!) The VIA Station in Edmundston was adjacent to the International Bridge....and at Van Buren, Maine the VIA Station in St. Leonard was a half-mile away.


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## railiner

At one time, Bangor and Aroostook and Eastern Greyhound Lines had an interline thru bus from Fort Kent to New York City.

It was always a treat for bus fans to see the “exotic” BAR equipment in The Port....


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## jis

Back in the '70s I boarded a Greyhound bus in San Francisco which said "New York" on its destination sign, and was supposedly a through service with several stops of course. As I discovered, the equipment got swapped out en route at Salt Lake City and then again in Chicago as I seem to recall. But it was really not that bad a ride considering the fare I was paying in the form of an Ameripass. In those poor graduate student days, it was either that or no trip. Amtrak was way too expensive even in Coach.

As it turns out, while I was enjoying the northwest I lost track of time, and by the time I got to San Francisco I was running short of time. So after spending a day or two in San Fran I had to get on the direct bus back to NY to avoid having to spend more money on additional tickets. This was a strictly cash in pocket trip. I had no credit card or any way of getting additional money easily before I got back to New York.


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## NS VIA Fan

railiner said:


> At one time, Bangor and Aroostook and Eastern Greyhound Lines had an interline thru bus from Fort Kent to New York City.
> 
> It was always a treat for bus fans to see the “exotic” BAR equipment in The Port....


That thru bus left Fort Kent at 9:20am and didn't reach New York until 4:15am the next morning. Fort Kent is the northern terminus of US1....2,369 miles from Key West.   

Greyhound also had thru buses from New York to Moncton, Saint John and St. Stephen, New Brunswick where they interlined with SMT


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## cpotisch

NS VIA Fan said:


> View attachment 10904


What was the point of the massive hump on top of those old busses?


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## NS VIA Fan

cpotisch said:


> What was the point of the massive hump on top of those old busses?


They were the Scenicruisers.....the 'Dome Car'  of buses!


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## jis

NS VIA Fan said:


> They were the Scenicruisers.....the 'Dome Car'  of buses!


That is what was called a Super-Scenicruiser if I recall correctly. Greyhound, at least circa 1965-66 called their single level buses Scenicruisers and the two-level ones with the "hump" in the back Super-Scenicruisers.

I traveled in one of those in 1965, seated in the first row of that upper level, from Boston to Niagara Falls. It was really nice to be able to look forward with an unhindered view of the road ahead. Of course most of that trip was on Mass Turnpike and New York State Thruway.


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## NS VIA Fan

jis said:


> That is what was called a Super-Scenicruiser if I recall correctly. Greyhound, at least circa 1965-66 called their single level buses Scenicruisers and the two-level ones with the "hump" in the back Super-Scenicruisers.


The 'Scenicruisers' were also 2-levels. When rebuilt...the modified units became 'Super Scenicruisers'


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## NS VIA Fan

Scenicruiser AD:


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## railiner

NS VIA Fan said:


> Scenicruiser AD:
> 
> View attachment 10915


That particular one was the “GX-2”, prototype, built in 1949.   The 1,001 production models were built in 1954-1956.  Raymond Loewy, of GG-1, Studebaker, and Air Force One design, amongst other famous designs, helped design it.


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## BCL

Well - as a kid who took the bus to school a lot, I thought maybe it was about bus equipment.  I went to a Catholic school a few miles away and along a main drag where AC Transit was running plenty of buses.  Then later on we'd take special AC Transit buses to school that were dedicated drop-off and pickup at my junior high.

The primary equipment used back then was the General Motors "New Look".  I remember seeing the individual differences, such as where the exhaust was.  Some were hidden under the body, while others were on either side of the rear window.  One type was of a large exhaust panel located above the rear window.


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## NS VIA Fan

railiner said:


> It was always a treat for bus fans to see the “exotic” BAR equipment in The Port....


Did you also see "exotic" SMT equipment in "The Port..." ? They painted their buses in a Greyhound-like scheme. Schedule shows thru buses between Moncton and New York.

SMT was owned by the New Brunswick Irving family. Today they own the former Canadian Pacific Railway mainline east of Brownville Jct. Maine and operate the former Bangor and Aroostook Railroad. They also own the Irving Gas stations throughout New England and eastern Canada.


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## railiner

Greyhound operated through interline trips all over North America with a multitude of carriers’s.  In most, but not all cases, the pool carrier equipment had to be up to Greyhound standards, and be in a similar blue, white, and silver color scheme, even if the “regular” scheme differed.

