Greyhound seats and fleet questions

[railiner]

I found more old Greyhound timetables on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/103688802@N02/16946496101/in/album-72157647622207805/.

These are from 1966 and many are from around Reno.

Thanks for providing that link....great stuff there!

It almost makes you want to cry, seeing all those routes and schedules that have disappeared over the years. I noticed one little tidbit...the trip numbers on the old Pacific Greyhound Lines mid-century timetables between Los Angeles and San Francisco used odd numbers northbound and even numbers southbound, reflecting the practices of its then parent Southern Pacific Railroad, where everything going toward San Francisco was "westward", and everything leaving San Francisco was "eastward"....

I especially loved that postcard view of my all-time favorite highway rest stop--the Breezewood (PA) Post House.

*

As for the two different mileage claims for the J4500...perhaps it was the result of two different test runs...once when they compared it with the Van Hool, and the other when compared with the Prevost? :unsure:

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Look at how many stops all those buses used to make! Between Santa Rosa and Ukiah alone, they stopped at Fulton Interchange, Windsor Interchange, Healdsburg, Lytton, Geyserville, Cloverdale, and Hopland! A stop every 5-20 minutes, it seems.

I haven't seen the Los Angeles-San Francisco timetable yet. I guess the reason why the numbers were reversed with the SP was because they had New Orleans-San Francisco trains that went west to Los Angeles and then north to San Francisco, so everything else running Los Angeles-San Francisco would be considered westbound as well. I see that Greyhound also had such service, such as San Francisco-Miami, which went through Los Angeles.

I guess MCI could have tested the J against the Prevost in different conditions then they tested it against the Van Hool, but I still think this is a blatant error. Also, MCI's website is still showing the "2014 MCI J4500" and "2014 MCI D4505." It's 2015 already!

 

[railiner]

Well they may or may not have tested them again this year....Or...perhaps they could not duplicate that fantastic better then 9 mpg mileage, so they elected not to publish the latest test....

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

No, what I mean is that MCI's spec sheets are still for the 2014 model year! Check this out: http://www.mcicoach.com/luxury-coaches/passengerJ4500.htm.

"2014 MCI J4500", and the turning circle is still listed as 47' even though the new IFS would have reduced it significantly.

Same deal with the D4505.

 

[railiner]

No, what I mean is that MCI's spec sheets are still for the 2014 model year! Check this out: http://www.mcicoach.com/luxury-coaches/passengerJ4500.htm.

"2014 MCI J4500", and the turning circle is still listed as 47' even though the new IFS would have reduced it significantly.

Same deal with the D4505.

Yes, the brochure says '2014', but at the bottom in the specs, it shows turning radius of 40', 11".....

Perhaps they don't reissue a brochure each year? Or they are just lax at updating the cover? :unsure:

Why don't you ask them?

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I'll probably just get false information or get ignored if I ask them. That's usually been MCI's previous attitude when I ask about things. I see that the J4500 figures were updated, but the D4505 and D4500CT haven't been. A lot of weird stuff is going on at MCI's website. The brochure was weird and the spec sheets are weird. I don't understand why MCI blatantly fails to notice details. If their website is so sloppy, imagine how bad their products have gotten.

 

[railiner]

Not to sound like an MCI defender, or anything...but many companies don't seem to 'notice details' on their websites. Either their IT department is weak, or their website is not that important to their total business model......

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

OK, you have a point. I still think it would have only taken a bare minimum of effort to update the information, but anyway, this reminds me that Greyhound's route map is still inaccurate and still shows that Ottumwa is in Missouri, when it's actually in Iowa, along with a massive host of other errors.

Edit: BTW, Greyhound Canada just got rid of Edmonton-Prince George. Now it's running Valemount-Prince George connecting at Valemount from the Edmonton-Vancouver. Talk about minimization of capacity!

 

[rickycourtney]

I agree it comes across as very sloppy... which reflects poorly on the values at MCI.

Quasi-related to Greyhound... My wife and Im are planning a short weekend trip to Portland next month and we spotted a mythical $1 ticket on BoltBus. We aren't even sure we can make the trip... but we figured it was a good bet to make. If we can make it work she gets to "Bolt for a Buck" and if not, we only lose a buck (plus a $1.50 booking fee).

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Yeah, if you see that $1 fare, it probably won't last! Is that for one-way or round-trip? I'm not sure if you could get a $1 fare for both of you. But it sure is a good deal. I'd have to point out that those Painful Premiers still suck and they aren't getting any better.

