Dr. D.B. “Doc” Rushing
©  Copyright, 2023, Duncan Bryant Rushing

Preface

The Pickwick-Greyhound Lines was a joint venture
under the ownership of The Pickwick Corporation and The Greyhound Corporation,
and it was an operating carrier of the Greyhound Lines.

Contents

Introduction
Pickwick Stages
MTC and Greyhound
Start of the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines
Purple Swan Safety Coach Lines
GLI of Delaware
Pacific Transportation Securities and the Pacific Greyhound Lines
Back to the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines
End of the Line for the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines
Pool (Interline) Operations
Pickwick-Greyhound Lines in 1929
Pickwick and Columbia Coaches
All American Bus Lines
Dwight Edwin Austin
Conclusion
Related Articles
Bibliography

Introduction

          The Pickwick-Greyhound Lines (PickGL or PG Lines) was a unique intercity motor-coach carrier in the system of the Greyhound Lines (GL).  It was a joint venture (with a hyphen in its name), and it was a joint property of The Pickwick Corporation and The Greyhound Corporation (with uppercase Ts because the was an integral part of each of those two official names).  The PG Lines was based first in Chicago, Illinois, then in Saint Louis, Missouri, and then (mostly) in Kansas City, Missouri, USA.  It existed slightly less than five years, from November 1928 until October -33; however, during its last 18 months it operated under a different name (the first Western Greyhound Lines (WGL).  Unfortunately, the PG Lines failed in business early during the Great Depression, and it went through a reorganization and partial liquidation in bankruptcy in 1932.

Pickwick Stages

          In 1911 Charles Wesley Grise, in San Diego, California, began the first activity leading to the Pickwick Stages and therefore also (later) to the Pickwick-Greyhound (PG) Lines.  Grise was a mechanic who owned a downtown automobile-service garage (near the site of a present Tesla charging station).  He also founded the Imperial Valley Stage Line.  Using a Cadillac open touring car with a hired driver, his firm started hauling passengers through the Imperial Valley between San Diego and El Centro, California, about 113 miles to the east.  Soon Grise had eight cars in service there.

          In the next year, 1912, in an indirect result of an escape from the Mexican Revolution (of 1910‑20), A.L. Hayes bought a second-hand Ford Model T and used it to run an “auto-stage” line between San Diego and Escondido, California, a small town about 36 miles to the north.  [Hayes had taken part in a mining enterprise in Mexico, but the armed violence related to the political upheaval made it necessary for him to return to the US; fortunately, he survived and escaped, and he went to San Diego, where he entered the jitney business.]

          In or about 1913 Herbert Pattison, the sales manager of a car dealership in San Diego (the Schacht Motor Car Company), joined Hayes’s operation, and he later worked for a while (in an unknown capacity) for the Pickwick Stages.

          In 1914 Grise and Hayes merged their two operations together.  They soon began to use increasingly larger vehicles, including Locomobile and Pierce-Arrow touring cars.  Grise and Hayes, first individually and later jointly, had used the Pickwick Theater in San Diego as their terminal in that city.  Later in that same year, 1914, they named their concern, apparently a partnership, as the Pickwick Stages (taking a cue from the name of that theater).  Even later, in ‑17, Hayes bought the interest of Grise in their firm, thus gaining the entire ownership of the Pickwick Stages.

          About the same time, 1914, the Pickwick Stages began service also between San Diego and Los Angeles, about 120 miles to the north.

          Meanwhile in 1913 Charles Francis Wren had arrived in California with an intent to enter the business of providing highway transport for passengers in one way or another.  With one open touring car he began a route between downtown Los Angeles and Venice, a suburb on the Pacific Coast, about 15 miles to the west-southwest.  He also bought a parking lot in downtown Los Angeles, where he created a union bus station, serving not only his own line but also the Pickwick Stages, the United Stages, and the White Star Stages.  [A union bus station is a bus station that serves more than one bus carrier, just as a union train station serves more than one rail carrier.]

          In the spring of 1916 Wren began a second line – to San Fernando, a small town to the northwest, about 22 miles away – and by the fall of the same year, ‑16, he extended to Santa Barbara, also on the coast, about 99 miles away (altogether) to the west‑northwest.

          Then he continued to push to the north.  By 1918, after several more extensions, he had reached San Francisco, about 420 miles from Los Angeles.

