Greyhound seats and fleet questions

[Swadian Hardcore]

You can't print out the ticket in advance if you use Will Call and I believe you have to print it out from the departure location together with your baggage tag if you are checking baggage. You can print it out 30 minutes before departure; the one hour is not strictly enforced.

Does anyone know if there's any scheduled H3-45s in California other than Marin Airporter? I haven't ridden one in a long time and want to know whether they are slow or prone to swaying due to their size.

 

[rickycourtney]

I booked a few tickets for a couple of upcoming trips on Greyhound via will-call. A couple of questions about the will-call tickets:

1. Can I print out more than one copy of the ticket? For example, could I print out a ticket in advance from the kiosk at the Greyhound station where I live and if the ticket is lost, reprint the ticket either at that Greyhound location or the day of at the Greyhound station that I board at?

2. The Greyhound app and website states that will call tickets must be picked up at least one hour prior to departure. Is this strictly enforced, or can it be picked up 30 minutes or so prior to departure?

2a. If they have to be picked up at least an hour prior to departure, is there a way I can change a reservation from will-call to print-at-home? If it's that strict, I'd rather print at home.

First off welcome to the stupidity that is Greyhound's ticketing system.
1) I've never had this issue, but I think once the ticket is printed (either by an agent or at a kiosk) it can't be reprinted. They have a way to reissue the ticket, but get ready to be the last one to board the bus and probably pay a fee.

2) It's not that strict, but lines at the ticket counters can be long (if you're at a location without a will-call kiosk) so it might be a good idea to arrive an hour before.

2a) Once you pick will call, you're stuck with will call.

These are all quirks that will hopefully be fixed when Greyhound ever gets around to rolling out digital tickets nationwide.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Michael Rose posted pictures of BoltBus Van Hool #0902 on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TheMightyGreyhound?fref=ts.

Looks like they have cloth velour Van Hool Bodyline seats.

I still prefer the H3-45.

 

[rickycourtney]

Michael Rose posted pictures of BoltBus Van Hool #0902 on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TheMightyGreyhound?fref=ts.

Looks like they have cloth velour Van Hool Bodyline seats.

I still prefer the H3-45.

He must have the photos set to private, I can't see them.
If you had to pick between a Van Hool with Body Line seats, a X3-45 with Premier LS seats or a D4500 with Premier LS seats... which would you prefer to go on a ride on?

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I uploaded the photos onto GTE so you can check for them over there.

As for your question, I'd like to clarify if you mean D4500 or D4505. Greyhound D4500s aren't equipped with Premier LS, so I assume you meant the D4505. In that case, I would choose the X3-45, followed by the Van Hool, followed by the D4505.

YARTS' D4500CTs have Premiers, but they are cloth velour and far less painful than the Greyhound vinyl Premiers. If that was what you meant, I might consider it.

I'd also like to ask: if you had to choose between a H3-45 or X3-45 with the same seats (let's say A2-TEN), which would you choose?

 

[rickycourtney]

I uploaded the photos onto GTE so you can check for them over there.

As for your question, I'd like to clarify if you mean D4500 or D4505. Greyhound D4500s aren't equipped with Premier LS, so I assume you meant the D4505. In that case, I would choose the X3-45, followed by the Van Hool, followed by the D4505.

YARTS' D4500CTs have Premiers, but they are cloth velour and far less painful than the Greyhound vinyl Premiers. If that was what you meant, I might consider it.

I'd also like to ask: if you had to choose between a H3-45 or X3-45 with the same seats (let's say A2-TEN), which would you choose?

Yes. I meant a Greyhound (or BoltBus) D4505 with the leather Premier LS seating.
I'm actually surprised that you went with the X3-45 over the Van Hool. Personally, I'd take the Body Line seats over the Premier, no matter the coach they're attached to.

Choosing between the H3-45 and the X3-45 is tough, both are great coaches.

All things being equal, I would go with the X3-45, simply because the ride quality is second to none. Yes it has some limitations, but if I'm gonna be stuck on a bus for 4 hours, I'd rather have a smooth ride.

