To add a little extra history to your post, the Greyhound station downtown here in Corpus Christi closed around 2016 to share a newer station with other lines:
The old station has been repurposed to become a mostly outdoor bar with plenty of room for vendors and bands. It's not bad. It's name? BUS aka Bar Under the Sun:
I cannot imagine the number of 20th-century works of American fiction that utilize the Greyhound bus as a principal plot device. Robert Stone's A HALL OF MIRRORS and Charles Portis's NORWOOD, just off the top of my head. Pelagic America.
First paragraph of HALL OF MIRRORS: "The day before, Rheinhardt had bought a pint of whiskey in Opelika and saved it all afternoon while the bus coursed down through the red clay and pine hills to the Gulf. Then, after sundown, he had opened the bottle and shared it with the boy who sold bibles, the blond gangling country boy in the next seat. Most of the night, as the black cypress shot by outside, Rheinhardt had listened to the boy talk about money -- commissions and good territories and profits -- the boy had gone on for hours with an awed and innocent greed. Rheinhardt had sat silently, passing the bottle and listening."
Good idea for a story! You had me interested instantly. It resonates with the instruction I would give to writers. "Tell us about ordinary people or places with extraordinary stories." By extraordinary I meant out-of-the-ordinary -- not in the superlative sense. You carried it off with a cinematic flair. Great fun to read!
Loved the topic. I’ve traveled the buses often. Indpls to New Albany and Louisville to Dallas Tx. I was always surprised by its travelers. It was a rare experience! The price was right!
I use to ride Greyhound from Portland to the Oregon Coast to go on vacation. The bus would go down Highway 101 to San Francisco via the Oregon coast. I met a woman from Australia who was touring the Oregon coast via that Greyhound line. Greyhound now no longer goes to the coast. You can still see the old bus stop signs in small towns where the bus used to stop. The Portland depot was a nice place in Portland's old town district. It closed years ago and the last time I was there, there was a huge homeless encampment outside of it. Before Greyhound closed its depot, Trailways left Portland. Those two bus services served a lot of low-income people.
Greyhound may have been the passenger trains of the poor in America or the American south, but those who couldn't afford the Dog rode Trailways. The Trailways terminal in New Orleans was a surreal nightmare of the shuffling damned, desperate proposals, and smudged yellow light from nowhere
Trailways was a collection of independents for a very long time all operating under that brand name. Can't really know if depots were standardized. Most of the operators were acquired by Greyhound over the years but there are still some routes.
My longest ride was Richmond to Chicago to catch the train to Seattle. They by air to Fairbanks. Can't recall how long that trip took, way back in 1958. I has whole stripe in the military and money was an issue. But it was faster than my hitch hiking from San Francisco to Richmond on my first real leave.
To add a little extra history to your post, the Greyhound station downtown here in Corpus Christi closed around 2016 to share a newer station with other lines:
https://www.101corpuschristi.com/blog3
The old station has been repurposed to become a mostly outdoor bar with plenty of room for vendors and bands. It's not bad. It's name? BUS aka Bar Under the Sun:
https://barunderthesun.com
I cannot imagine the number of 20th-century works of American fiction that utilize the Greyhound bus as a principal plot device. Robert Stone's A HALL OF MIRRORS and Charles Portis's NORWOOD, just off the top of my head. Pelagic America.
First paragraph of HALL OF MIRRORS: "The day before, Rheinhardt had bought a pint of whiskey in Opelika and saved it all afternoon while the bus coursed down through the red clay and pine hills to the Gulf. Then, after sundown, he had opened the bottle and shared it with the boy who sold bibles, the blond gangling country boy in the next seat. Most of the night, as the black cypress shot by outside, Rheinhardt had listened to the boy talk about money -- commissions and good territories and profits -- the boy had gone on for hours with an awed and innocent greed. Rheinhardt had sat silently, passing the bottle and listening."
I started to look and it was overwhelming. I hope people will send them and maybe I can gather them together. Norwood!
Rode the dog a lot back in the 70s as I began my life as an adult. Brings back some memories.
Good idea for a story! You had me interested instantly. It resonates with the instruction I would give to writers. "Tell us about ordinary people or places with extraordinary stories." By extraordinary I meant out-of-the-ordinary -- not in the superlative sense. You carried it off with a cinematic flair. Great fun to read!
Loved the topic. I’ve traveled the buses often. Indpls to New Albany and Louisville to Dallas Tx. I was always surprised by its travelers. It was a rare experience! The price was right!
Louisville, to Dallas--that was a long one!
Unbelievable
I use to ride Greyhound from Portland to the Oregon Coast to go on vacation. The bus would go down Highway 101 to San Francisco via the Oregon coast. I met a woman from Australia who was touring the Oregon coast via that Greyhound line. Greyhound now no longer goes to the coast. You can still see the old bus stop signs in small towns where the bus used to stop. The Portland depot was a nice place in Portland's old town district. It closed years ago and the last time I was there, there was a huge homeless encampment outside of it. Before Greyhound closed its depot, Trailways left Portland. Those two bus services served a lot of low-income people.
Greyhound may have been the passenger trains of the poor in America or the American south, but those who couldn't afford the Dog rode Trailways. The Trailways terminal in New Orleans was a surreal nightmare of the shuffling damned, desperate proposals, and smudged yellow light from nowhere
Now I need to see if there is a Trailways Museum.
Trailways was a collection of independents for a very long time all operating under that brand name. Can't really know if depots were standardized. Most of the operators were acquired by Greyhound over the years but there are still some routes.
My longest ride was Richmond to Chicago to catch the train to Seattle. They by air to Fairbanks. Can't recall how long that trip took, way back in 1958. I has whole stripe in the military and money was an issue. But it was faster than my hitch hiking from San Francisco to Richmond on my first real leave.