MCI has been getting a lot of new managers lately. Perhaps they are going through financial trouble again. I wouldn't be surprised. On GTE, people said that most of the orders aren't even being announced on news releases anymore.

Have you seen any more Blue G4500s? I haven't been to the bus terminal here in a while. I've got an updated list of at least 74 Blue G4500s. They seem to not have regional bases any more, like the other models do. They seem to run all around the country now. #7222 was seen in Vancouver, then in Atlanta, then in Oklahoma City. It looks like they are being deployed on long-haul corridors, presumably due to having more luggage capacity or perhaps longer driving range. Or perhaps they are going out on triangular rotations.

Greyhound's selling three DL3s, #6087, #6165, and #6291. All are 1999s with over 2,000,000 mileage. No wheelchair lifts. Jeez, they must have been running about 165,000 miles a year because these would have been out of scheduled service since December 2012 due to lack of wheelchair lifts.

 

[railiner]

Edit: BTW, Greyhound Canada just got rid of Edmonton-Prince George. Now it's running Valemount-Prince George connecting at Valemount from the Edmonton-Vancouver. Talk about minimization of capacity!

Sad.....looks like they are decimating their routes like GLI has been doing....

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

They've been doing it for a long time. GLC got rid of the Hay River service, cutting it back to High Level, which was then discontinued altogether. I think Edmonton-Prince George used to be twice daily, until they got rid of one, then cut it back to Valemount. Prince Geroge-Dawson Creek underwent a similar halving of service.

GLC is also cutting lots of routes in Manitoba and may be cutting in Ontario as well. I think GLC should get rid of its unprofitable commuter service, which fails to compete with transit agencies and the equipment only gets two burst of profitability in the morning and afternoon. Thank God they still have the routes to Whitehorse and Port Hardy. Those might actually make a profit.

I'm hoping GLC will only cut frequencies and not cut routes altogether. They should cut the tiny local stops as well on the main Trans-Canada Highway. I don't see the point of stopping in Hussar Junction, Cluny Junction, and Bassano, for example.

 

[rickycourtney]

Yeah, if you see that $1 fare, it probably won't last! Is that for one-way or round-trip? I'm not sure if you could get a $1 fare for both of you. But it sure is a good deal.

It's just one ticket, one way. A second one way ticket would have been $15 (which is still a bargain compared to Amtrak). I would have purchased 2 round-trip tickets at that moment to save us from having to pay the booking fee more than once, but like I said we aren't exactly sure on the details of the trip.

The deal was so good, we had to take the gamble it would work. Problem with BoltBus is... if you buy a ticket and can't use it you have to pay the $1.50 booking fee again plus the difference in ticket cost and there's no refund if the new ticket costs less than the old ticket. So it just didn't make since to buy the tickets for the other segments yet.

I'd have to point out that those Painful Premiers still suck and they aren't getting any better.

The Premier seating remains an unfortunate choice (especially on the "premium" BoltBus routes) but thankfully the trip is just over 3 hours... so we can suck it up... especially considering it's such a bargain.
Does anyone know the status of the BLUE system? BoltBus up here in the PNW used to have it... but now I'm not sure. Time will really fly by if we can watch a movie on our iPad.

On GTE, people said that most of the orders aren't even being announced on news releases anymore.

That's not surprising. My semi-educated two cents... the website is likely managed by the marketing department, which probably consists of just a few people or contractors. Either the department has bigger fish to fry (could be due to the launch of new buses) or they are really behind on their duties (could be due to short-staffing, vacations or layoffs).

Have you seen any more Blue G4500s?

I really don't get down to the SoDo area much anymore so I really haven't seen the Greyhound station much. When I went by last week there was a G4500, but I didn't catch its unit number.

 

[railiner]

They've been doing it for a long time. GLC got rid of the Hay River service, cutting it back to High Level, which was then discontinued altogether. I think Edmonton-Prince George used to be twice daily, until they got rid of one, then cut it back to Valemount. Prince Geroge-Dawson Creek underwent a similar halving of service.

GLC is also cutting lots of routes in Manitoba and may be cutting in Ontario as well. I think GLC should get rid of its unprofitable commuter service, which fails to compete with transit agencies and the equipment only gets two burst of profitability in the morning and afternoon. Thank God they still have the routes to Whitehorse and Port Hardy. Those might actually make a profit.

I'm hoping GLC will only cut frequencies and not cut routes altogether. They should cut the tiny local stops as well on the main Trans-Canada Highway. I don't see the point of stopping in Hussar Junction, Cluny Junction, and Bassano, for example.