That being said, I'd ride on one of Vonlane's luxury H3-45 coaches over a normal X3-45 any day. Also I think the H3-45 is a much better choice for that type of service than the X3-45.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

The X3-45 has a smoother ride and better safety than the Van Hool. So, I'm just going to pad out the seat with a jacket and pillow, and it'll be tolerable, while I don't really had any way of mitigating the Van Hool's problems.

As for the D4505 with Premier, there's just no reason for me to choose it. Now, if we're talking about the Peter Pan D4505s running for BoltBus Northeast, I'd take that simply because it doesn't have Premiers and ain't a Van Hool.

Is the H3-45's ride noticeably worse than the X3-45? I haven't taken one since 2002 so I'd have to ride one again to know. Seems like that big tall bus would go quite slow.

 

[rickycourtney]

I honestly think safety worries with Van Hool coaches are way overblown.

Like any vehicle on the road, if there were major defects, they would be pulled off the road by government regulators. In the past they weren't built as durably as Prevost or MCI coaches, but I'm not sure if they're that bad anymore. I've been on several late model C2045 coaches (with Body Line seats) and found them to be good coaches. As you know, Van Hool isn't the only manufacturer with quality issues, MCI has been having them too.

On the Prevost coaches, I wouldn't say the ride quality is worse... that seems to imply it's bad. The H3's ride is comparable to, if not better than, the ride of MCI's J-series coaches. The X3 just has an exceptionally smooth ride.

In terms of speed, I'm not sure it's as big as an issue as you think, The H3 may potentially have a slower acceleration (taking longer to reach freeway speeds), but I doubt that means it would go slower (i.e. have a lower top speed).

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

So, of the X3-45, H3-45, J4500, and D4505, how would you rank their ride quality? I haven't ridden the redesigned J4500 with IFS, but the 2003 J4500 that I rode had a rougher ride than the D4505. And, of course, I'd put the X3-45 above the D4505. Not sure where the H3-45 would fit since I can't remember from 2002.

For that matter, I'd rank the 102DL3 above the D4500CT above the D4505, the G4500 about the same as the D4505, and the E4500 between the X3-45 and 102DL3. The older Van Hools I've ridden all rode rough. Van Hools also tend to have the worst headroom.

So it comes out to be X3-45, E4500, 102DL3, D4500CT, D4505 and G4500, J4500, Van Hools.

 

[rickycourtney]

I feel like my list would be:

X3-45

H3-45/J4500 (tie)

D4505/C2045/D4500CT (tie)

But it's all so subjective to personal experiences and maintenance. I've been on J4500's with awful rides (likely due to poor maintenance) and when I rode Amtrak California's C2045's they had silky smooth rides.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Railiner says the J4500 has a very poor driving experience in comparison to other MCIs and Prevosts. I think the H3-45 should have a better ride than the J4500 since it's Prevost's flagship luxury coach while the J4500 was designed as a "cheap E4500".

Another thing I'm trying to figure out is how Greyhound went downhill so fast in the 1980s. It appears that this was caused by the mismanagement of John Teets and Fred Currey. Greyhound seems to have carried much more affluent clientele and had much less suspicious passengers and loiterers before the 1980s.

Edit: I'm seeing a "Bus #561513" on the Houston-Dallas, as well as a "Bus #56144". No idea what these are.

 

[rickycourtney]

You have to look at external influences as well...

The airlines were deregulated in 1978. The legacy carriers cut ticket prices and quickly moved to a hub and spoke model. The move also quickly gave rise to low cost carriers.

Not many people are going to choose to spend 3 days on a bus when they can fly to their destination in a matter of hours, at a price that isn't significantly more. (Example: Greyhound SEA-LAX fares start at $61.50, while Alaska Airlines fares start at $98.10 and get you there 24 hours faster.)

That changed intercity bus travel and it's clientele, more than anything Greyhound did internally.

 

[railiner]

A few opinion's.....

The X3 is the best riding coach today, followed by the H3, then the DL3 and its derivatives, then the J45, and last, the Van Hools. The best ride of all time was the Eagle, especially on a really rough, potholed road, due to its IFS and exceptionally long 'travel' to absorb the bumps.