          In 1918 Wren and Hayes joined forces, and on 13 January 1919 they incorporated their stage line as the Pickwick Stages, Inc.  They created two divisions of their firm – the northern one (between Los Angeles and San Francisco), under Wren, and the southern one (between Los Angeles and San Diego and between San Diego and El Centro), under Hayes.  Wren served as the president, and Hayes served as the vice president.

          By 1920 Wren had extended his northern division northwardly all the way to Portland, Oregon, about 1,056 miles from Los Angeles.

          Further, on 16 December 1922 Wren formed a holding company, which he named as The Pickwick Corporation (with an uppercase T because the word the was an integral part of the official name), based in Los Angeles.  The Pickwick Stages, Inc., became a subsidiary of the umbrella holding company.  [Thus Wren, through his new corporation, gained complete control over the Pickwick Stages.]  Other subsidiaries later included the Pickwick Airways, a group of AM radio-broadcast stations, a coach-building plant, and a chain of hotels.

          Wren continued to expand his route network between Los Angeles and San Francisco.  During that time, in September 1924 and in December 1925 Wren bought two bus operations (based in Fresno, California) from E.J. Thompson, who next served as Wren’s superintendent or regional manager in San Francisco, and who later collaborated with Wren in forming the Rocky Mountain Stages, to offer highway service between San Francisco, California, and Salt Lake City, Utah, via Reno, Nevada.  [Rocky Mountain Stages was an unfortunate misnomer, for the route in question – between San Francisco and Salt Lake City – traversed not the Rocky Mountains (between Idaho and New Mexico) but rather the Sierra Nevada (in California, including the rugged vicinity of the infamous Donner Pass).  Wren may have hoped to extend from Salt Lake City to Denver (through the Rocky Mountains) sometime later, but the name of the Rocky Mountain Stages nonetheless did not fit a route between San Francisco and Salt Lake City.]

          Next Wren and Hayes began to consider the wisdom and feasibility of reaching the Midwest and the Northeast (of the US) from Southern California, so they began to watch the developing opportunities and circumstances, including the paving of the roads and other improvements to them.

          In or about April 1925 the Borderland Transit Company began to offer motor-coach service westwardly between El Paso, Texas, and Yuma via Phoenix, both in Arizona, using new Mack AB parlor coaches.

          In March 1926 the Pickwick Stages, extending eastwardly into the Southwest, bought the Borderland firm – although Pickwick then ran to the east only as far as El Centro.  That is, a gap (of about 62 miles) remained between El Centro and Yuma.

          Because of that gap, to offer through-service between Phoenix and Los Angeles, Pickwick made an interline through-ticketing agreement with the United Stages, which already ran between Los Angeles and Yuma via Palm Springs (in California) and El Centro.  Thus through-passengers transferred coaches and carriers in Yuma, while using through-tickets (from either carrier).  United, a property of two brothers, Howard and Thomas Morgan, already had a good business relationship with Wren and Pickwick, including its use of Wren’s union bus station in Los Angeles.

          Further, to offer through-service between Phoenix and San Diego, that same interline agreement with the United Stages allowed through-passengers to transfer coaches and carriers in both Yuma and El Centro while using through-tickets from either carrier (aboard Pickwick between Phoenix and Yuma, aboard United between Yuma and El Centro, and aboard Pickwick again between El Centro and San Diego).

          Later in 1926 the Pickwick Stages bought the United Stages.  Thomas Morgan had served as the president of the United firm, and Howard had served as the secretary.  Each of the brothers continued in management with Pickwick under Charles Wren as the president.  Thomas soon served as the vice president of the Pickwick Airways, and Howard soon served as a manager of the Pickwick Stages and then as the general manager of the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines, based in Kansas City.  Howard later served as the general manager of the first Western Greyhound Lines (which was the remnant of the PG Lines with a new name after the bankruptcy of the PG Lines), also based in Kansas City.  While Howard worked in Kansas City, he lived in the magnificent Pickwick Hotel in Kansas City.

          [Howard Hamilton Morgan, the bus man here, had two sons.  The older one, Howard Harlan Morgan, became a decorated and distinguished pilot who flew 79 missions in the Pacific Theater with General Claire Chennault’s Flying Tigers (of the US Army Air Corps) during WW2.  Even as a boy he became intensely interested in aircraft and aviation, and he built many scale-model airplanes.  Until January 1942, when he volunteered for active duty in the Army, he had worked for the Douglas Aircraft Company in El Segundo, California.  He eventually reached the rank of colonel, and many people held him in high regard.]

