Greyhound seats and fleet questions

[Swadian Hardcore]

Ricky, I found that H3-45 interior shot for you: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wltphotography/13526076953/sizes/l.

That is Greyhound's blue H3-45 interior. Unfortunately, those seats are American Seating 2000, or they could be Model 2004. The H3-45s must have different seats because the white H3-45 interior I found on a blog post was equipped with National 4210S.

Also, here's a Blue G interior: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wltphotography/13526051093/sizes/l.

Looks a lot like a J4500 interior with larger, open parcel racks. As you can see, the parcel racks are about as big as they can get to keep a somewhat spacious feeling. I figured they can't get wider and move inboard more because then passengers would have a hard time getting bags out without bumping into another passenger.

Edit: Hey, I just noticed that tons of guests view this page. Feel free to post if you have any questions.

 

[rickycourtney]

Those seats look sharp in Greyhound's black leather and I've actually sat in an American Seating 2000 before... they're okay. There are a lot more comfortable seats on the market, but they aren't nearly as bad the Premier.

It's interesting that they left the blue/green fabric on the headliner and rear bulkhead wall. Every tour company seems to use some variant of brightly colored fabric on seats, the headliner and the bulkhead walls, frankly it's almost always atrocious. I guess the blue/green color works for a bus that seems to be captive to the Seattle garage... those are Seahawks colors after all!

I think the width of the overhead bins on the G4500 is dictated more by where people start to duck as they enter the seats. You don't want to have the bins go all the way to the aisle because passengers need some room to lower their heads as they sit down in the window seat.

I don't know how much domestic air travel you do... but Boeing's new sky interior for the 737 is fantastic. The overhead storage bins are HUGE (they can easily hold 5 standard roll aboard bags) but they pivot up, so when they're closed, the cabin feels much larger. It's an incredible feat of engineering.

Also Alaska Airlines is installing these custom designed Recaro seats that are actually pretty fantastic for coach seats. I was skeptical at first because the backs are super thin, but the seat bottoms have very thick and the literature pocket has been moved to the top of the seat, giving you a lot more legroom. In the end, I don't think it really matters how thick the back of the seat is, since you don't put that much pressure on it. Each seat also has a 110v power outlet and a USB outlet so you can charge your laptop and smartphone at the same time.



Also MCI has released a picture of what the new PSU's on the J4500 with the fasten seatbelt light looks like... it looks nice!

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I haven't done much domestic air travel recently, but I've flown on the 777 with the Sky interior. It's actually a pretty old interior. The 777 had it when it entered service in 1994. I just didn't like the 777 that much because I got a middle seat. I'd prefer flying on a 767 or A330/A340. Haven't flown on the 787 yet. 767s are awesome for us passengers, IMO.

I agree, the seat backs don't have to be too thick for comfort, but I think it's for safety with the new FMVSS rules. The Premier LS does a bad job because the seatbacks are quite think, yet they're flat and offer poor lumbar support. And we all know the seat bottoms are terrible. Amtrak's seats (don't know who made them), have fine seat bottoms, but the seat back is too thick and flat. A waste of space, if you ask me, but far more comfortable than a Painful Premier. BTW, the FAINSAs in the G4500s feel like shrunken Amtrak seats. FAINSA says they make train seats in Spain as well.

 

[railiner]

It appears that the Boeing overhead bins make use of the space that extends a bit above the cabin ceiling to the fuselage roof....space that doesn't exist in a bus. Only an 'Entertainer' coach might have that extra space capability....

 

[rickycourtney]

The FMVSS standards are about containing a passenger in the event of a crash... not keeping them comfortable in the event of a crash. I have a feeling if a thin back seat can stand up to the FAA standards... a thinner back bus seat can stand up to the FMVSS standards. Heck I think Amaya does make some seats with thinner backs now.

The G4500 had exceptionally large overhead storage bins, but that was because it was designed from the ground up to be a intercity coach. I honestly doubt we'll see another coach like it. Greyhound simply doesn't order enough coaches anymore to get major custom features from the manufacturer, let alone another custom coach.

 

[railiner]

I read where there were 25 102G3's built, of which GLI purchased 17. Anyone know how many 102GL3's or G4500's were built? And did GLI get all of them?

