Friday, July 19, 2013
Friday, July 12, 2013
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Wyatt Olsen's Drive Safe Campaign
TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF!
The most important part of a moving truck or bus is the driver! Get plenty of rest before getting behind the wheel. Eat well and stay fit. Remember, hours of service violations are serious and can threaten your livelihood or even your life. Stay healthy and well rested, or don't drive !
ALWAYS MAINTAIN YOUR VEHICLE
Inspect your vehicle before each trip and check your brakes regularly. Learn how to inspect your brakes, identify safety defects, and get them repaired before risking your life and others on the highway.
Published by Wyatt Olsen
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Motor Coach Industries Operation
SCHAUMBURG, IL — July 1, 2013 — As MCI continues to excel at Reliability Driven maintenance and repair services, the company has named two new highly-talented service managers at its suburban Los Angeles and Chicago locations.
 |
| Thomas Hoskins |
Thomas Hoskins has been promoted to Service Manager for the Los Alamitos, California, MCI Service Center. Hoskins started his career with MCI as a technician 10 years ago and has since held positions of increasing responsibility as Lead Technician, and most recently, as Shop Supervisor.
 |
| Mark Heldt |
At the same time, Mark Heldt has joined the company as Service Manager for the Des Plaines, Illinois, MCI Service Center. Heldt was with Ryder System, Inc., for 32 years, holding positions as Technician, Parts Manager, Service Manager, District Maintenance Manager and Senior Maintenance Manager. He brings with him extensive experience in service operations management with an emphasis on customer satisfaction and safety. Most recently, Heldt was with First Student Bus Company as a Region Maintenance Manager responsible for 38 locations over a three-state area.
"Both Tom and Mark have a superb track record
for customer service, strong technical expertise and the ability to
manage the quick turnaround times for maintenance and repair required by
motor coach operators." said Patrick McGuire, Director of MCI Service
Centers. "In the past year, we've made great progress in building MCI
Service Centers' reputation for reliable repair with factory trained
technicians on MCI and Setra models. The rollout of ReliaDrive, our
fix-it-right guarantee, also demonstrates our commitment to keeping
customer coaches on the road earning revenue."
All together, MCI operates seven service
centers in or near Chicago, Orlando, Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia
and Montreal, offering complete mechanical repair services, including
chassis, suspension, brakes, air conditioning and steering; coach
modifications; paint and body repair; wheelchair lift installations;
insurance estimating and appraisal services; and immediate access to
replacement parts on-site and 24-hour delivery of parts from inventory
at MCI's Louisville, Kentucky, distribution facility. MCI service
centers are also approved for Detroit Diesel, Allison Transmission, ZF
ASTronic Transmission and HVAC systems warranty service.
Sponsored by
Sponsored by
 |
| The Greyhound Group |
"BE AWARE YOUR "NO-ZONE"
BE AWARE OF YOUR "NO-ZONE"
Other drivers may not be aware of the size of your buses blind spots. Be vigilant in watching out for vehicles in the No-Zone. The No-Zone represents the danger areas, or blind spots, around trucks and buses where crashes are more likely to occur. One-third of all crashes between large buses/trucks and cars take place in the No-Zone.
Watch out for highway construction. Stay alert. Work zone crashes are more likely to happen during the day. Almost one-third of fatal crashes in work zones involved large trucks. Take your time going through work zones and give yourself plenty of room. Expect the unexpected!
Published by Wyatt Olsen
Monday, July 8, 2013
" Why Motorcoaches May Burn "
FIRE INVESTIGATIONS
WHY MOTORCOACHES
MAY BURN
(A MECHANICAL ANALYSIS)
Christopher W. Ferrone
President, Americoach Systems, Inc.
Chicago, IL
Cell: 773.858.4941 • Tel: 800.621.4153 • Email: cwferrone@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
In the wake of the Wilmer, Texas fire, which occurred during
the Hurricane Rita evacuation, motorcoach fires have come
to the forefront of the media. Are motorcoaches catching on
fire now more than before? What could possibly explain such
a phenomenon?
The purpose of this paper, through mechanical analysis
and accident reconstruction, is to inform operators of the fire
hazards which may be present on a typical motorcoach, tran-
sit or school bus.
Once the potential hazards are identified, the individual
components’ care and maintenance can be monitored to pre-
vent or limit the occurrence of a fire. The express purpose of
this effort is to minimize fires on such passenger vehicles.