          On 01 April 1926 the Pickwick Stages acquired intrastate rights on the extension of its Portland line to Seattle, Washington; however, surviving records and other documents do not now make clear how long or how regularly Pickwick ran beyond Portland to Seattle.  [On 31 May 1929, when the Pickwick Stages transferred many of its assets and operations to the Pacific Transportation Securities (which soon became renamed as the Pacific Greyhound Lines), the Pickwick Stages no longer ran any farther north of Portland.  More about the Pacific GL will become available in my forthcoming article bearing its name.]

          Wren apparently felt pleased with Borderland’s Mack ABs, since late in 1926 Pickwick bought several Mack ALs, which had just come onto the market.  Pickwick continued buying ALs for some time; it bought bare chassis from the Mack Truck Company and then built onto them (in Pickwick’s own body plant, in El Segundo, near Los Angeles) 27-seat bodies (similar to the ones that Pickwick built during its periodic renovations of its Pierce-Arrow coaches).

          [Because of the poor general condition of most of the early roads in the Far West during that era, several motor-coach carriers in California repeatedly replaced the bodies of their coaches and touring cars after just a few years while they repeatedly recycled the existing chassis.  Some of those carriers bought bare chassis and built their own original bodies as well as their later replacement bodies.  Pierce-Arrow chassis were especially popular among those carriers in California during the use of that practice.]

          Wren’s ultimate goal was to reach Chicago; Boston, Massachusetts; New York City; Washington, DC; and the rest of the Midwest, the Northeast, and the Atlantic Seaboard, so he continued to press on.

          During 1927, as the new completed Macks became available (one by one), Pickwick extended in steps from El Paso – to Roswell, New Mexico – Amarillo, Texas – Oklahoma City and Tulsa, both in Oklahoma – and then Saint Louis, where it arrived on 01 November 1927.  By that time eight Mack ALs were in service for Pickwick, making one trip daily in each direction between El Paso and Saint Louis.  Soon Pickwick added a branch line between Kansas City and Joplin, Missouri, near the southwest corner of Missouri, between Tulsa and Saint Louis.  By November 1928 Pickwick also had two more Mack ALs, slightly longer, each with a 33-seat body (longer than the previous 27-seat bodies).

          Soon Wren started a branch line from Springfield, Missouri, between Joplin and Saint Louis, to Harrison, Arkansas, apparently on his way to Little Rock, Arkansas – and perhaps on his way to forge a route between Kansas City and Memphis, Tennessee – and then who knows where beyond Memphis.  [After Wren arrived in Saint Louis, he did indeed reach southwardly to Memphis and onward to Birmingham, Alabama, and to New Orleans, Louisiana – by buying a bankrupt firm (the Gregory Bus Lines).  More about that is available below, near the end of the section entitled “Back to the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines.”]

          Wren’s last major purchase for that route (across Missouri to Saint Louis) took place in August 1928, when he bought the Missouri Bus Line Company, thus acquiring intrastate authority and eliminating competition between Joplin and Saint Louis.

          In Saint Louis, on arrival there, on 01 November 1927, the Pickwick Stages met the Motor Transit Corporation (MTC) [before the MTC became renamed (on 05 February 1930) as The Greyhound Corporation].

          [The Pickwick Stages did not meet the MTC in the Pacific Northwest until early in 1929, when the MTC arrived in Portland and bought a minority position in William Crawford’s Columbia Gorge Motor Coach Company.  More about that is available in my article about the Overland GL.]

          During 1926‑27 Carl Eric Wickman, Orville Swan “Sven” Caesar, and Ralph A.L. Bogan – the “three musketeers” at the top of the hierarchy of the MTC – had already begun to watch the approach of Charles Wren and his Pickwick Stages from the Southwest into the Midwest, where the MTC was busy at work to build what had begun to grow into the Greyhound Lines.  Wickman, Caesar, and Bogan gave much of their attention to the expansion of their own route network eastwardly from Chicago – toward Boston; New York City; Philadelphia; Baltimore, Maryland; Norfolk, Virginia; and Washington, DC – but they nonetheless took note of Wren, Pickwick, and their activity – especially because of the rapid advance of Pickwick into the Midwest and toward the Northeast.  [The Pickwick Stages in 1927 had already become the largest intercity bus company in the US, and it then was about twice as large as the MTC.]

          [Much information about the growth of the MTC and Greyhound from Chicago to Boston and New York City is available in my article about the Central GL, and much about the growth of the MTC and Greyhound from Chicago to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Philadelphia; Baltimore; Washington; Norfolk; and New York City is available in my article about the Pennsylvania GL.]