 

[rickycourtney]

25 102G3/G4100 coaches were built, 17 of them went to Greyhound, while the remainder went to other carriers including Coach USA, Academy, Martz, Peter Pan and Van Galder.

They were 40.5 feet long, which is actually the same length as the D4000, but with the G they rounded up instead of down.

Not sure how many G4500 coaches were built, but according to Greyhound's website the most G4500 coaches they had in the fleet was 295.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I searched and found that somebody asked the exact same question on GTE back in 2009. Here's the entire topic: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/greyhoundthroughexpress/conversations/topics/34602.

The production figures of the G4500 were broken down by a guy named Jim:

• 538 102G3s and G4500s were built. The 102GL3 was presumably renamed G4500 before production began and the G4100 was soon cancelled.
• 20 were built in Winnipeg, all went to GLI. The rest were all built in Sahagun.
• 449 in total were built for GLI, GLC, and subsidiaries SITA (Americanos/Cruceros), TNM&O, Vermont Transit, Carolina Trailways, and Peoria-Rockford.
• Some of the GLI units had already burned or crashed before production was ended.
• 4 units were demonstrators.
• 86 (or 85?) were built for other operators.

He says 86 but the numbers don't add up unless it's 85 for other operators. Also, I think Jim made a mistake saying the G4500 had multiplexed electronics. I doubt such a "basic coach" would have multiplexing as early as 2001.

Rumors on the grapevine are that a planned Greyhound order for 100 units fell through and managers have been laid off in Dallas. Then again, these same guys said Greyhound was going to cancel Greyhound Express.

Perhaps Greyhound could ask MCI to slap G4500 bins in other models. I don't know how difficult that would be, but MCI managed to slap J4500-style bins into the latest D4500CT, so.....

 

[rickycourtney]

It's one of three things...

Greyhound is at a comfortable place at the moment (both in fleet size and reliability) thanks to the aggressive replacement and refurbishing programs of the last 7 years.

Greyhound is holding off on new bus purchases, waiting for Prevost, MCI or another company to put a new model out on the market that's better suited for intercity travel.

Greyhound managers are being told (for whatever reason) they can't order any new buses.

We've discussed it ad nauseum here... there are a lot of great features that Greyhound could order to make their buses more suitable of intercity travel. It seems to me that they have been choosing to order more "off the shelf" buses over the last few years. Makes me wonder if they are avoiding getting too many unique features, for fear that in the future it will become difficult to replace those unique parts. I sort of assume that's the problem with the G4500. If only 538 units were ever produced, it's got to be somewhat challenging to keep the remaining units on the road... especially as parts become more scarce as time goes by.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

That's probably why Greyhound started duct-taping the G4500s and then, per rumors, started substituting J4500 parts for that "treatment" that all the Blue G4500s went through.

Anyway, one more reason Greyhound isn't ordering buses right now may be because managers are getting fired and the company is going through an overhaul. Outsider like us can't see any evidence, so the best I have got is the grapevine of rumors.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

On a different topic, I'm looking for other travel plans after I found evidence that Greyhound deployed D4505s on all runs south of Portland. I'm boycotting D4505s on medium- and long-distance routes after suffering extreme discomfort and nausea on #86352. I will not support Greyhound forever.

This YouTube videos shows Schedule 1443 Seattle-Los Angeles being operated by a Blue G4500 from Seattle to Portland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLwJEyeqopU.

But towards the end of the video, the driver announces that passengers continuing south to "...Eugene...Sacramento...Los Angeles" will have to change buses at Portland. So I clicked on the next video.

Lo and behold, it's a D4505 (23:06): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfQihGUm8ko.

And if you view the next videos after that, it's the same D4505 all the way to Los Angeles. This confirms my suspicions that Greyhound's I-5 through routes get bus swaps in Portland. South of Portland gets a D4505, north of Portland gets a Blue G, regardless of whether the schedule is through or not. In Seattle, you would see the southbound runs signed "LOS ANGELES, CA", but the Blue G probably gets swapped with a D4505 in Portland.

The likely reason is that, like you said, the G4500 is out of production and parts are limited. So Greyhound concentrates parts in Seattle and doesn't want to spread out the Blue G's. I've seen some Blue G's in Los Angeles and Sacramento, but those were probably exceptions to the norm.