INTRODUCTION
Motorcoaches are expensive and carry valuable cargo – peo-
ple. Motorcoaches must be understood and maintained with
fire prevention in mind.
A fire can occur on a motorcoach, transit or school bus for
a variety of reasons. Unlike an automobile or even a large
truck, a motorcoach is a more sophisticated vehicle with
more systems and even greater complexity.
1
The author has
investigated motorcoach fires for more than 20 years.
However, as a result of the fire in Wilmer Texas, it was decid-
ed that this analytical process should be written to assist
operators in the prevention of future fires.
During the past two decades the author has investigated
numerous motorcoach fires. While analyzing the cause and
origin of these fires a collection of data has shown a consis-
tent pattern.
As simple as it appears, if the vehicle is in motion certain
items are valid as possible causes. Likewise, if the vehicle is
stationary with the engine on or off other items become
potential causes. In either case, the situation is dangerous and
costly in both human life and property (Photo 1).
The more common causes discussed here are
not
ranked
in order of likelihood. The operational profile and vehicle
history can help determine which of these trouble spots need
SPECIAL REPORT TO CVSA
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Historic MC 6 "The Supercruiser"
A Little History On The Supercruiser
The 102 inch width later became legal years after the MC-6 coaches had left the Greyhound fleet. The MC-6 was built 40 feet long 102" wide and all stainless construction.
 |
| " Big Bird " |
As far as I can gather, this bus was purchased in the 80's as a entertainer bus already with bedroom galley bathroom and the front with 2 and 1 seating.
This bus was purchased in the early 80's by William Alfred Cook.. founder of Cook group and Star of Indiana drum and bugle corps. This was one of his first buses, and was used to transport band members to many of the football games. William did a lot of the driving in the 80's. The group back then named the bus
"BIG BIRD" and had a big yellow Big Bird decal on the side window by the door. In the early 90's the bus went through a major rebuild. It never got used much after that, because star was having some financial problems and this was a non proffit organization.
The bus mostly sat with only about 13,000 miles put on since the overhaul. Then John Chandler purchased the bus in 2001 and used the bus to move from Alaska to Idaho. The next year he decided he wanted to full time in the bus. So in 2002 the bus got tore down to be modified for full timing. The bus never got done enough to use untill 2009. Then the bus was drove back to Alaska so John could buy a piece of land he could come to in the summers. I visited with them for a while, then they returned to Idaho. After that he passed and the bus never got winterized, so it froze and busted all the plumbing.
I got the bus in June 2010 and flew down to Idaho, then drove it back to Alaska... This drove like a DREAM and no problems. After I got the bus back to Alaska, I started to tear it back down to repair all the plumbing. I re plumbed the bus with all pex and installed all new plumbing fixtures. Then we re tiled the shower and the floors and installed all new carpet. We have used the bus all over Alaska in the latter part of the summer. It has been VERY RELIABLE and now has 36,000 on the clock. Next project is to polish the stainless like chrome.
Sponsored by
 |
| The Greyhound Group |
"A TRIBUTE TO GREYHOUND"
"AMERICA ON WHEELS…A TRIBUTE TO GREYHOUND BUS LINES, INC.
It has often been said, Greyhound, the fastest dog on wheels
according to former competitor, Trailways, Inc. now merged into the
Greyhound network. Songs have been written about Greyhound such
as "NOWHERE BOUND WITH GREYHOUND" By country and western singer,
Tommy Hunter. Greyhound Bus Lines has become america's dream to the
open road to any destination I desire and at your service. It could
be long, far and short distance. The fact remains, Greyhound being a
loyal friend to the end and a friendly hand opening the door as the
bus pulls out of the terminal enroute to any destination. What you
do not know, Greyhound bus Lines has a unique history from its
humble beginnings, a bus company you heard of, but really didn't
know much about. It was 1914 in Hibbing, Minnesota, the giant empire
of greyhound was formed and took shape. Two gentlemen Eric Wickman,
a Swedish immigrant and Carl Anderson, an Innkeeper. Between the two
of them, the dream became a reality. Wickman and Anderson ran
commuter runs from Alice to Hibbing, transporting miners to work and
back all for 15 cents. The Greyhound company was starting to
formulate a corporation, but the two pioneers were wondering where
do we go from here. Success story in the making, but wasn't
complete. Two bus companies MESABA TRANSPORTATION AND PICKWICK
STAGES along with partnership of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Mind you
now, the Greyhound name was established, but it wasn't until Wickman
and Anderson went to a hupmobile race known today as a soap box
derby that the Greyhound name took shape. One of the hupmobile's was
painted grey and it was fast as a Greyhound dog. Yes my friends you
guessed it, Greyhound was officially named Greyhound and became the
Greyhound Corporation. The thought of a bus company expanding in the
traveling market where railroads had the dominance, but intercity
bus travel began to surface causing the railroads to derail
operations and even the Pennsylvania Railroad let Greyhound go
because the company being stable was a standalone corporation and
pulled its own weight. Superhighways began to be built and the hound
was seen from city to city, downtown to downtown and around and
about.