MTC and Greyhound

          Meanwhile, on 20 September 1926 in Duluth, Minnesota, Wickman and his associates formed the Motor Transit Corporation (MTC).  They intended for the MTC not to operate any motor-coach service but rather to own (“hold”) subsidiary regional operating carriers.  They expected and intended their new “holding” company (the MTC) not to operate but rather to buy some preexisting firms and to create some new ones, depending on the circumstances and opportunities in the various regions.  [Later, on 05 February 1930, the MTC became renamed as The Greyhound Corporation.]

          The MTC promptly – on 25 October 1926 – five weeks after its creation – bought two preexisting firms on the same day – its first purchases – the Safety Motor Coach Lines (which Wickman had sponsored in its formation) and the Interstate Stages and its subsidiary, the Cardinal Stage Lines.  The last of those firms, Cardinal, ran between Chicago and Detroit and between Chicago and Philadelphia via Cleveland and Pittsburgh – through Pittsburgh to Philadelphia.  {The Safety Motor Coach Lines is of no further concern here; however, by 1941 (after several steps) it had become a large piece of one of three major parts [the Michigan routes of the second Central GL (CGL)] in the creation of the Great Lakes GL (GLGL).  More about the Safety Motor Coach Lines, the second CGL, and the GLGL is available in my article bearing the name of the GLGL.}

          Then on 23 November 1926 – after four more weeks – the MTC formed two new subsidiary regional operating companies – its first creations – the Greyhound Lines, Inc., of Ohio (the GLI of Ohio) and the Greyhound Lines, Inc., of Indiana (the GLI of Indiana).  [The GLI of Ohio also is of no further concern here; however, in 1941 it was another one of three major parts in the creation of the Great Lakes GL.  More about the GLI of Ohio too and the GLGL is available in my article bearing the name of the GLGL.]

          On 01 February 1927, in an event of major significance, the GLI of Indiana (which I first mentioned just above) started running a new route (between Chicago and Indianapolis, Indiana), thus becoming the first business unit of the growing Greyhound empire to make a public use of the name of the “Greyhound Lines.”  [Ed Ekstrom (in Michigan in his Safety Motor Coach Lines) had previously used the word Greyhound, the image of a greyhound dog, and the expressions Greyhounds of the Highway and Ride the Greyhounds – while promoting his Safety Motor Coach Lines (using mostly Fageol Safety Coaches) – but the GLI of Indiana was the first business unit to make a public use of the name of the “Greyhound Lines.”  Still, though, in the Russell’s Railway and Motor-bus Guide for April 1927, the timetables for Ekstrom’s firm appear under the heading of the “Safety Motor Coach Lines – Greyhound.”  Again, more about Ekstrom and his Safety Motor Coach Lines is available in my article about the Great Lakes GL; further, even more about Ekstrom and his activity in the development of the Southwestern GL (SWGL) will become available in my forthcoming article bearing the name of the SWGL.]

          Of course, the MTC and Greyhound continued to buy, build, and grow.  [More about the background and the early years of the Motor Transit Corporation and The Greyhound Corporation, starting in 1914 in Hibbing, Minnesota, is available in my article about the Northland GL.]

Start of the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines

          On 01 November 1927, when Wren’s Pickwick Stages arrived in Saint Louis, Wren and his firm made their first direct contact with Wickman and his Motor Transit Corporation (MTC).

          Wren’s Pickwick Stages had created a route network between San Diego and Portland (and – to an unknown degree and for an unknown time – onward to Seattle) via Los Angeles and San Francisco, between San Francisco and Salt Lake City via Reno, between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City via Las Vegas, between Los Angeles and El Paso, between San Diego and El Paso, and between El Paso and Saint Louis, along with branch lines between Kansas City and Joplin (between Tulsa and Saint Louis) and between Joplin and Fort Smith, Arkansas.

          And Wickman’s MTC had created a route network in Minnesota and Wisconsin, had begun to build a network in Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio, and had begun to establish arrangements in Pennsylvania.

          Planned and measured growth had taken place in both camps – Pickwick in the Far West and into the Midwest – and the MTC in the Midwest and toward the Northeast and the Atlantic Seaboard.

          Neither Wren nor Wickman saw a need to engage in a turf war with the other, for each of them had learned from his own experience.  Wren had encountered resistance and challenges while he built his Pickwick Stages from Los Angeles to San Francisco and onward to Portland, and Wickman had seen firsthand what had resulted from a fare war in Hibbing in 1914.  [More about the events in Hibbing is available in my article about the Northland GL.]