 

[rickycourtney]

So Swad I know Greyhound's maps are a bit of a sore topic for you, which is why I thought you'd be interested to see the Greyhound network map on the FirstGroup America website. It's not a terribly descriptive map, but I find it interesting that it shows the Greyhound and Greyhound Express networks in the US, the Greyhound Canada network and the lines of the affiliated carriers (Americanos & Crucero) in Mexico.

 

[jebr]

So Swad I know Greyhound's maps are a bit of a sore topic for you, which is why I thought you'd be interested to see the Greyhound network map on the FirstGroup America website. It's not a terribly descriptive map, but I find it interesting that it shows the Greyhound and Greyhound Express networks in the US, the Greyhound Canada network and the lines of the affiliated carriers (Americanos & Crucero) in Mexico.

How accurate is that map? Just as a few examples, I don't think there's a route from Winnipeg to the southeast (to the Northwest Angle area,) nor is there a bus from Minneapolis (or Grand Forks) to Winnipeg.

Also, many of the Greyhound US routes, at least in the Midwest, are no longer operated by Greyhound but rather by Jefferson Lines or another third-party bus company. (It doesn't show all of the Jefferson Lines routes, so I don't think it's attempting to show all of the interline carriers.)

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Ha! That maps is even worse! They included a bunch of cancelled routes and a bunch of interline routes while omitting some of the Greyhound and interline routes. They also failed to account for the San Francisco-Reno, Denver-El Paso, and Dallas-Los Angeles Express routes. They also failed to account for the Los Angles-Vancouver Express, even though it's not really an Express not of SAC.

That map is so utterly horrible that I can't even list all the errors without great effort. Greyhound doesn't go to Yellowknife or Hay River anymore.

 

[rickycourtney]

The map is dated Summer 2014 so it's no doubt outdated, but it sounds like the map was outdated long before that.

The FirstGroup website has a few interesting facts, but I was amused by this description of Greyhound: "The only national operator of scheduled intercity coach transportation services in the US and Canada, serving 48 US States and ten Canadian Provinces and Territories."

While it's true that Greyhound is indeed the only national operator of scheduled intercity coach transportation services and Greyhound does provide service to all 48 continental United States... it's a weasel statement. Greyhound only provides service to the Dakotas by selling tickets on connecting regional providers (Jefferson Lines in this case).

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Not only does Greyhound not serve the Dakotas, they also don't serve Nebraska. Like you said, they sell tickets on connecting carriers, but these carriers are separately-owned and completely separate from Greyhound in terms of operation. I'd say First Group may have intentionally done that to attract shareholders. Most people fail to read the "Carrier Code" when booking and some people have mistaken Barons Bus for Greyhound because Barons operates from Greyhound terminals and interlines with Greyhound.

At this point, it's just a pain in the butt to ride Greyhound, literally and figuratively. Finding maps and schedules is hard enough because so much info is outdated, bloated, or inaccurate. Avoiding the Painful Premiers is even harder.

 

[rickycourtney]

Finding maps and schedules is hard enough because so much info is outdated, bloated, or inaccurate.

Thankfully it would seem most passengers simply use the online reservation system to find out schedule information. That information seems to be completely accurate. I'm willing to bet that even if Greyhound published accurate maps and schedules, many people wouldn't use them.

Avoiding the Painful Premiers is even harder.

Yup. The 102DL3 and G4500 units aren't getting any younger either. I'm curious when Greyhound will place a new order for buses... and if they'll ever decide to entirely replace the Premiers. It seems unlikely considering the cost and Greyhound can't even seem to be able to replace the cracked leather seat covers.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I heard on GTE from our good member "fishbusone" that Greyhound "ran out of money". That seems likely since Greyhound has not ordered buses for awhile and has not replaced even the seat covers on the oldest Painful Premiers. The 2009 X3-45s have seats that could be replaced soon. If Greyhound doesn't have cash now, then they might as well wait a few years when they would be able to refurbish the 2009 units with all-new seats.

It seems unlikely that Greyhound will order any more new Premiers, so eventually, they will be completely eradiated from the fleet.