The company had stocks and bond and was a Fortune 500 Corporation
ready to prove to investors, Greyhound is a wise choice to invest
your money. Greyhound was much more than just a bus company, it was
a conglomerate of industries such as GREYHOUND TEMPORARY SERVICES,
INC., how I worked at Lord & Taylor, Inc. on Fifth Avenue, Computer
Operations Components, Rent-A-Car Agency, Dial, Travel Agency,
Cruise Ship, Two Airlines: World Airways
And Greyhound Air. All this from one company and with one purpose, a
vision of possibilities with risk involved. The Greyhound
Corporation has been simplified from it's beginnings to Greyhound
Lines, Inc., a subsidiary of First Group in Scotland and England.
Greyhound dominance is also shown on CAROLINA TRAILWAYS, VERMONT
TRANSIT, TEXAS, NEW MEXICO AND OKLAHOMA COACHES, GREYHOUND CANADA,
GREYHOUND MEXICO, VALLEY TRANSPORTATION. Greyhound is also
worldwide in AUSTRALIA AND SOUTH AFRICA. Today, Greyhound is 94
years old and shows no signs of retiring anytime soon.
Greyhound Bus Lines also has their own museum called the `GREYHOUND
BUS ORIGIN CENTER in Hibbing, Minnesota and their website is
WWW.BUSMUSEUM.ORG and GREYHOUND.COM. This writer's nameplate is on
the 1947 Greyhound Silversides and I once worked for Greyhound as
their Package Express and Passenger Revenue Sales Executive while
attending College. I met and received encouragement from the top
management which I knew them by name such as the Former
CEO/President and numerous other senior Management officers. My
nickname is Houndman Cometh. There you have it. Greyhound,
America's bus Line to your dream destinations. The slogan, `GO
GREYHOUND…" LEAVE THE DRIVING TO US." Simply put, "Look, Listen,
Learn and take a little time to ride along. One question though,
Greyhound has not caught that rabbit yet, I guess it's too busy
being the fastest dog on wheels.
The Old Greyhound Bus Terminal
Washington Deco: The Old Greyhound Terminal
The
stretch of New York Avenue between 11th and 12th Streets NW is a
wonderfully open urban space—a broad, divided east-west avenue with a
triangle of parkland and busy north-south streets on either side. The
spot could make for a handy transportation hub, and that is just what it
did for almost half a century, hosting the Greyhound Bus Lines Super Terminal on the south side of the avenue. Thanks to the valiant efforts of the D.C. Preservation League, the Art Deco Society of Washington and the Committee of 100 on the Federal City,
the former terminal, completed in 1940, survives today nearly intact as
the entrance pavilion to a modern office building at 1100 New York
Avenue.
The terminal is a classic art deco (or moderne) landmark with a streamlined 1930s look that epitomizes the promise of the industrial age as the hope for the future and the savior of civilization. The stepped central tower, a typical "ziggurat" design, exudes freshness and optimism with its clean, triumphal lines. The smoothed corners and streamlined look of course also suggest the speed with which Greyhound's Super Coaches were to whisk you to your destination. The building's architect, Louisville-based William S. Arrasmith, designed over 50 streamlined bus stations for Greyhound in the 1930s and 1940s, and this Super Terminal may be his finest. The building's exterior is faced in Indiana limestone and neatly rimmed along its upper edges with glazed black terracotta coping. Aluminum trim and glass-block accentuate the entrance. Inside is a large, round central waiting room with stores on either side. The floor was a jazzy checkerboard terrazzo. The walls were originally partially finished in walnut and trimmed in burnished copper. Large photo murals of scenic places throughout the United States were on the upper portions of the walls. Formica in dark red, brown, and gray was used for wainscoting, columns, and counter tops.