          The obvious and more desirable solution was for Wren and Wickman to coöperate with each other, so they did.  They formed a joint venture – one by the name of the Pickwick-Greyhound (PG) Lines.  Thus they shared the route between Kansas City and Saint Louis – and then they coöperated about several more routes nearby and beyond.  Their first route started with the Purple Swan Safety Coach Lines.

          Here’s the short version of that:

              In 1926 the Purple Swan Safety Coach Lines came into existence and started running between Chicago and Kansas City via Saint Louis.

              Both MTC and Pickwick – that is, both Wickman and Wren – wanted Purple Swan – because each wanted to expand his own route network – and because each of their route systems had reached that middle ground.

              On 26 January 1927 the MTC and the Pickwick Stages made a preliminary agreement to divide (into two segments) the route between Chicago and Kansas City via Saint Louis – the route of the Purple Swan Safety Coach Lines – to divide it at Saint Louis – after the MTC (later) bought Purple Swan – and then to share (between the MTC and the Pickwick Stages) the route segment between Kansas City and Saint Louis – by creating and operating a joint venture – the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines.

              Sometime during 1927 the MTC formed a new subsidiary, the GLI of Delaware, for the specific purpose of taking over Purple Swan.

              The Automotive Investments, the acquisition arm of the MTC, bought Purple Swan and then transferred it to the GLI of Delaware.  Below, in the section entitled “GLI of Delaware,” I describe the Automotive Investments.]

              The GLI of Delaware gave its own name to its new property (Purple Swan) as its brand name, trade name, or service name.  That is, Purple Swan became known as the GLI of Delaware.

              The Pickwick Stages bought a 45-percent stake in the GLI of Delaware.

              On 31 July 1928 the MTC and Pickwick renamed the GLI of Delaware, their joint property, as the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines (with a hyphen).  That is, they changed the name of the corporation itself.  They also changed the brand name, trade name, or service name from the GLI of Delaware to the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines (the same as the new name of the corporation).

              When the route segment between Kansas City and Saint Louis went to the PG Lines, the other part of Purple Swan – the segment between Saint Louis and Chicago – went to another new firm – the Illinois GL (first as a subsidiary of the PG Lines, later as a subsidiary of the MTC).

          The details follow:

Purple Swan Safety Coach Lines

            In 1926, apparently in June, the Purple Swan Safety Coach Lines started a route between Chicago and Kansas City via Saint Louis.  Purple Swan used a fleet of 30 Fageol Safety Coaches, so it used the words Safety Coach in the name of the company – as did many others – with the pleased assent of the founding Fageol brothers (Frank and William) of their coach-building firm.  [The correct English pronunciation of the French name Fageol (in the US) is “fad‑jull,” rhyming with “fragile” or “satchel.”  More about the Fageol brothers, their firms, and their coaches will become available in my forthcoming article about them.]

GLI of Delaware

            The MTC, the original parent Greyhound firm, before it became renamed as The Greyhound Corporation, formed yet another subsidiary – its third subsidiary, after the GLI of Ohio and the GLI of Indiana, each of which I describe above, in the section entitled “MTC and Greyhound.”  The new third subsidiary was the Greyhound Lines, Inc., of Delaware (the GLI of Delaware), which on 06 December 1927 took over the Purple Swan firm and placed its assets and operations into itself (and then dissolved the newly empty original Purple Swan corporate shell).  The MTC had created that new firm (the GLI of Delaware) for the specific purpose of taking over Purple Swan.  [The GLI of Ohio, the GLI of Indiana, and the GLI of Delaware are sometimes known collectively as the “first GLI” (in the singular) or the “first GLIs” (in the plural).

          [The Automotive Investments, Inc., based in Duluth, a property of the syndicate of Wickman and his associates (his financiers and investors), was their business unit used for most or many of the acquisitions of preexisting carriers during the early years of the development of what soon became the Greyhound Lines.  That process began to acquire and accumulate preexisting carriers not useful to the Northland Transportation Company (NTC) while the Great Northern Railway owned the NTC (1925‑29).  Automotive Investments bought Purple Swan, and then the former (in a typical pattern) transferred the latter to the GLI of Delaware.  More about the Automotive Investments is available in my article about the Northland GL.]