I would really hate to see them ever cut out the route to Whitehorse. Back in 1970, when that route was still part of the old Coachway's system, I rode that and continued on to Fairbanks.

It would be really great if they ever would run that again. With a connection to Anchorage as well, like they used to. Perhaps if they tried it at least from the high tourist season from mid June until September, and properly promoted it, with various tour packages, like the cruiselines offer, it might be profitable. And if so, they might earn enough on GPX to continue it at least once a week, all year round. Just a dream.....

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Ricky, I guess you could suck it up for 3 hours, but those guys riding Bolt from Portland to Vancouver or Los Angeles to San Francisco are really going to get the pain. I think the most painful bus ride in the country would be Los Angeles-Dallas on a Greyhound D4505 or perhaps Richmond-Dallas on a X3-45.

As for BLUE, I haven't heard anything at all. I guess they're dropping the concept. Rumors on Facebook say that Greyhound is not interested in expanding BOLT or YO! anymore. I also see a NC-owned D4505 being driven to Raleigh and a driver talking about buying an old DL3. Heck, lots of drivers are talking about buying old DL3s. Those for sale must be really cheap considering their sky-high mileage.

The Setras are reportedly "disappointments", perhaps because they are not really designed for racking up the miles on the highway; some drivers are rooting for the J4500, but MCI's recent sloppiness leaves much to be desired.

Up in the North, I wonder if Greyhound ever took over the Coachways routes or did they simply purchase the route southeast of Whitehorse? Currently, Alaska Direct still runs Whitehorse-Fairbanks. It's not impossible that Greyhound could run that route in the summer tourist season, though I'm almost certain it would lose money in the winter. I think the current Dawson Creek-Fort Nelson-Whitehorse loses money in the winter and earns money in the summer, or else GLC would have axed it as well. Any more expansion would require GLC to get out of financial trouble and their bad reputation. Trautman knew commuter service was unprofitable, and yet GLC still keep running commuter service.

Here's a short trip report from the Vancouver-Calgary route that I found: http://www.travelreportage.com/2014/10/20/the-quickest-and-cheapest-way-to-see-the-canadian-rockies-bus-greyhound/. She took Sked 5006, the one I'm planning to take as well from Penticton. ROFL after reading "unicorns."

 

[rickycourtney]

Oh totally. I don't know how people could do a LA-SF trip on a BoltBus with Premier seating... it would just be excruciating considering you only get one break. Thankfully if you were doing Vancouver to Portland on BoltBus you get quite a few stretch breaks for a "limited stop" route... passengers are able to get off at the International Boarder (that's a mandatory stretch break, haha), Bellingham and Seattle.

I'm not sure that Greyhound is dropping the BLUE system since it's still proudly listed on the "What's New" section of their website. It's just weird that it's been around for 2 years at this point and has never expanded beyond the trial markets (Greyhound Express: Dallas-Houston, BoltBus: Vancouver-Seattle-Portland). The original plan was to do a 6 month pilot program and then expand the system nationwide.

If they end up canning the BLUE system it will be a real shame... I was incredibly impressed and it was really a fantastic concept. It really puts Greyhound up there with airlines in terms of offering BYOD entertainment service. Heck, I've recently used the BYOD systems on Southwest and Alaska and thought BLUE was better. Of course, they all beat the old seat back TV's with DIRECTV on United.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I thought United didn't have seatback TVs. That must be either new or on ex-Continental aircraft. Haven't been following the airline industry much these days except for the expansion of Premium Economy. Hopefully Greyhound goes through with BLUE, but their website doesn't get updated much anyway. The route map is inaccurate, so God knows what's also inaccurate. They haven't even updated the "What's New" section in years. Perhaps they've already expanded it but have failed to make a news release. Is BLUE stored in the bus or in the Wi-Fi connection?

The problem for me is that the rest breaks don't help the pain on the actual bus. I learned that the hard way between Reno and Denver. Both ways I had to sit in a Painful Premier. These days, I plain hate those seats and I would boycott them on anything longer than Reno-San Francisco.

 

[rickycourtney]

To my understanding there is an onboard BLUE media server (computer with a storage device) where all the content (movies, tv shows, music games) is stored. You access that server via a portal that pops up on your browser when you connect to the BLUE WiFi network. So when you play a movie the content is streamed from the media server to your device over WiFi, but that content is already stored on the bus... it's not downloaded via 4G cellular (how you connect to the internet).

