For much of my life riding a bus meant either a road tour across some stretch of Europe or "goin' down Grandma's" to visit family in Virginia. It was a particular thrill as a child to ride on one of the biggest things on the road with those narrow but interestingly patterned seats and the scented interiors of the buses. The windows were huge and the scenery ever changing, from towns and cities, to hills and mountains with the occasional lake or river thrown in for good measure. It was exciting beyond measure to "race" a train that happened to be thundering alongside in the same direction. As a child there was no stigma attached to riding the bus. I was too young to worry about the collected mix of passengers on any given trip. As at least some of the trip was at night it was my job to sleep as best I could, anyway, and not worry about whoever else might be on board. Mom and Dad paid the fares so all I had to do was stay close by, stay on board and stay out of trouble. Easy enough. On a bus there was a whole aisle to wander if I got bored or annoyed with my younger sister as opposed to being trapped in the back seat of the car for hours on end. As best I can recall I was well-enough behaved to not be a nuisance to my fellow travelers and certainly no one to my recollection made any untoward advances in my direction. For many today the blue and silver silhouette of Greyhound is the only bus line they have ever known. There once was a time when the red liners of (Continental) Trailways competed for fares across the nation's expanding network of interstate and national highways. We typically rode with Greyhound as they had a stronger presence along the east coast but even at a young age I remember a distinct difference in their service. For some reason I felt the Greyhound's were faster but the Trailways coaches were larger, cleaner and more powerful thanks to many of them having manual transmissions as opposed to Greyhound's preference for automatics. Trailways is gone, having been absorbed by Greyhound who now faces a crazy quilt world of competitors from surviving Trailways franchises as well as the likes of Peter Pan and Coach USA for scheduled and chartered service across the country. I've been driving for thirty years now and enjoy the freedom of long drives up to 10 hours in any one direction. Going "down home" now is a three-hour flight back to the Maryland/Virginia area followed by up to a five hour drive in to the country to Gramma's. That in itself is a long day but put all of that in terms of a Greyhound schedule? One day, five hours and 10 minutes, according to their website with one transfer in Atlanta for a web fare of $167.56 up to the fully refundable fare of $208 one way. Oh, and that includes 16 stops between Dallas and Atlanta where the bus arrives at 3:30 in the morning before waiting an hour to catch the 2nd bus with nine more stops to my Grandmother's home town. Come on along! Gotta go.
Showing posts with label Bus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bus. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Bussing
For much of my life riding a bus meant either a road tour across some stretch of Europe or "goin' down Grandma's" to visit family in Virginia. It was a particular thrill as a child to ride on one of the biggest things on the road with those narrow but interestingly patterned seats and the scented interiors of the buses. The windows were huge and the scenery ever changing, from towns and cities, to hills and mountains with the occasional lake or river thrown in for good measure. It was exciting beyond measure to "race" a train that happened to be thundering alongside in the same direction. As a child there was no stigma attached to riding the bus. I was too young to worry about the collected mix of passengers on any given trip. As at least some of the trip was at night it was my job to sleep as best I could, anyway, and not worry about whoever else might be on board. Mom and Dad paid the fares so all I had to do was stay close by, stay on board and stay out of trouble. Easy enough. On a bus there was a whole aisle to wander if I got bored or annoyed with my younger sister as opposed to being trapped in the back seat of the car for hours on end. As best I can recall I was well-enough behaved to not be a nuisance to my fellow travelers and certainly no one to my recollection made any untoward advances in my direction. For many today the blue and silver silhouette of Greyhound is the only bus line they have ever known. There once was a time when the red liners of (Continental) Trailways competed for fares across the nation's expanding network of interstate and national highways. We typically rode with Greyhound as they had a stronger presence along the east coast but even at a young age I remember a distinct difference in their service. For some reason I felt the Greyhound's were faster but the Trailways coaches were larger, cleaner and more powerful thanks to many of them having manual transmissions as opposed to Greyhound's preference for automatics. Trailways is gone, having been absorbed by Greyhound who now faces a crazy quilt world of competitors from surviving Trailways franchises as well as the likes of Peter Pan and Coach USA for scheduled and chartered service across the country. I've been driving for thirty years now and enjoy the freedom of long drives up to 10 hours in any one direction. Going "down home" now is a three-hour flight back to the Maryland/Virginia area followed by up to a five hour drive in to the country to Gramma's. That in itself is a long day but put all of that in terms of a Greyhound schedule? One day, five hours and 10 minutes, according to their website with one transfer in Atlanta for a web fare of $167.56 up to the fully refundable fare of $208 one way. Oh, and that includes 16 stops between Dallas and Atlanta where the bus arrives at 3:30 in the morning before waiting an hour to catch the 2nd bus with nine more stops to my Grandmother's home town. Come on along! Gotta go.
