BusTalk

Dieseljim

Other than Greyhound Lines, in which the Pennsylvania Railroad was heavily involved for a long time, the following is at best, a partial list of railroad owned bus lines: Bangor and Aroostook Highway Division (this one outlasted all of the others).2Maine Central Transportation Company.3.Boston and Maine Transportation Company.4. Baltimore and Annapolis Railroad Company (bus division), Jersey Central Transportation Company (Central Railroad of New Jersey), Reading Transportation Company (Reading Railroad), Union Pacific Stage Lines, (Union Pacific Railroad) Santa Fe Trail Transportation Company (Atchison,Topeka and Santa Fe Railway), Burlington Transportation Company (Chicago,Burlington and Quincy Railroad), and New England Transportation Company (New Haven Railroad). When the Reading Railroad sold the bus end of the Transportation Company, both Capitol Trailways and Edwards Lakes to Sea picked up its routes. New England Transportation Company's bus routes got divvied up among Arrow Line, Interstate Busses Corporation (owned by George Sage) The Short Line, and several others. Interstate Busses and The Short Line were later merged to form Bonanza Bus Lines, now part of Peter Pan Bus Lines, along with The Arrow Line. The original Burlington Trailways is not to be confused with today's Burlington Trailways, which operates an almost completely different route structure than the old one. While I don't have bus timetables for all of these, but what I DO have, much was gleaned from them. Originally the intercity bus system was started to supplement the railroads' passenger services nationwide and get train passengers to those places where the railroads did not go. The Baltimore and Annapolis Railroad bus operation became part of the Maryland MTA in the 1970s, and the others were folded into other regional carriers or the Greyhound or Trailways networks, while the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad's bus operation outlasted them all, ceasing in 1984.

ripta42 · Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 2:28 pm Post subject:

Batimore & Ohio ran buses in New York in the 1950s (pictured below, upper). Also, Waukegan-North Chicago Transit was operated by the Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee interurban. ACF coaches 10 (pictured below, lower) and 11 are preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum.

roymanning2000 · Age: 75 Joined: 01 Aug 2007 Posts: 198

Jim,

In addition to the interest in Pennsylvania Greyhound held by the PRR, several other railroads contributed to the Greyhound network. These included the New York Central (Central Greyhound Lines of New York), Great Northern (Northland Greyhound Lines), Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac (Richmond Greyhound Lines), Maine Central (Maine Greyhound Lines) and Southern Pacific (Pacific Greyhound Lines). At that, I might be forgetting some.

Also, the Indiana Railroad, an interurban, developed a network of bus routes in Indiana which became part of Indianapolis & Southeastern Trailways after World War II. Another bus company descended from a well-known interurban, the Cincinnati & Lake Erie, was acquired by Great Lakes Greyhound in 1947.

While some of these railroad-owned bus companies were started to serve cities and towns where the railroad did not go, most of them were created initially to eliminate competition that threatened the passenger trains.

Roy

HwyHaulier · Joined: 16 Dec 2007 Posts: 932 Location: Harford County, MD

Mr. Linsky · Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2009 5:19 pm Post subject:

D. J.,

Nice presentation, and I have only one question:

I see that New England Transportation Company was owned by NYNH&H RR, but did that also include The Connecticut Company, Berkshire Street Railway Company, Springfield Street Railway (pictured) and Connecticut Railway & Lighting Company which were owned by the New Haven as well?

Mr. 'L'

Dieseljim · Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2009 6:16 am Post subject: New England Transportation,et al

I would not doubt it. The New Haven unloaded NET about the time of its last bankruptcy, followed by the others in short order as the railroad was desperate to reorganize on an income basis instead of end up in the slow liquidation it did when Penn Central was forced to take it over in 1969.quote="Mr. Linsky"]D. J.,

Nice presentation, and I have only one question:

I see that New England Transportation Company was owned by NYNH&H RR, but did that also include The Connecticut Company, Berkshire Street Railway Company, Springfield Street Railway (pictured) and Connecticut Railway & Lighting Company which were owned by the New Haven as well?

Mr. 'L'

[/quote]

HwyHaulier · Joined: 16 Dec 2007 Posts: 932 Location: Harford County, MD

Dieseljim - Mr "L" -

What dates of the NYNH&H Bankruptcy noted? Yes, that would help explain some of it...

Meanwhile, guess I should check the Jackson book, for hints and clues in evolution of Greyhound throughout the area...

From the separate carriers (the "Letter Days" Era), it included Eastern GL (E). The "E" had lineage back to an NYNH&H
controlled entity. The area becomes murky, as we also had a New England Greyhound, which merged into an Eastern
(but before adoption of the "Letter" prefix identification scheme)...

(Exactly the kinds of questions, quickly answered by reliance on the Bill Vandervoort, Chicago, route history work. Website
he used went dark. Anyone here have the link, and the little trick in pulling up Internet Archive pages?)

...................Vern.................

HwyHaulier · Joined: 16 Dec 2007 Posts: 932 Location: Harford County, MD

Dieseljim - All -

Some time back, in Files on Yahoo! Groups, GreyhoundBusFans, I posted a two page chart (GL-ALPHAS.pdf). It states the 1948 - 1960 "Alpha" prefix,
equipment identification plan. Go directly to the Yahoo! Groups site. Link doesn't appear to work.

The work also has purpose of identification of lines which operated the GMC PD-4103 coaches. Carriers, C, E, G (?), K, N, O, P and S had past railroad
control heritages. "K" was, in fact, the product of Pacific (ESPEE RR) and acquistion of earlier Pickwick. "S" also ESPEE.

"O" was two rail controlled (UP RR) lines, the earlier Interstate, and Overland. The earlier Overland apparently had acquired a C&NW RR highway sub...

Some of the others may have had heritages as railroad alter egos. Your writer has not seen persuasive documentation on any of it. There is a
presumption such may had been the case, simply starting with "A" and "B" as examples...

....................Vern..................

Dieseljim · Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2009 7:57 pm Post subject: New Haven Railroad Bankruptcies

The last bankruptcy of the New Haven Railroad was in 1961 and that is what did the railroad in, forcing it into an already shaky Penn Central system. Prior to that in an effort to stave off bankruptcy, the railroad unloaded New England Transport and the other companies for badly needed cash. That was after Patrick McGinnis got done looting the company.