[PRCo] Re: Old Greyhound film

[Fred Schneider]

I remember photographing those PD 3751 Silversides, Herb, but I think I only rode one once.   By the early 1950s in my area, they were pretty much restricted to rush hour and extra use.  

The regular equipment on the Philadelphia - Pittsburgh US 30 locals that ran through Lancaster were PD 4103s built in 1951 for the Pennsylvania Greyhound.   Most of the turnpike expresses were using Air Ride PD 4104s by 1953 or 1954.  

About August, 1955 Central Greyhound was exhibiting a brand spanking new Scenicruiser at Parkersburg, WV when I was visiting my grandparents in Marietta, Ohio.    I was still heavily into taking bus pictures in the spring of 1956 and then I lost interest not long after that.   Up until then I could bore people to death citing model numbers.

A day's drive from New York?   My father claimed he averaged about 30 miles per hour on vacations in the 1950s.  

I am not sure when route 22 became four lane across as far as Lebanon, NJ.    The Pulaski Skyway goes back to the 1930s and that connected the Holland Tunnel with Newark.   Newark is 25 miles from midtown New York.   It's another 63 miles from Newark to Phillipsburg.  That probably took  two hours.  The expressways around Easton, Bethlehem and Allentown were not built until the 1950s.   So that bus had to drag through the city streets and over two-lane roads.  And four lane route 22, which is today's I-78, from Harrisburg to Allentown was not built until the middle 1950s … in fact what was there was a dirt road until the mid 1930s and a mix of asphalt roads into the 1950s.   The preferred bus route was probably through Reading to Harrisburg …. 128 miles from Phillipsburg.   In 1945, once you were outside the cities, you could push that bus at 45 to 50, but you had miles and miles of cities and towns.   My guess is 5.5 hours including terminal time in Reading and Allentown plus 2 hours from New York … 7.5 hours New York to Harrisburg.   (The Pennsylvania Railroad would do New York - Harrisburg in 3.5 hours.)   Then it was probably another 5 hours to downtown Pittsburgh … 12.5 total.  

Anybody got an old Russels Guide to tell me how wrong I am?  



On May 22, 2012, at 10:56 PM, Herb Brannon wrote:

> Now that was probably a "days drive" on all those two lane roads. I can
> almost smell the fumes inside that PD4151.
> On Sat, May 19, 2012 at 10:36 PM, Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>wrote:
> 
>> Nice film that Peter Folger found ∑  It begins in Manhattan and ends at
>> the old art deco style Greyhound terminal across from the post office at
>> Grant and Liberty in Pittsburgh
>> some of you may detect the fact that a westbound Hound entered Allegheny
>> Mountain and then emerged from Blue Mountain Tunnel running eastbound about
>> 75 miles east of Allegheny Mountain before making the rest stop in between
>> at Midway Service Plaza (Bedford).   Immediately after Bedford we see the
>> bridge over route 119 at New Stanton.
>> 
>> The nice thing about it, to me, is the memory of the Turnpike with the
>> grassy medial strip and very little traffic.  This was a 1945 Encyclopedia
>> Britannica film.   My father's memories of the turnpike during the war was
>> that the turnpike commission was rather fearful that they would be unable
>> to collect enough tolls to pay off the revenue bonds because of war time
>> gas rationing.   My dad had to drive it a couple of times to get from Penn
>> Township to the B&O station in Ohio Pyle to catch a night train to
>> Baltimore on business during the war and remembered that "if you passed
>> another car on the turnpike, [there were so few other cars that] it was
>> probably a policeman."   I have personal memories of a picnic along the
>> side of the turnpike around 1946 or 47 ∑ traffic was so light you could
>> easily walk across the road.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> "The Bus Driver" 1945 Encyclopaedia Britannica Films.
>> 
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgun6pcVoEE
>> 
>> Peter Folger
>> 157 Alfred Street, Apt. #1
>> Biddeford, ME 04005-3225
>> transitman at maine.rr.com
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Herb Brannon
> In Cuyahoga Valley National Park
> 
>