The result is the catalog isn't expansive (like Netflix), but the content plays immediately and without any hiccups (from things like driving through a section of country with bad cell reception).

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

So, if the movies for BLUE are already stored on the bus, then wouldn't BLUE play anywhere that such an equipped bus is operating? So perhaps all of Greyhound's Dallas-based buses are equipped with BLUE and, conversely, all the Dallas-based routes would have BLUE? Unless Greyhound has a special pool for the Dallas-Houston route.

Edit: Found this article: http://www.grandforksherald.com/news/3659166-pembina-based-mci-sends-buses-new-jersey-contributes-good-year-company.

NJT is replacing buses that only have 500,000 miles on them? That's a disgrace to the same model that works four times as hard for Greyhound! Anybody who continues to say commuter coaches work hard and take a beating needs to gravel himself. Of course MCI had a good year when their customers are replacing buses that only ran a quarter of their service life! BTW, Greyhound's DL3s have all worked over 2,000,000 miles and are still going.

 

[rickycourtney]

I think that for the purposes of the BLUE trial there was a special pool of buses for the Dallas-Houston Greyhound Express route.

Comparing buses in transit commuter service to buses in intercity service is like comparing apples to oranges. Buses in transit commuter service tend to only run Monday-Friday during peak hours and do a lot of stop and go driving.

Also the FTA has set the minimum service life for a transit bus at 12 years or 500,000 miles, whichever comes first. At that point, buses paid for with federal funding can be retired without penalty. Many agencies have set a goal to retire buses when they reach their minimum service life to keep their fleet as new as possible.

Greyhound is a different animal... they don't receive federal funding and they were able to rebuild those DL3's, which returned them to a "like new" condition despite the number on the odometer. But rebuilds like that are somewhat rare in both the transit industry and in the intercity coach industry... Greyhound is one of the few companies large enough to make it happen.

 

[Caesar La Rock]

Most of the Gillig BRTs in Orlando have blown by the 500K mile minimum (a few years ago actually), but are still on the road, despite being 7-9 years old. As for minimum service life, some transit systems often exceed the 12 year lifespan.

It really depends on the system and their duty cycle for buses. Also, read the article carefully, they said over 500,000 miles on them. Not buses that have reached 500,000 miles. A lot of buses can have very different mileage, some higher and some lower then others.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I saw some ex-NJT MCIs for sale that had 600,000-700,000 miles. That still doesn't seem like much. I know they do stop-and-go driving, but would such driving really hurt the bus enough to retire them at such an early mileage?

Greyhound is also selling some MCIs, #6087, #6165, and #6291. These are White DL3s with no wheelchair lifts; they have not been rebuilt. These were relegated to charter service, but presumably Greyhound had too many charter-only DL3s and had to sell some. The thing is, all three of these for sale have run over 2,000,000 miles, #6165 being the most at 2,391,675 miles. I'm assuming Greyhound's rebuilt DL3s have even more miles by now.

Using the same trend, it can be assumed that Greyhound's 2010 D4505s have already run as many miles as NJT's 2001 D4500s. If it is indeed true that stop-and-go driving severely wears and tears the D4500s, then perhaps NJT shouldn't have bought them in the first place, because it would have been a waste of a good D4500 that could have otherwise run many more miles if it hadn't been used for commuter service.

Regarding BLUE, if they were using DL3s on Dallas-Houston, it would have been very hard to use a special pool of buses, IMO.

 

[mightyjoe1201]

Stop and go makes it harder on any vehicle. Even if they are marketed for commuter use it still is harder. We have some 2005 Gillig phantoms that have almost 300,000 on them and r falling apart.

 

[rickycourtney]

Right... mind you retiring buses at 12 years or 500,000 miles is the "gold standard" and usually something that only well funded agencies can achieve (but all agencies aspire to).

The FTA found that most agencies keep their buses around 15 years on average. Also worth mentioning that down in Portland they are preparing some Gillg's that are just about to turn 25 years old! They've certainly got a lot of use out of those buses... but I shudder to think what it must be like to ride on a bus that old.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

You mean they have 1990 Gillig Phantoms? Yeah, I don't know how that one would feel like. Probably pretty bad. GLC was running 1991 102C3s with CAT engines up until 2011, so they would have racked up +-3,000,000 miles. Then again, those 102C3s ran on the highway and probably took very little wear-and-tear. I guess 500,000 miles is indeed maximum for a stop-and-go bus, though intercity buses should last much longer. Heard high idle really wears out the engine while waiting on passengers. Someone told me it lowers engine life by 40%.