SMT (Eastern Limited) buses did indeed come into The Port.  IIRC, at one time there was even a summertime thru trip all the way to Halifax, involving Acadian Lines.

Another “exotic” pool was a New York to Quebec City via Newport, Vermont with Quebec Central Transportation Company.


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## cpotisch

railiner said:


> That particular one was the “GX-2”, prototype, built in 1949.   The 1,001 production models were built in 1954-1956.  Raymond Loewy, of GG-1, Studebaker, and Air Force One design, amongst other famous designs, helped design it.


Is it correct to say though that the only benefit of this design is that passengers get a front window?


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## NS VIA Fan

railiner said:


> Greyhound operated through interline trips all over North America with a multitude of carriers’s.  In most, but not all cases, the pool carrier equipment had to be up to Greyhound standards, and be in a similar blue, white, and silver color scheme, even if the “regular” scheme differed.
> 
> SMT (Eastern Limited) buses did indeed come into The Port.  IIRC, at one time there was even a summertime thru trip all the way to Halifax, involving Acadian Lines.
> 
> Another “exotic” pool was a New York to Quebec City via Newport, Vermont with Quebec Central Transportation Company.




Thanks for that!

And I was going to ask you what the ‘Roll-Sign’ on those thru buses to Moncton, Saint John and St. Stephen might have displayed……but checking this out:

http://www.rollsigngallery.com/350-Intercity/Greyhound/page350-Greyhound.html

……It was just “Maritimes”…and I seem to recall seeing this on Greyhounds heading up I-95.

(And that roll-sign in the link above….almost as fun as watching the old Solari Board at Grand Central flip through all those long gone named trains and destinations !!)


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## NS VIA Fan

cpotisch said:


> Is it correct to say though that the only benefit of this design is that passengers get a front window?




Here’s another bus designed to give passengers a better view…at least in the first couple of rows. (...and stock photos in that brochure. No mountains like that here!)


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## trainman74

NS VIA Fan said:


> (And that roll-sign in the link above….almost as fun as watching the old Solari Board at Grand Central flip through all those long gone named trains and destinations !!)


Guess they didn't have any buses terminate in Tampa -- it's not on the rollsign. (St. Petersburg is.)


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## ehbowen

cpotisch said:


> Is it correct to say though that the only benefit of this design is that passengers get a front window?


Hey, it looked cool. Styling is everything.

Greyhound still has (or at least had, about ten years back) one of these buses in working condition as a heritage piece. I got to see it during a convention in Houston. The restroom was in the rear of the lower section, driver's side (Edit: Wikipedia says passenger side. My memory could be faulty, but I'd want to see pictures before I acquiesce.). The upper section did have good views, but leg room in the front row (with the best view) was limited. Passengers in the lower section had to contend with the upper portion of the front wheel wells, which intruded into the seating area and limited leg room. The dropped lower section cost the line a potential storage bay for luggage and ($ more importantly $) express.

So, yes, I guess you can say that the only benefit of this design is that passengers got a front window. You can judge its success by the fact that after the mid-50s when the newness had worn off, the design was discontinued.


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## NS VIA Fan

The Transcontinental Routes....with Thru Buses including: NY-LA, NY-San Diego, SF-Boston, Wash-LA etc....


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## jis

So I was finally able to jog my memory about names of Greyhound buses back in the '60s... AFAIR

The single deckers were called Americruisers.

The original 1.5 deckers were called Scenicruisers, and the upgraded ones were called Super Sceicruisers.


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## railiner

NS VIA Fan said:


> Thanks for that!
> 
> And I was going to ask you what the ‘Roll-Sign’ on those thru buses to Moncton, Saint John and St. Stephen might have displayed……but checking this out:
> 
> http://www.rollsigngallery.com/350-Intercity/Greyhound/page350-Greyhound.html
> 
> ……It was just “Maritimes”…and I seem to recall seeing this on Greyhounds heading up I-95.
> 
> (And that roll-sign in the link above….almost as fun as watching the old Solari Board at Grand Central flip through all those long gone named trains and destinations !!)


They varied the roll sign's by the division that owned the coach.  I recall earlier EGL coaches having "St. Stephen" on the roll.  That was the end of the line for GL, with SMT (Eastern Limited), beyond there.  I recall the generic "Maritimes", not sure if they ever had a "Halifax", or other maritime cities on the roll.


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## railiner

NS VIA Fan said:


> Here’s another bus designed to give passengers a better view…at least in the first couple of rows. (...and stock photos in that brochure. No mountains like that here!)
> 
> View attachment 10925
> 
> 
> View attachment 10926
> 
> 
> View attachment 10927


In manufacturer, General Motor's parlance, the 35 foot PD-4107, was referred to in sales brochure's as the "Luxury Liner", and the 40 foot PD-4903 version, the "Super Luxury Liner"...