Apparently, Greyhound's original plan was to order X3-45s and D4505s while remanufacturing all the 102DL3s and retrofitting lifts, retiring the G4500s. Low on cash, Greyhound ended up not putting lifts in some of them and sending those to Canada. Then they probably ran out of money by ordering 220 buses in 2013 along with 55 additional X3-45s added later. So they stopped the DL3 reman program and refurb'd the G4500s instead, which already have lifts. They also cancelled half the D4505s.

Now the white ADA-incompliant DL3s are being sold off.

 

[rickycourtney]

Minor correction to your facts...

In 2013 Greyhound initially ordered 60 X3-45 coaches and 130 D4500 coaches. While it's true that 30 of those D4500 coaches were cancelled, that's far from half, and at the same time Greyhound increased the X3-45 order to 90.

The rest of your theory about the 102DL3 seems plausible, although I'll point out that money may not have been Greyhound's only motivating factor. Remember, they were running out of time to meet a deadline for all coaches to have wheelchair lifts.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Actually, I believe Greyhound initially ordered 220 units in 2013, composed of 90 X3-45s and 130 D4505s. 55 more X3-45s were added on top of the 90, to make for 145 new X3-45s. Greyhound never officially cancelled any of the 130 D4505s. Instead, they deferred payments on 48 of the D4505s and only took delivery of 82 D4505s from that order. Of those 82, 14 went to BoltBus (#0887-0901) and the other 68 to Greyhound Lines (#86500-86567).

A few more D4505s and D4500CTs were added as state-owned units. But Greyhound definitely did not take delivery of 100 D4505s from that order.

According to Texas DMV, Greyhound recently took delivery of one more D4505, #86577, which is a 2015 D4505. This D4505 may include new seating. This suggests that the state-owned units are #86568-86576, with the later ones being D4500CTs. Also, the D4500CTs reportedly have MassDOT specs, without Painful Premiers, and are only used out of Boston. If these have different seats, Greyhound could be testing those seats in their own new D4505 #86577.

 

[rickycourtney]

You're right, my bad.

The 2013 order was for 90 X3-45s and 130 D4505s... but it appears that the 90 number was inclusive of 60 X3-45s that were ordered in 2012.

Officially Greyhound reports that as of May 2014 there are 188 D4505s and 280 X3-45s in the fleet.

By my notes that includes:

88 2010 D4505

100 2013 D4505

190 2008/2009 X3-45

90 2012/2013 X3-45

55 2014 X3-45 (these coaches aren't included in Greyhound's official numbers)

Note that the official model year for these buses might be slightly off (a 2010 purchase might be a 2011 model year). I have press releases or articles in trade publications to support all of those numbers.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

According to Texas DMV which has the complete VINs, Greyhound had 108 2010-2011 D4505s, but many of the later ones are state-owned. These were probably all 2010 builds, with some 2011 model years. Their engine code is all "H" (7th digit of VIN), denoting Detroit Diesel Series 60 14L EGR, which was unavailable by mid-2011, according to the Internet Archive. Their numbers are #86300-86407. However, three have been destroyed by fire, leaving 105.

If you take 105 and add on the 68 delivered in 2013 (#86500-86567), that makes 173 units. Then add on the state-owned units and some units transferred from subsidiaries (Americanos & TNO), and you would have 188 units. I believe these do not include the 14 BoltBus units.

As for X3-45s, I don't have the exact numbers, but I do know Texas DMV reports that Greyhound has 340 X3-45s, Americanos has 14, and BoltBus has 70. Greyhound Canada got 18 from the US. Greyhound probably reported the 280 figure before the 55 newest units were delivered, and 5 could have been left out for various reasons.

 

[rickycourtney]

Also, I hate to burst your bubble but… I highly doubt that Greyhound will replace the Premier seat frames anytime soon. I fully expect that at some point they will give the seats new leather covers, but it's probably just too expensive to justify replacing the seat frames.

Look at what happened on the 102DL3 and G4500 rebuilds… they kept the old seat frames but gave the seats new leather covers.

I know the premieres are extremely uncomfortable but I just don't see it being in Greyhound's budget to replace the seat frames on nearly half of the fleet (500+ buses).

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

So now you understand why I am pissed at Greyhound. But whatever, they'll fix it eventually. I just hope they don't replace it with other American Seating.

 

[rickycourtney]

Question... did the 102DL3s always the Amaya Patriot PT seats or were the original seats replaced at some point?