            Already, on 26 January 1927, slightly more than nine months before the Pickwick Stages arrived in Saint Louis (on 01 November 1927) – in anticipation of the formation of the Pickwick-Greyhound (PG) Lines – the MTC and the Pickwick Stages had made a preliminary contract.  The parties agreed to divide (at Saint Louis – into two segments) the route of the GLI of Delaware – after the GLI of Delaware came into existence and after it took it over – the route between Chicago and Kansas City via Saint Louis – the service first known as the Purple Swan Safety Coach Lines – and then to share the route segment between Kansas City and Saint Louis – by creating and operating a joint venture – the PG Lines.

          In March 1928, shortly after the Pickwick Stages arrived in Saint Louis (on 01 November 1927), Wren extended his firm eastwardly – to Vincennes, Indiana, on his way to Louisville, Kentucky – and to Pittsburgh via Indianapolis, Columbus (in Ohio), and Wheeling (in West Virginia).  [It appears that Wren’s Pickwick Stages may have thus violated an agreement with Wickman’s MTC – by extending eastwardly farther than the Mississippi River (that is, farther than Saint Louis.  It also appears that Wren had intended to continue all the way to the East Coast – to Philadelphia, Washington, and New York City – but then (on 31 May 1929) Wren and his Pickwick Stages pulled back to Saint Louis – as described below in the section entitled “Back to the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines.”  [On that day the Pickwick Stages transferred its certificates for its routes to the east of Saint Louis, among others, to the PG Lines, and then PG, under the insistence of the MTC, withdrew from those routes – so that the MTC and its other operating subsidiaries could concentrate in those areas – eastwardly from Saint Louis – without internal competition from the PG Lines.]

          [In 1935 Wren finally reached all the way between Los Angeles and New York City – but he did so with an entirely different firm – the All American Bus Lines – which later (in 1946) became the American Buslines [sic] – which [after a merger (in 1951) with the Burlington Transportation Company] even later (in 1954) became a part of the Continental American Lines (a subsidiary of the Continental Trailways) – and eventually (in 1987) became a part of the Greyhound Lines, Inc., under Fred Currey (when the GLI bought the Trailways, Inc., which had previously been known as the Continental Trailways).]

          The MTC was already at work on building from Chicago and from Saint Louis (separately) to Philadelphia via Pittsburgh (that is, preparing to form the Pennsylvania GL).  The reach of the MTC from Saint Louis to Pittsburgh included its purchase (on 20 February 1929) and merger of the YellowaY-Pioneer system.  [More about the development of the PennGL is available in my article bearing its name, and more about the YellowaY-Pioneer system will become available in my forthcoming article about the Pacific GL.]

          On 06 December 1927, as I first mention above, in the first paragraph of this section, the GLI of Delaware took over the Purple Swan firm.

          On 01 July 1928 the GLI of Delaware took over also three other carriers:

               the Pierce-Arrow Bus Line, which ran between Chicago and Champaign, Illinois, with an unknown number of Pierce-Arrow coaches;
              the Interstate Stage Lines, which ran two parallel alternate routes between Kansas City and Topeka, Kansas, with at least 15 Fageol Safety Coaches;
              and the Tri-county Transit Company, which ran between Effingham and Vandalia, both in Illinois, between Saint Louis and Chicago and between Saint Louis and Indianapolis.  [Effingham was (and still is) the junction between the Chicago line and the Indianapolis line to and from Saint Louis.]

          [The Interstate Stage Lines, mentioned above (running between Kansas City and Topeka) was completely different and separate from the similarly named Interstate Stages and Interstate Transit Lines (and the Interstate Airlines), mentioned above in other contexts (and in other sections).]

          Meanwhile on 19 July 1928 the Pickwick Stages and the MTC entered into a detailed contract about the terms of their much larger deal.  Under one of those terms, Pickwick bought a 45-percent minority (noncontrolling) interest in the GLI of Delaware, which the owners were about to rename.  Pickwick made its payment sometime during the second half of July 1928.

          Then on 31 July 1928, according to another of those terms, the MTC and Pickwick changed the name of the GLI of Delaware to the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines (with a hyphen because of the joint ownership).  [The PG Lines had previously been known as the GLI of Delaware, and the predecessor firm had been known as the Purple Swan Safety Coach Lines.]

          Further, taking the next step, on 01 September 1928 the PG Lines, using its new name and under its new ownership, transferred the routes between Chicago and Champaign (from Pierce-Arrow) and between Effingham and Vandalia (from Tri-county) – along with the one between Chicago and Saint Louis (from Purple Swan) – into a brand-new corporate entity, the Illinois Greyhound Lines (IGL), which PG had just formed (as a subsidiary of the PG Lines).  However, PG kept the two routes between Kansas City and Topeka (from the Interstate Stage Lines).  [PG then dissolved the newly empty corporate shells of the Pierce-Arrow, Tri-county, and Interstate companies.]

