BusTalk

[timecruncher]

Not so many years ago, when bus lines and railroads were regulated by the ICC, competition was stifled somewhat due to restrictions about pick up/drop off endpoints of the various carriers.

For example, between Louisville and Indianapolis, Eastern Greyhound had authority to travel US31 and I-65 between the two cities, and run local service in-between. Trailways could not serve any of the locations between the two cities that Greyhound served, so their route followed Indiana Highway 62 and 3 up to Greensburg, then along I-74 to Indy. The Trailways routing was almost an hour longer, but they could not charge a higher fare than Greyhound due to tarriffs being controlled by ICC regulation.

There were, however, examples where multiple carriers provided service over multiple routes between city pairs over only slightly different routes, as the following timetables disclose:

These images are from Russell's National Motor Coach Guide of December 1968. These images are copyrighted, so they are shown here for educational purposes only.

First, we have Southeastern Trailways' local schedule between Fort Wayne, Indianapolis and Terre Haute. Note that there are through trips to and from other Trailways members, plus local trips Muncie - Indy and Indy - Terre Haute. Note that the IS service is also identified as Wesson Company/Indiana Railroad service.





Additionally, ABC Coach Lines, a regional carrier, had extensive local service between Muncie and Indianapolis. ABC was running this route as well as service from Muncie to Richmond, IN with a large fleet of PD4106 coaches.



And finally, the big dog had service between the same two cities as part of their Detroit - Evansville - Paducah - Memphis secondary route:



My point in all of this?

It is all gone today. Greyhound operates one (that is ONE) round-trip Detroit - Indianapolis in its current timetable.

Southeastern Trailways sold its routes to Greyhound after the second big strike and ABC disappeared back in the late eighties, I believe. ABC was partly owned by the same family that owned Southeastern Trailways. SET still exists, but is strictly a charter operation now.

For those of you unfamiliar with Russell's Guide, it is the "official" guide to intercity bus services, and is still published monthly. I believe individual copies are around $20, postage included. Comparing a copy from the sixties or seventies with the current issue is a graphic lesson in the demise of the intercity scheduled bus industry in this country.

Individual carriers had to pay to post their schedules in the Guide, but as some of you may recognize, these schedules could be "lifted" from the monthly publication and published in timetables. Russell's Guides, Inc. was, at one time, the largest publisher of bus timetables in North America.

I had intended to post these timetables this morning for DieselJim since I know of his interest in such things. If others out there on this forum are interested in seeing more, or if you have requests, I'll try to scan them and post them as time allows.

timecruncher

[HwyHaulier]

timecruncher -

Thanks for the posting! Yes, this would have been of much interest to Dieseljim...

Note on the Greyhound schedule, the primary run was a two line haul with two legal entities participant. Note at Evansville, carried
codes EGL GL - Eastern Division, and SGL GL - Southern Division...

Here's where I'll need to check back in my sources. The SGL evolved from a number of earlier, separate GL carriers, including (at
the least) Dixie, Southeastern and Teche. The Southeastern GL line into SGL GL - Southern Division in 1960.

Something is telling me the Trailways operator (1968) was the earlier Indianapolis & South Eastern line, formerly a rail operator.

In the regulation days, much of the ICC thinking and rationale was protection of service into smaller communities. Myriad point
pairs could not (and still cannot) support more than one carrier on a selected route. For most of the country, it is the rule, not the
exception. Dieseljim was well aware of the issues, and was a concerned voice about smaller community needs...

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

[timecruncher]

Well, connecting trips are shown in italics on these tables. Through trips are shown in normal type. Lots of Trailways through runs ran over numerous Trailways affiliates, of course. Greyhound had its divisions, but there weren't as many and they were, as you mention, merged together into essentially four main divisions in later years.

I love looking at these old schedules. Even though 1968 wasn't that long ago (the year I graduated from high school), there were hundreds of carriers with scheduled service that no longer exist.

Look at ABC's Muncie - Indy table. Heh - they show connections all the way from Union City (??) to Los Angeles. Lots of folks might want to get from Union City to Lapel, IN or perhaps out to the west coast!!

Looking back, ABC was probably acquired by Southeastern Trailways (SET) as a non-union outfit to run charters and tours without having to pay union wages. SET's union was fairly militant, and went on strike a couple of times while I was working for Metro up in Cincinnati. I knew a few of their drivers, even.

I do know that ABC ran a lot of charter work, and their last color scheme mirrored that of Southeastern Trailways except for the colors. Instead of red, they were yellow-gold.

timecruncher

[HwyHaulier]

timecruncher -