Agree with rickycourtney...maintenance can be a huge factor in ride...especially tires and their balance, as well as shocks, etc.

To me, the "decline" in GL was started when the company began large diversification, in the '60's, taking revenue from their core business, and putting it into more lucrative investments. Good for the stockholder's, but bad for the busline's employees and passenger's.

And then came deregulation and the end of the ICC. The resulting fierce competition for business by cut-rate carrier's resulted in cost-cutting measure's, end of 'cross-subsidizing' of secondary routes, and other negative impact. The taxpayer funded, government owned transit system's, who could pay their driver's much higher pay and benefits from the pockets of taxpayer's, and not just the farebox, resulted in the best qualified driver's going there for employment, rather than private carrier's.

And yes...the end of the CAB and airline deregulation resulted in companies like 'People Express' and other airlines taking much of the busline's traditional market share.

Even the resurgence of Amtrak, especially in California, also took a chunk of the market....

 

[rickycourtney]

The J4500 & H3-45 coaches I've traveled on in the last few years have all been older models and not particularity well maintained... which likely explains my difference in opinion.

I think Greyhound's move to diversify was a symptom, not the disease.

I think as far back as the 1960's the executives saw the writing on the wall that intercity bus travel was on the the decline and would never come back. Diversification was about finding profitable industries that could keep the company afloat.

In my opinion the future of bus travel isn't with long distance travel, it's with short trips, where it isn't economical to fly.

Greyhound needs to find a way to get people to get out of their cars and onto a bus. Millennials are open to the idea, but they generally won't step on a "Greyhound" brand bus (but they're okay with BoltBus).

The big question... how do you bring those customers in?

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Yet Greyhound Lines' most profitable year ever was, IIRC, 1976. I remember reading it in "The Greyhound Story". I guess that excludes the WWII years, but it was after diversification. That was the most profitable year for Greyhound's bus lines. Greyhound's timeline says their highest transportation revenues was in 1980. That's revenues, not profits or passenger-miles, though. I'm guessing the highest passenger-miles was during WWII.

So, Greyhound Lines was still strong in 1980. By 1990, Greyhound was bankrupt and in a shambles.

To me, it wasn't a gradual process that "killed" Greyhound, it was something big that happened in between 1980 and 1990. Sure, the seeds of trouble could have been sown with the introduction of jets on domestic routes and with Greyhound's diversification, but things started falling apart very quickly after 1980.

First, bus deregulation in 1981. Then, John Teets takes over in 1982. A big strike in 1983. Greyhound introduces the 102A3 in 1985, probably the most advanced bus available. But GLI gets sold to Currey in 1987, gets separated with MCI, and merges with Continental Trailways on a leveraged buyout. They stop buying the 102A3. Greyhound can't pay their debt, so they try to cut wages. This results in a huge strike in 1990. Violence, unrest, and bankruptcy follows.

Is there some way to resurrect successful long-distance bus lines, without resorting to sleeper buses, even if most of the passengers carried only travel shorter segments? I don't think Greyhound's transcontinental routes ever carried many transcontinental passengers.

 

[rickycourtney]

In my humble opinion, the future of bus travel is in segments that are under 4 hours in length. That seems to be the golden zone in which ground transportation is competitive with air travel.

Greyhound seems to fill a niche in terms of long distance travel... passengers who can't travel on airlines either because they book at the last minute and can't afford the fares, but for who time is no problem and passengers who can't (for legal or other reasons) subject to the scrutiny of airport security.

This is in opposition to Amtrak that has a niche market of passengers (myself included) who don't mind long travel times for the experience of riding the rails. Bus travel doesn't have the same romance attached to it.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Except Greyhound is still besieged by suspicious passengers and loiterers, regardless of the distance of travel. Perhaps if Greyhound cut their long-distance advance-purchase fares to be significantly lower than any competing mode of transport, while improving comfort, they could get some long-distance passengers back. But then again, they'd have to find a way to get rid of the loiterers, suspicious passengers, and poor reputation first.