Greyhound got its start on the back roads of Minnesota, where Carl Eric Wickman began a jitney service for iron miners in 1914. The company grew rapidly through a series of mergers and acquisitions, becoming one of the largest in the United States by 1929. The company's expansion mirrored the growth of the industry, which was so rapid that cities like Washington struggled to deal with the congestion it created. The city's newspapers from the 1920s and 30s are filled with articles about new bus services and decisions by the Public Utilities Commission to try to limit their takeover of city streets. While stations were located at various spots downtown, New York Avenue was a particularly attractive location because it connected directly with highways to the east. Greyhound had built a restrained art-deco terminal near the northwest corner of 14th Street and New York Avenue in 1933. Called an "imposing addition to the architectural beauty of the city," by The Washington Post, that terminal could accommodate just 12 buses, with 2 loading and unloading lanes. It lasted only five years before the company decided to build the much larger Super Terminal two blocks to the east.
The new station opened to great acclaim in March 1940. On opening day, 25,000 gawkers filed in, admiring the stylish decor, all the leather and aluminum. A swing band played, and some people danced where they could find room. Each guest was given a "souvenir," the newspapers tell us, although what it was we do not know. The $1 million, fully air-conditioned new building seemed to impress everyone to no end.
The timing of the opening was propitious, coming just before hordes of servicemen and other government workers began inundating the city to fuel the war effort. The terminal was quickly overrun with business. In May 1943, Wilson Scott wrote in the Washington Times-Herald of his impressions of the wartime bus station. He noted that "On Sunday nights in addition to the regular buses, almost 2,000 service men are transported back to camp between the hours of 6 p.m. and 12 midnight... I have often seen a long line of soldiers, sailors and sweethearts on Sunday night wrapped around almost three full sides of the block on which the terminal stands and waiting seats." Ever present were military police and shore patrolmen along with their Black Marias and patrol wagons, ready to nab any troublemakers or servicemen who had gone AWOL. On a more poignant note, Scott found a civilian cop trying to comfort a bedraggled young boy who had run way from home two days before. "Dressed in a gray sweater and corduroy knickers extending practically to his ankles and looking out with timid, forlorn eyes on a cold, cold world, the little lad was too frightened to talk." After trying his best to communicate with the child, the cop finally called a police wagon to take him away, which I'm sure did much to settle the young boy's anxiety.
The Washington Star reported in July 1945 about a war-bereaved father from Newark, New Jersey, whose son had gone missing in the Pacific. After drinking heavily one night, the man walked into the Greyhound terminal and shot an apparently total stranger, then turned the gun on himself. The stranger, hit in the stomach, survived; the distraught father died later that night at Emergency Hospital.
The station stayed busy for several decades after the war. In 1973, Henry Allen wrote a wonderful profile of the now-old Greyhound terminal for The Washington Post, finding not stylish elegance but "that bus station smell...the stale, sweet, sooty urban smell of cigar smoke, cold sweat and carbon monoxide; the tart, grimy smell of winos, and the starchy air of the cafeteria, like the mess hall of a troop ship." The station had changed. Instead of sumptuous benches upholstered in leather, Allen noted the "plastic seats with bolted-on TV sets that nobody watches." About the architecture, Allen noted with a jaundiced eye that "the downtown Greyhound station epitomizes the march-of-progress school of architecture that scattered its sculptured monuments around the country before World War II"--a futile and naive gesture, he seemed to be thinking. And it was hard not to be jaded at that point, surrounded by the assortment of "pimps, pickpockets. winos, junkies, whores, transvestites, Murphy men, pushers, all-round hustlers and restroom commandos" that populated the terminal on a semi-permanent basis. There were still plenty of servicemen moving through the station, but now they were mostly prey for the hustlers. "These guys go down to the pet store on H Street, buy three-quarters of an ounce of catnip for 51 cents. It makes a good-looking ounce of marijuana. You sell it to these GIs," Allen learned. Finally Allen talked to a young woman sitting in the station's restaurant: " 'You want to know why I hang in here?' she asks.... 'I'll tell you,' she says with sudden ennui, 'I just don't know myself.'"