          [In my private collection of motor-coach memorabilia, I have a timetable folder bearing the date of 03 December 1928 and bearing four names – the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines (in large letters) – and the Pickwick Stages, the Purple Swan Safety Coach Lines, and the GLI of Delaware (all in very small letters).  Likely the presence of the three names in small letters represents a marketing technique – to reassure the members of the public that the PG Lines was somehow related to the older firms and the older more recognized names.]

          At that time the PG Lines ran only between Kansas City and Saint Louis and between Kansas City and Topeka – but the future held much more.  {The subject carrier here between Southern California and Saint Louis (via Joplin) was still the original Pickwick Stages [before the merger of some of it (between El Paso and Saint Louis – plus the branch lines between Kansas City and Joplin and between Joplin and Fort Smith) into the PG Lines].}

          During that era a new Illinois statute required that any carrier holding and using a certificate (of convenience and necessity) must be a “domestic” business firm “domiciled” in Illinois, so the PG Lines formed a “domestic” corporation “domiciled” in Illinois – the Illinois Greyhound Lines, with an Illinois charter, based in Chicago, as a subsidiary of the PG Lines.

          On 30 April 1929 the MTC bought the Illinois GL from the PG Lines and then held it as a subsidiary of the MTC.  [The IGL still held a corporate charter from the State of Illinois, and the IGL was still based in Chicago, so the IGL still satisfied the statutory requirements of the State of Illinois.]  As the MTC – and later as The Greyhound Corporation – continued to develop routes within Illinois, the parent firm placed also most of those other operations into the Illinois GL.  [Several routes in northern Illinois were properties of the Northland GL of Illinois (the NGL of Illinois), and the route between Saint Louis and Terre Haute, Indiana, was the property of the PG Lines of Illinois (the Illinois subsidiary of the PG Lines), which eventually went into the Pennsylvania GL (for its route between Saint Louis and Philadelphia via Indianapolis, Columbus, Wheeling, and Pittsburgh.]

          Later, on 31 December 1948 – after the State of Illinois withdrew its statutory requirement for “domestic” or “domiciled” carriers on intrastate highway routes – The Greyhound Corporation – to simplify its organization, to increase the efficiency of its administration, and to reduce its overhead costs and expenses – merged the Illinois GL into the second Central GL.

          Much later, on 22 June 1955, the parent Greyhound firm transferred those former-IGL routes from the second Central GL into the Great Lakes GL.

          Even later, on 01 September 1957, Greyhound further merged the Great Lakes GL into the Northland GL (NGL), and it renamed the newly expanded NGL as the Central Division of The Greyhound Corporation, called also the Central GL (using the fifth of six instances of that name), which was the third of four huge new divisions (along with Eastern, Southern, and Western).

            During a time of huge (nearly explosive) growth and diversification, Greyhound in 1963 formed the second Greyhound Lines, Inc. (the second GLI) and placed all its motor-coach operations into the new GLI (as a subsidiary of The Greyhound Corporation) – to separate and isolate its assets and operations in its own exclusive and dedicated corporation, just as every one of the other subsidiaries existed in its own separate and isolated corporation.

          Later yet, about 1969, Greyhound (that is, the GLI) reorganized again, into just two humongous divisions, named as the Greyhound Lines East (GLE) and the Greyhound Lines West (GLW), divided at the Mississippi River.

          Finally, about 1975, the GLI eliminated those two divisions, thus leaving a single gargantuan undivided nationwide empire, known simply as the Greyhound Lines (GL), and likewise an undivided nationwide fleet and an undivided management and administrative organization.

          [More about the IGL, the GLGL, and the NGL is available in my articles bearing their respective names, more about the six uses of the name of the Central GL (CGL) is available in my article bearing the name of the CGL, and more about the consolidations and the continuing history of the GLI (all the way to 2023) is available in my article entitled “Greyhound Lines after WW2.”]

Pacific Transportation Securities
and the Pacific Greyhound Lines

          Meanwhile, back on the Left Coast, early in 1929, under the leadership of Carl Eric Wickman and his associates in Duluth and Chicago, several motor-coach interests on the West Coast opened discussions, and they found a better way to the future.  The result, on 17 May 1929, was the incorporation of the Pacific Transportation Securities (PTS), Inc., based in San Francisco.  Three investors held equal shares in the new firm; the owners were the MTC (Greyhound under its first name), The Pickwick Corporation (the parent umbrella firm of the Pickwick Stages and several other Pickwick subsidiaries), and the Southern Pacific (SP) Railroad.  Eric Wickman served as the chairman of the board of directors of the PTS.