I think Greyhound could have fought in the 1980s to turn themselves into a cheap and reasonably comfortable, albeit time-consuming, mode of transport for long-distance passengers. It wouldn't be romantic, but it could still be fun and it could be cheap enough to offset the added cost of food along the way. It would also go to many more places than Amtrak with many more frequencies.

Instead, Greyhound turned into the transport of last resort. It's no fun to sit in a D4505 with Painful Premier seats for any length of time.

 

[rickycourtney]

But then again, they'd have to find a way to get rid of the loiterers, suspicious passengers, and poor reputation first.

To quote Hamlet... "ay, there's the rub."
To be honest, I don't think Greyhound wants to get rid of them entirely, or they would have.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Hmm, you do have a good point. I can't understand why they would want trouble, but I see what you mean. The way I see it, you either get rid of them entirely or you don't get rid of them at all. Don't get rid of them, and you'll always have a bad reputation. Get rid of them, and you may lose your suspicious customers.

Anyways, I'm seeing some really weird bus numbers on BusTracker. There's a "Bus #108", a "Bus #******", and the aforementioned "Bus #561513" and #Bus #56144". Are they leasing buses or something?

 

[railiner]

More opinion....

Regarding Greyhounds downslide in the '80's.....Swadian touched on it by mentioning John Teets, and Fred Curry. Those were not "bus men" like most of the former management....

John Teets' claim to fame was when he was brought from Greyhound subsidiary the Prophet Company (industrial catering.....auto plants, schools, etc.) to improve Greyhound's terminal food services...he successfully replaced the former Post House restaurant chain with franchised fast food operations, like Hardee's and Burger King. That strong performance made him a star, that culminated with him becoming Greyhound Corporation CEO. Fred Curry was a finance man like many of the notorious corporate raider's of his era, that acquired and then ruined companies.

As for Greyhound passenger demographics....well, in the words of former Greyhound CEO Jim Kerrigan...."Greyhound is the 'bargain basement' of public transportation"....

So what you see is what you get, as a result.

I agree that there is very little market for transcontinental bus travel, other than some of what was mentioned. The cheap low cost air carrier's killed that business. Conversely, the TSA hassle helped regain some short haul business travel. I think the buses can also compete with some overnite travel up to five or six hundred miles for leisure traveler's. There used to be a lot more foreign student 'backpacker's on transcontinental trips, but the decimation of many routes severely hurt that tourist market.

How to bring customer's in?

Well to start off, Greyhound needs to totally change its current "corporate culture". I hate to say it, but some of its employees seem to be of the mindset of being in a government welfare 'make work' program. Like their job is an 'entitlement'. Unfortunately, their attitude and performance drag down the good employees to their level after a while. It seems to me a total "house cleaning" is in order.

Next....they need to improve the reliability of their service, That is the most important step to regain disgruntled passenger's. Once they achieve that, they can concentrate on the amenities they offer. And perhaps even advertise their service, as long as they can fulfill what they advertise....

Do that, and the business will grow. Then they can restore many of the gaps in their route map....

'

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I think there was a small misunderstanding. I didn't mean transcontinental bus travel, but I was talking about transcontinental bus routes that would better serve passengers on "shorter segments". I think, even back in the "glory days", Greyhound rarely carried transcontinental passengers other than tourists, which would have made stopovers along the way.

Running a route as long as possible has the benefit of elimination transfers in an entire direction. But it also creates operational difficulties when delays arise. So I think the best solution would be to run both: long-distance Limiteds making very few stops supported by short-distance Locals making more stops. On high-density segments, short-distance Expresses would run under the current model. Greyhound's Limiteds seem to have worked well back in the day when they actually ran.

Even though Greyhound has always been a cheap way to go, Greyhound passengers used to dress properly and behave properly on the motorcoaches. In old pictures, I see they wore suits and ties rather than dirty T-shirts reeking of cigarette smoke. This is a big problem. Add on the loiterers, and it just gets worse.