The old terminal's art deco ebullience, it seems, had become almost an embarrassment on the mean streets of downtown in the 1970s. Greyhound execs must have thought so when they decided in 1976 to box the whole thing up. Architect Gordon Holmquist came up with a renovation based on installing concrete asbestos panels and a squat-looking metal mansard roof around the entire building. The resulting look was buttoned down but awkward and ungainly. In retrospect, it's hard to fathom what the Greyhound people were thinking, but they weren't the only ones architecturally adrift in that Bicentennial year. At the same time the National Visitors Center opened, a horrendous multimedia pit dug into the center of Union Station. Soon recognized as a pointless failure, the Center was shut down within two years. It was not a good moment for transportation architecture.
By the mid 1980s, the Greyhound terminal had reached the end of the road, so to speak, at least as a bus station. Real estate in the old downtown was beginning to turn around, and the property was quite valuable. Greyhound sold the property for $21 million in 1985 and, after acquiring rival Trailways in 1987, consolidated bus operations at Trailways' new terminal behind Union Station.
Led by Richard Longstreth of the Committee of 100 and Richard Striner of the Art Deco Society of Washington, a coalition of preservationists rallied in the early 1980s to get the old terminal designated as an historic landmark. Their efforts were complicated by the fact that the original facade was covered over and its condition unknown. The developers at first thought to just incorporate elements of the station's facade in their new monster office building, but the preservationists wanted the entire building saved and mounted a sophisticated campaign to do so. Finally, a breakthrough was reached in 1988 when the developers and the future owners of the office building agreed to a 10 percent decrease in total office space that would allow the entire terminal to be saved as a gateway to the new building. The handsomely-restored bus station cum office building opened in 1991. It includes a striking permanent exhibit on the history of the bus terminal, complete with life-size plaster casts of historic buses standing precisely where their bays would have been at the back of the original terminal.
The terminal is a classic art deco (or moderne) landmark with a streamlined 1930s look that epitomizes the promise of the industrial age as the hope for the future and the savior of civilization. The stepped central tower, a typical "ziggurat" design, exudes freshness and optimism with its clean, triumphal lines. The smoothed corners and streamlined look of course also suggest the speed with which Greyhound's Super Coaches were to whisk you to your destination. The building's architect, Louisville-based William S. Arrasmith, designed over 50 streamlined bus stations for Greyhound in the 1930s and 1940s, and this Super Terminal may be his finest. The building's exterior is faced in Indiana limestone and neatly rimmed along its upper edges with glazed black terracotta coping. Aluminum trim and glass-block accentuate the entrance. Inside is a large, round central waiting room with stores on either side. The floor was a jazzy checkerboard terrazzo. The walls were originally partially finished in walnut and trimmed in burnished copper. Large photo murals of scenic places throughout the United States were on the upper portions of the walls. Formica in dark red, brown, and gray was used for wainscoting, columns, and counter tops.
Greyhound got its start on the back roads of Minnesota, where Carl Eric Wickman began a jitney service for iron miners in 1914. The company grew rapidly through a series of mergers and acquisitions, becoming one of the largest in the United States by 1929. The company's expansion mirrored the growth of the industry, which was so rapid that cities like Washington struggled to deal with the congestion it created. The city's newspapers from the 1920s and 30s are filled with articles about new bus services and decisions by the Public Utilities Commission to try to limit their takeover of city streets. While stations were located at various spots downtown, New York Avenue was a particularly attractive location because it connected directly with highways to the east. Greyhound had built a restrained art-deco terminal near the northwest corner of 14th Street and New York Avenue in 1933. Called an "imposing addition to the architectural beauty of the city," by The Washington Post, that terminal could accommodate just 12 buses, with 2 loading and unloading lanes. It lasted only five years before the company decided to build the much larger Super Terminal two blocks to the east.
The new station opened to great acclaim in March 1940. On opening day, 25,000 gawkers filed in, admiring the stylish decor, all the leather and aluminum. A swing band played, and some people danced where they could find room. Each guest was given a "souvenir," the newspapers tell us, although what it was we do not know. The $1 million, fully air-conditioned new building seemed to impress everyone to no end.
