New England Greyhound Lines
The New England Greyhound Lines, an intercity highway-coach carrier, was a Greyhound regional operating company, based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, from 1937 until 1955, when it became a part of the Eastern Division of The Greyhound Corporation.
Origin
In 1937 The Greyhound Corporation, the original parent Greyhound firm, formed the New England Greyhound Lines to take over three routes of the New England Transportation Company, along with two subsidiaries of the NET Company – the Berkshire Motor Coach Lines and the Victoria Coach Lines, two discount-price carriers which NET had previously bought – plus the Quaker Stages and the Old Colony Coach Lines, two independent unrelated firms.The NET Company was the bus subsidiary of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad, commonly known as the New Haven Railroad.
The railway firm bought a one-half interest in the New England GL.
Eastern GL of New York
Already, however, Greyhound had made its first presence in New England in 1930, by forming the Eastern GL of New York .The EGL of New York ran in part between Albany and Boston, via Pittsfield, Springfield, and Worcester.
Eastern GL of New England
In 1930 The Greyhound Corporation, the parent firm, during its rapid growth, formed another subsidiary, the EGL of New England, then placed it under the undenominated main EGL – along with three other operating subsidiaries.In that same year, 1930, the new EGL of New England started running, on two intercity routes acquired from the Gray Line of Boston, two routes between Boston and New York City – the inland route, via Worcester and Springfield and Hartford and New Haven, and the shoreline route, via Providence and New London and New Haven.
In 1936 The Greyhound Corporation began to eliminate its multiple intermediate holding companies – to avoid a hugely increased federal income tax on the undistributed earnings of corporate subsidiaries – one under the Revenue Act of 1936, which the U.S. Congress had passed as a means by which to cause a simplification of complex corporate structures in the public-utility industries.
In one response to the new legislation, in that same year, 1936, Greyhound merged the EGL of New England into The Greyhound Corporation, the parent firm.
While waiting for the mandatory approval of the federal Interstate Commerce Commission, the EGL of New England and the New England Transportation Company began to coordinate their scheduled trips with each other, and each company began to accept the tickets of the other.
In 1939 the ICC announced its decision to allow the proposed actions, and the two companies moved forward by carrying out their plans.
Development
The New England GL acquired three routes from the NET Company: the shoreline route between Boston and New York City via Providence, New London, and New Haven, the one between New Haven and Willimantic via Middletown and Marlborough, and the one between New York City and Pittsfield via Danbury, New Milford, and Torrington.The NEGL acquired also the Berkshire and Victoria firms.
The NEGL further acquired the Quaker firm and the Old Colony firm .
The Greyhound Corporation, the parent firm, promptly transferred all the new routes north of Boston from the NEGL to the EGL of New England, which still ran several trips each day between Boston and New York City alongside the NEGL.
In 1940, however, Greyhound transferred to the NEGL the remaining trips of the EGL of New England between Boston and New York City.
The NEGL made several minor acquisitions and dispositions of routes during the following years.
On the last day of October 1950 The Greyhound Corporation bought back the one-half interest of the New Haven Railroad in the New England GL.
On the last day of December 1950 the parent firm merged the EGL of New England into the NEGL.
In 1953 the New England GL bought the International Coach Lines, based in Rumford, Maine, which ran between two points in Canada – Montréal, Québec, and Saint John, New Brunswick – along a route mostly through northern New England – via Stanhope, Norton, Colebrook, Lancaster, and Gorham, Rumford, Bangor, Lincoln, and Calais, and Saint Stephen.
With that purchase the NEGL received five new MCI coaches, which the ICL had already ordered, but which had not yet become delivered before the merger of the ICL into the NEGL.
Thus The Greyhound Corporation acquired and began to operate its first MCI coaches in the USA.
Through-coaches on through-routes
The New England GL ran a number of through-coaches along its own routes, including those between New York City and Boston, New York City and Portland, New York City and Bangor, New York City and Saint Stephen, and Montréal and Saint John.However, the NEGL took part in only a few interlined through-routes in cooperation with other operating companies – those between Boston and both Richmond and Norfolk, both with the Pennsylvania GL and the Richmond GL, and between New York City and both Bennington and Burlington, with the Vermont Transit Company, in which The Greyhound Corporation then owned a minority interest.
Meeting other Greyhound companies
The New England GL met the EGL of New York in Boston and the Central GL and the Pennsylvania GL in New York City.Merger with Pennsylvania GL
In 1955, during a time of consolidation, Greyhound merged the New England GL with the Pennsylvania GL, all of which became redesignated as the Eastern Division of The Greyhound Corporation , the first of four huge new divisions ].Thus ended the New England GL, and thus began the Eastern GL.
Beyond New England GL
Later The Greyhound Corporation reorganized again, into just two humongous divisions, named as the Greyhound Lines East and the Greyhound Lines West ; even later it eliminated those two divisions, thereby leaving a single gargantuan undivided nationwide fleet.In 1987 The Greyhound Corporation, which had become widely diversified far beyond transportation, sold its entire highway-coach operating business to a new company, named as the Greyhound Lines, Inc., also called the GLI, based in Dallas, Texas – a separate, independent, unrelated firm, which was the property of a group of private investors under the promotion of Fred Currey, a former executive of the Continental Trailways, which was by far the largest member company in the Trailways association.
Later in 1987 the Greyhound Lines, Inc., the GLI, the new firm based in Dallas, further bought the Trailways, Inc., the TWI, its largest competitor, and merged it into the GLI.
Later in 1987 the Greyhound Lines, Inc., the GLI, the new firm based in Dallas, further bought the Trailways, Inc., the TWI, its largest competitor, and merged it into the GLI.
The lenders and the other investors of the GLI ousted Fred Currey as the chief executive officer after the firm went into bankruptcy in 1990.
The GLI has since continued to experience difficulties and lackluster performance under a succession of new owners and new executives while continuing to reduce its level of service – by hauling fewer passengers aboard fewer coaches on fewer trips along fewer routes with fewer stops in fewer communities in fewer states – and by doing so on fewer days – that is, increasingly operating some trips less often than every day – and by using fewer through-coaches, thus requiring passengers to make more transfers.
After the sale to the GLI, The Greyhound Corporation changed its name to the Greyhound-Dial Corporation, then the Dial Corporation, then the Viad Corporation.
The website of the Viad Corporation in September 2008 makes no mention of its corporate history or its past relationship to Greyhound – that is, its origin as The Greyhound Corporation.