John Teets should have stayed in the food business selling his chicken box lunches at value rates. I heard Jim Kerrigan wasn't a great manager either. Fred Currey seems like the bus equivalent of Frank Lorenzo. Lots of once-powerful airlines went bankrupt or downhill in the same years Greyhound was having trouble. I think Dunikoski and Nageotte would have managed Greyhound better than Teets/Kerrigan/Currey.

Greyhound does need to change its corporate culture, but I have no faith they would do so. They have so many problems with everything that they'd have to scrap their whole structure and start over. Everything has gone wrong, from the buses, to the drivers, to the seats, to the maintenance, to the stations, to the policies, to the clientele.

 

[railiner]

Have to agree with Swadian on those points. As far as dress goes, in Greyhound's defense, I can only say that passenger dress and decorum, is but a sympton of society in general...not just bus passenger's. At least there is no smoking on buses permitted, as there used to be.

About the only good I have seen from FirstGroup's stewardship of GLI is the purchasing of a lot of new buses. Unfortunately, they did not carefully select the seats they bought...

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Unfortunately, I don't think Greyhound would be any better under Laidlaw ownership. Laidlaw simply cut huge numbers of routes and schedules. At least under Laidlaw, Greyhound didn't purchase painful seats. But then again, they didn't purchase any significant number of buses between 2003 and 2008, while constantly cutting routes.

I'm not sure exactly who owned Greyhound before Laidlaw, but I think it was Viad Corporation?

GLC seems to have done better than GLI in terms of service, but has not received any new buses and continues to cut routes. Then again, receiving new buses would be bad since they all have painful seats.

 

[railiner]

Greyhound Lines was divested from the Greyhound Corporation in 1987. It was purchased by Fred Currey and a group of investor's including Craig Lentzsch.

They sold the company to Laidlaw in 1998. Laidlaw was acquired by FirstGroup in 2007.

Laidlaw had purchased GLC from the former Greyhound Cop. (by then renamed Dial Corporation) in 1997.

So for the period from 1987 until 1998, GLI and GLC were separated by different owners.

Along with the big GL strike in that era, that was the reason that Gray Coach Lines (later acquired by GLC) went from pooling with GLI on the Toronto-Buffalo- New York route, instead to Trailways (Empire and Adirondack). When GL settled their strike, they went to new pool partner, Trentway-Wager for that route.

After rejoining of the two Greyhound carrier's under common ownership, GLC started pooling with GLI again on a few trips on that route, while continuing pooling mainly with Trailways. And GLI also pooled with Trentway at the same time. Really got confusing for passenger's. (Trailways and Trentway never pooled together).

That all ended when Trentway became part of Coach Canada and Megabus when purchased by the Stagecoach conglomerate. They split their ways with GLI, and then all GLI trips pooled with GLC, and Trentway trips with Coach USA or Megabus. At about the same time, GLI and Trailways of NY went into a pool operation. Recently, TNY and GLC ended their pooling, (can't go into that), and so all GLC trips are pooled with GLI. GLI and TNY continue pooling across NY State...

One interesting footnote, was that Gray Coach Lines was briefly owned by Stagecoach....they bought it from the TTC, and sold it to GLC....!..

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Thanks for the info. I've never heard of Gray Coach Lines before. Can't understand why they switched from Trailways to Trentway-Wagar after GLI's strike ended in 1993. Fred Currey was booted around that time, though I don't know if he continued to own a stake in GLI. So GLI also pooled with Trentway? How come they were both pooling with Trentway?

Man, this sure is confusing. Maybe they would be better off not pooling and simply interlining with each other.

Does GLC equipment still go into the US much? Most of their buses don't have wheelchair lits.

I just read on GLC's website that Brewster used to be owned by GLC until they were split in 1996. Brewster runs "scheduled tours" in Western Canada, but they appear to have no more connections with GLC.

Meanwhile, Greyhound drivers say the company is a sinking ship. Morale is low and the drivers appear to have no hope or confidence in their company. I did find a video of operating a G4500 wheelchair lift, attached below.

Greyhound G4500 WCL operation.mp4