Bus fans refered to them as "Buffalo's" or "Batmobile's", in some area's....


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## railiner

jis said:


> So I was finally able to jog my memory about names of Greyhound buses back in the '60s... AFAIR
> 
> The single deckers were called Americruisers.
> 
> The original 1.5 deckers were called Scenicruisers, and the upgraded ones were called Super Sceicruisers.


The official name of the General Motor's PD-4501 built exclusively for Greyhound was the Scenicruiser.   When they were rebuilt in 1961 and 1962 by Marmon-Herrington, with the new Detroit Diesel 8v-71 replacing the twin 4's, amongst other improvement's, Greyhound dubbed them Super Scenicruiser's.   The single level PD-4104's originally called Highway Traveler's by Greyhound, and the new PD-4106 were dubbed Scenicruiser Service.   Later on, when the MCI MC-7 came out, it was dubbed the Super 7 Scenicruiser,  followed by the MC-8 Americruiser, and then the MC-9 Americruiser II.   MCI called all of them "Challenger's", replacing the previous name "Courier" used in Canada.   There was also a limited production MCI MC-6, built only for Greyhound called the Supercruiser.   Going back into the later '30's, 40's, and early '50's, Greyhound used names like Supercoach, and Silverside, for GM and Yellow predecessor models...


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## NativeSon5859

Sorry to resurrect this old thread, but would anyone happen to have screenshots of old Greyhound/Trailways schedules from New Orleans from the 80’s that they could post? Thank you!!!


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## Willbridge

NativeSon5859 said:


> Sorry to resurrect this old thread, but would anyone happen to have screenshots of old Greyhound/Trailways schedules from New Orleans from the 80’s that they could post? Thank you!!!


I'll take a look. In the meantime, this looks like the place to post this trip report from what now seems like a long-vanished era.


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## railiner

Willbridge said:


> I'll take a look. In the meantime, this looks like the place to post this trip report from what now seems like a long-vanished era.


Thanks for that enjoyable read... brings back memories of my own in the sixties thru 70’s, “riding the cushion’s” across the country...


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## Willbridge

railiner said:


> Thanks for that enjoyable read... brings back memories of my own in the sixties thru 70’s, “riding the cushion’s” across the country...


By the time I made the "post-Pioneer" trip GL had already reduced the number of stops and the number of trips on a lot of routes, including DEN<>PDX. You were riding when they were living off the rail passengers and package express that was handed to them due to train-offs.

The highlight was during the 1972-75 Energy Crisis. In February 1974, GL carried as much traffic in Oregon as in the previous summer and they called back all their furloughed operators to do it. Riding the Portland <> Salem Commuter Club bus on Friday nights in '74 a colleague and I would count the extra sections headed south: first usually the Portland>Albany>Newport run, then three sections on the premiere SEA >PDX > SFO overnight run and then sometimes two sections of the SEA > PDX > LAX Trailways Golden Eagle. And, because our bus was a charter (Hamman Stage Lines), we could raise a glass of wine to toast each.

I rode a lot of local GL and TW trips in Oregon, Washington and northern California between 1961 and 1976 (minus a couple of years away in the Army) when there were still some business travelers on those lines. Due to the low load factors it could be comfortable and in Oregon smoking was prohibited anywhere in the bus. During that era I made two overnight bus rides, Bozeman to Portland and PDX>SFO via the Coast Highway. The Bozeman trip was because the _North Coast Hiawatha,_ try-weakly, ran on the wrong dates for my business. The Coast Highway fare was the same as via Medford or via Klamath Falls and it was Spring Break, so why not?

ALL of the above is gone now, except for bits and pieces run by independent or state-sponsored carriers and a single GL overnight PDX > SAC > LAX run in the premiere timeslot.


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## railiner

NativeSon5859 said:


> Sorry to resurrect this old thread, but would anyone happen to have screenshots of old Greyhound/Trailways schedules from New Orleans from the 80’s that they could post? Thank you!!!


I just noticed this request...sorry, but my timetable collection and old Russell's Guides are back in my Queens "archives"...haven't been back there since New Years...


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## Willbridge

NativeSon5859 said:


> Sorry to resurrect this old thread, but would anyone happen to have screenshots of old Greyhound/Trailways schedules from New Orleans from the 80’s that they could post? Thank you!!!