 |
| The waiting room in 1943 (Source: Library of Congress) |
The timing of the opening was propitious, coming just before hordes of servicemen and other government workers began inundating the city to fuel the war effort. The terminal was quickly overrun with business. In May 1943, Wilson Scott wrote in the Washington Times-Herald of his impressions of the wartime bus station. He noted that "On Sunday nights in addition to the regular buses, almost 2,000 service men are transported back to camp between the hours of 6 p.m. and 12 midnight... I have often seen a long line of soldiers, sailors and sweethearts on Sunday night wrapped around almost three full sides of the block on which the terminal stands and waiting seats." Ever present were military police and shore patrolmen along with their Black Marias and patrol wagons, ready to nab any troublemakers or servicemen who had gone AWOL. On a more poignant note, Scott found a civilian cop trying to comfort a bedraggled young boy who had run way from home two days before. "Dressed in a gray sweater and corduroy knickers extending practically to his ankles and looking out with timid, forlorn eyes on a cold, cold world, the little lad was too frightened to talk." After trying his best to communicate with the child, the cop finally called a police wagon to take him away, which I'm sure did much to settle the young boy's anxiety.
 |
| Christmas Rush in 1941 (Source: Library of Congress) |
The Washington Star reported in July 1945 about a war-bereaved father from Newark, New Jersey, whose son had gone missing in the Pacific. After drinking heavily one night, the man walked into the Greyhound terminal and shot an apparently total stranger, then turned the gun on himself. The stranger, hit in the stomach, survived; the distraught father died later that night at Emergency Hospital.
 |
| The terminal in a postcard view from c. 1960. |
The station stayed busy for several decades after the war. In 1973, Henry Allen wrote a wonderful profile of the now-old Greyhound terminal for The Washington Post, finding not stylish elegance but "that bus station smell...the stale, sweet, sooty urban smell of cigar smoke, cold sweat and carbon monoxide; the tart, grimy smell of winos, and the starchy air of the cafeteria, like the mess hall of a troop ship." The station had changed. Instead of sumptuous benches upholstered in leather, Allen noted the "plastic seats with bolted-on TV sets that nobody watches." About the architecture, Allen noted with a jaundiced eye that "the downtown Greyhound station epitomizes the march-of-progress school of architecture that scattered its sculptured monuments around the country before World War II"--a futile and naive gesture, he seemed to be thinking. And it was hard not to be jaded at that point, surrounded by the assortment of "pimps, pickpockets. winos, junkies, whores, transvestites, Murphy men, pushers, all-round hustlers and restroom commandos" that populated the terminal on a semi-permanent basis. There were still plenty of servicemen moving through the station, but now they were mostly prey for the hustlers. "These guys go down to the pet store on H Street, buy three-quarters of an ounce of catnip for 51 cents. It makes a good-looking ounce of marijuana. You sell it to these GIs," Allen learned. Finally Allen talked to a young woman sitting in the station's restaurant: " 'You want to know why I hang in here?' she asks.... 'I'll tell you,' she says with sudden ennui, 'I just don't know myself.'"
The old terminal's art deco ebullience, it seems, had become almost an embarrassment on the mean streets of downtown in the 1970s. Greyhound execs must have thought so when they decided in 1976 to box the whole thing up. Architect Gordon Holmquist came up with a renovation based on installing concrete asbestos panels and a squat-looking metal mansard roof around the entire building. The resulting look was buttoned down but awkward and ungainly. In retrospect, it's hard to fathom what the Greyhound people were thinking, but they weren't the only ones architecturally adrift in that Bicentennial year. At the same time the National Visitors Center opened, a horrendous multimedia pit dug into the center of Union Station. Soon recognized as a pointless failure, the Center was shut down within two years. It was not a good moment for transportation architecture.
 |
| The re-packaged terminal in 1977 (Photo courtesy of the D.C. Preservation League archives) |
 |
| Buses parked at the rear of the terminal in 1977. (Photo courtesy of the D.C. Preservation League archives) |
By the mid 1980s, the Greyhound terminal had reached the end of the road, so to speak, at least as a bus station. Real estate in the old downtown was beginning to turn around, and the property was quite valuable. Greyhound sold the property for $21 million in 1985 and, after acquiring rival Trailways in 1987, consolidated bus operations at Trailways' new terminal behind Union Station.