Monday, January 10, 2011
The Concord Coach
What fool invented early morning flights and for what reason other than torture, eh? This from a man who spent over 20 years working in the airline industry and knowing full well the value of oh-dark-hundred departures for the sake of early arrivals down line; the better to have the rest of the day ahead of you, right? But OMG, I mean, getting up at least three hours before the flight to be at the airport two hours before the flight to then endure the flight itself just to get to the destination?Planes, trains and automobiles completely describes the scenario I was faced with the Sunday after Christmas with the substitution being a bus for the train. On this occasion I was traveling to New Hampshire to meet the newest nephew in the family who had arrived barely a month ago just after Thanksgiving. Southwest Airlines flies nonstop between Baltimore and Manchester, New Hampshire but were asking an insane price for the privilege so Boston got the business for $100 less on the airfare. What I didn’t factor in other than the total transit time was the $40 roundtrip that would be required for the bus service between Boston’s Logan International Airport and my final destination of Concord, the state capitol. In hindsight convenient little Manchester might start to see a lot of me but that is for another story.
Boston is a massive transportation center for all of New England, featuring commuter airline service throughout the region, a large network of trains and buses to just about every point with a zip code through Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maine. The popular sit-com “Wings” featured the antics of a Cape Cod airline flying to Boston and back, validated today by departure boards featuring Cape Air services to Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and Provincetown alongside flights on the big boys to Hong Kong, Chicago, Dallas, London and Puerto Rico.
Manchester is THE airport for New Hampshire, to include the capitol region around Concord maybe 25 miles to the north. Concord is one of those state capitols that has no commercial air service at all, like Carson City, Nevada or Salem, Oregon. Other cities in New Hampshire have service but Concord is connected by Manchester’s airport or bus service from the city or nearby Londonderry. As for me, I wasn’t quite sure how the bus would make it from Boston to Concord in just over an hour and a half but it turned out to be nonstop from South Station direct to the bus terminal a few blocks from the state capitol.
Concord Coach was my chariot after hopping up to Boston from Baltimore on AirTran. There was a 9:25AM service direct to the New Hampshire capitol for only $20 after a stop at Boston’s South Station, the major bus depot just above the rail station serving the city. My flight had landed at 7:30AM so I had two bleary-eyed hours to kill until the bus left, by which time I would have been up and at ‘em since 4:30 in the bleedin’ morning!
The bus was clean and comfortable and there was minimal traffic on the roads going north the day after Christmas although Logan was running flat out trying to get those who had to work the next day back home on time. Few people actually head north on purpose in to the teeth of a pending Nor’Easter that would later play havoc with travel all across the Northeastern part of the United States but Concord Coach was unperturbed and did much to help me realize my holiday plans coming and going.
For someone who hasn’t taken a scheduled bus in I can’t remember when, I was perfectly fine with Concord Coach. They’re a highly professional service providing a much needed and appreciated lifeline to points north in New Hampshire. Especially given traffic in and out of Boston, I’ll be using them again.
Gotta go.
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