I don't know if you are still interested, but attached are what I have. Table 589 is complete, the others are condensed tables. These are all from the 70's. I do have some Official Bus Guides from the 80's, but they scan terribly. If it's a specific question that you have, I might be able to look up the answer for you.


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## hlcteacher

i went to school in idaho and took greyhound all the way all the time...thanks for the memories (cleveland, oh to caldwell, id) wonder if i have any old schedules around her (printed by call and post publishing in cleveland) will have to look


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## NativeSon5859

Willbridge said:


> I don't know if you are still interested, but attached are what I have. Table 589 is complete, the others are condensed tables. These are all from the 70's. I do have some Official Bus Guides from the 80's, but they scan terribly. If it's a specific question that you have, I might be able to look up the answer for you.


 
Thank you very much! These are perfect.


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## cocojacoby

I have been wondering lately how well Greyhound is doing during this shut down. Can't think that a long confined bus ride filled with strangers getting on and off along the way is not a breeding ground for diseases.

I thought they were close to the edge before this. They got to be hurting. Amtrak might be the only option on some routes.


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## Willbridge

cocojacoby said:


> I have been wondering lately how well Greyhound is doing during this shut down. Can't think that a long confined bus ride filled with strangers getting on and off along the way is not a breeding ground for diseases.
> 
> I thought they were close to the edge before this. They got to be hurting. Amtrak might be the only option on some routes.


They're hanging in there, but owner First Group had them up for sale before the pandemic.

Most western main lines are down to one bus a day, although that's still more than independent lines that had suspended service.

It's an interesting twist, but Amtrak lines often were the only service already. As the long-distance networks of both bus and rail have been continually reduced (rail since 1917 or so, bus since the late 1960's), a situation has evolved in which smaller centers have only Amtrak or one intercity bus company. That's one of the reasons the politics of long-distance train service have started to change. The remaining transcons each have stretches where they are not paralleled by an Interstate and the bus industry has found that customers loathe not being on an interstate.


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## Chazcop

Whenever I see train scheds from the 50s or bus scheds from the 70’s I still shake my head...hard to believe we lost all that! 
Re bus scheds I’ve written the owner of Russell’s Guides several times about making a copy of say the Summer of 1958 avail as a reprint (I have that but it’s so fragile that I am afraid to touch it ) but he has not been interested. Too bad...we can access many old Official Railway Guide reprints for free via Google—download them—or send away for DvD ,copies thru hobbyists.


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## railiner

Chazcop said:


> Whenever I see train scheds from the 50s or bus scheds from the 70’s I still shake my head...hard to believe we lost all that!
> Re bus scheds I’ve written the owner of Russell’s Guides several times about making a copy of say the Summer of 1958 avail as a reprint (I have that but it’s so fragile that I am afraid to touch it ) but he has not been interested. Too bad...we can access many old Official Railway Guide reprints for free via Google—download them—or send away for DvD ,copies thru hobbyists.


Agree...every time I access my 1959 Russell’s, the pages crumble away.
The NY Public Library does have an excellent set of them , now on microfiche, in one of their archive locations, but its a royal pain to get an appointment to access them. I don’t believe they think there’s enough interest to digitize them.


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## Caesar La Rock

Chazcop said:


> Whenever I see train scheds from the 50s or bus scheds from the 70’s I still shake my head...hard to believe we lost all that!
> Re bus scheds I’ve written the owner of Russell’s Guides several times about making a copy of say the Summer of 1958 avail as a reprint (I have that but it’s so fragile that I am afraid to touch it ) but he has not been interested. Too bad...we can access many old Official Railway Guide reprints for free via Google—download them—or send away for DvD ,copies thru hobbyists.



I also shake my head too at how much we lost. Greyhound cutting all service in Western Canada is just another nail in the coffin for the Hound. I feel bad for the drivers, cleaners, and mechanics who likely lost their jobs because of those cuts. To this day no one has a solution to the possibility of what happens if Greyhound faded away all together? Would Amtrak be in a situation to pick up the slack? Another example, at one time, all of New Jersey had some sort of bus service and it was served by actual buses rather than paratransit vehicles or vans like what has become of some bus routes in New Jersey today. I don't have any old schedules or maps of buses, but I do have a bunch of scanned slides of them. Maybe I'll post a couple here.


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## railiner

New Jersey, being the most densely populated state in the union, still enjoys much better than any other state, when it comes to both bus and rail public transportation. Some of these paratransit vans serve places that never had public transportation. When comparing now, and what used to be...you have to consider that back then, most families had one car, or even none. Now there may be one for every driver in the family...


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