Led by Richard Longstreth of the Committee of 100 and Richard Striner of the Art Deco Society of Washington, a coalition of preservationists rallied in the early 1980s to get the old terminal designated as an historic landmark. Their efforts were complicated by the fact that the original facade was covered over and its condition unknown. The developers at first thought to just incorporate elements of the station's facade in their new monster office building, but the preservationists wanted the entire building saved and mounted a sophisticated campaign to do so. Finally, a breakthrough was reached in 1988 when the developers and the future owners of the office building agreed to a 10 percent decrease in total office space that would allow the entire terminal to be saved as a gateway to the new building. The handsomely-restored bus station cum office building opened in 1991. It includes a striking permanent exhibit on the history of the bus terminal, complete with life-size plaster casts of historic buses standing precisely where their bays would have been at the back of the original terminal.
 |
| The terminal as it appears today. |
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Featuring Hemmings Motor News
A few of them are still out there. Ghostly. They're among the most iconic American motor vehicles of the 1950s, but the Scenicruiser has been gone for so many years now, a casualty of changing public tastes in long distance travel, that the sight of one on today's highways will spin heads for sure.
Greyhound commissioned General Motors to build 1,001 examples of the high-decked, three-axle PD 4501 intercity coach, the bus it named the Scenicruiser, beginning in 1954. The coach is the long-distance bus industry's most memorable, and arguably the most successful, effort to capture riders as the nation's transportation metric was being bent by unforeseen post-war forces: a gradual erosion of passenger rail service, the emergence of jet travel, and the hand-in-glove boom of auto production and the Interstate highway system during the 1950s.
Enduring relics of the grand, but short-lived, age of premium buses still gather on a not-quite-formal, nearly ad hoc basis. More exist than you might expect: Tom McNally, who helped put together this spring's SceniCruise 2010 in Amarillo, Texas, said that about 230 of the old Greyhound lions still exist. At one time, they could be had for virtually nothing, which partly explains why many were converted into homemade RVs. Those who remember spent quality time along old Route 66, hallowed blacktop ruled by Scenicruisers a lifetime ago.
They visited highway landmarks, plus the town of Adrian, Texas, located at the midpoint of 66: It's west of Amarillo, and exactly 1,139 miles from both Chicago and Los Angeles. Ten of the Scenicruisers made the trip to Amarillo; their trips originated in Baltimore, California and the Midwest. Several, as you might expect, were conversions. Other days-gone coaches also make the run. These numbered one produced in the 1960s by Prevost of Sainte Claire, Quebec, Canada; and a later high-deck GM bus, the PD 4107, built from 1966 through 1969.
One of the Scenicruiser's competitors also showed up, a three-axle 1971 Silver Eagle once run by Trailways. Historically speaking, the Scenicruiser was the first significantly successful 40-foot-long intercity coach before the industry switched en masse to buses that long. Tom, who lives in Peoria, Illinois, has traveled an uncommon, challenging route with his Scenicruiser.
He restored the 1956-built PD 4501 to full Greyhound specifications from that year, including the proper seats. Tom found it in Weeds-port, New York, having been converted into a coach for a gospel choir and then, a church bus. ''I restored the outside and the interior. It still had the correct 8V-71 diesel and four-speed transmission. We had another Scenicruiser at the meet: Toward the end or their use, Greyhound converted about 100 of them to what they called combo cars, with an extra partition and an extra door at the rear, which hauled freight.
They had a rear door on the side where a conveyor was connected so the packages could be removed. ''I've been into muscle cars for years. I still have two Pontiac GTOs, but I just wanted something different,'' Tom said. ''I guess it all started because my wife and I had two former racing greyhound dogs. Then my wife surprised me with a birthday trip aboard a Greyhound bus, and gave me a Greyhound book that had a Scenicruiser in it.
On the trip, I saw that one was for sale in Hemmings Motor News. That was when I started really looking for one.''
Monday, July 1, 2013
FMCSA’s (HOS) Hours-of-Service
FMCSA’s Hours-of-Service regulations take full effect July 1; Motorcoach rules unchanged
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) will begin enforcing the totality of the motorcoach hours-of-service regulations for commercial passenger carriers on Monday, July 1. Any motorcoach company that operates across state lines will be bound by the current existing motorcoach HOS rules.The new regulations for passenger-carrying commercial vehicle drivers are summarized below:
- 10-Hour Driving Limit
Drivers may drive a maximum of 10 hours after 8 consecutive hours off duty. - 15-Hour On-Duty Limit
Drivers may not drive after having been on duty for 15 hours, following 8 consecutive hours off duty. Off-duty time is not included in the 15-hour period. - 60/70-Hour On-Duty Limit
Drivers may not drive after 60/70 hours on duty in 7/8 consecutive days. - Penalties
Driving (or allowing a driver to drive) more than 3 hours beyond the driving-time limit may be considered an “egregious” violation and subject to the maximum civil penalties.
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| The Greyhound Group |