          [Sometime during 1930 Greyhound bought all of Pickwick’s stock in the PTS; several times through the years Greyhound also bought some of the stock of the SP Railroad until 1956, when it bought the last of it.]                                    

          Two weeks later, on 31 May 1929, the PTS bought the assets and operations of three large motor-coach concerns – the California Transit (CalTrans) Company, most of the Pickwick Stages, and the intercity-bus business of the SP Railroad (a part of the Southern Pacific Motor Transport Company, which ran highway trucks as well as buses).  The PTS bought also at least 11 smaller carriers – to increase its route network, to decrease its competition, and to increase its intrastate authority.

          The Pickwick routes conveyed to the PTS were those between Portland and San Diego, between Southern California (both Los Angeles and San Diego) and El Paso, between San Francisco and Salt Lake City via Reno, and between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City via Las Vegas.  [Pickwick had ceased running between Portland and Seattle.]

          The PTS (from the outset) began to run its new motor-coach property under the brand name, trade name, or service name of the Pacific Greyhound Lines.  Thus began the Pacific GL, which instantly became the largest business unit of the growing Greyhound empire.  Before long the PTS (the corporation itself) became renamed as the Pacific Greyhound Lines, Inc.; that is, the name of the corporation (PTS) became changed to the same as its brand name, trade name, or service name.  Again, thus began the Pacific GL (PacGL).  [More about the PacGL will become available in my forthcoming article bearing its name.]

          [Fred Ackerman, who had served as the auditor of the California Transit Company, then served as the secretary and treasurer of the PTS and of the PacGL; later he served as the president of the PacGL; later yet he served as the president and even later as the chairman of the board of directors of The Greyhound Corporation.  More about Ackerman and his service is available in my article about the Greyhound Lines after WW2, and more yet will become available in my forthcoming article about the Pacific GL.]

Back to the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines

            On 31 May 1929, the same day as that of the transfer of many assets and operations (including most of those of the Pickwick Stages) to the Pacific Transportation Securities – as described above in the previous section – the Pickwick Stages made also a transfer of the entire remainder of its network.  It conveyed its leftover routes and other assets (including an unknown number of coaches) for its business between El Paso and Saint Louis and between Kansas City and Joplin – along with the eastward Pickwick extensions from Saint Louis – to Vincennes and to Pittsburgh – and the branches from Joplin to Harrison and to Fort Smith – not to the PTS or the Pacific GL but rather to the Pickwick-Greyhound (PG) Lines.  That’s because the route between El Paso and Saint Louis – and the branches in Missouri and Arkansas – and the routes to the east of Saint Louis – did not properly or logically fit into the PacGL or belong to it.  Thus the PG Lines suddenly stretched between El Paso and Saint Louis (and to Kansas City via Joplin) – and even to the east of Saint Louis – as well as along its original route (between Kansas City and Saint Louis).

          Meanwhile in the previous year, on 02 July 1928, the MTC had finally succeeded in starting its own direct through-coach service from the Twin Cities of Minnesota (Minneapolis and Saint Paul) to Chicago and back (via La Crosse and Madison, both in Wisconsin).  The delay had occurred because of the difficult gap – the near impassability of the road – between La Crosse and Madison.  [More about that is available in my article about the Northland GL.]

          During that time, while the MTC began to build routes in and out of Chicago, it bought, among others, two westerly operations to and from Chicago:

              On 19 October 1927 the MTC bought the Mohawk Stage Lines Company, running between Chicago and Davenport, Iowa, via Joliet and LaSalle, both in Illinois.

              Later in 1927 the MTC bought also – from the Metropolitan Motor Coach Company, a property of the Insull public-utility empire – the Northern Illinois Service Company, which ran mainly between Chicago and Davenport via Geneva, DeKalb, Dixon, and Morrison (all four in Illinois) – plus three shorter routes of no concern here.  [More about the Insull companies is available in my article about the Northland GL.]

          For a short time during 1928‑29 the MTC referred to the Mohawk firm and the Northern Illinois firm (together) as the “western division of [the] Greyhound Lines” – although no such organizational entity ever existed – and despite the continuing (albeit temporary) operation of those two firms under their own respective names.

          Sometime early in 1929, while the Mohawk firm was still a property of the MTC (but while it continued to run under its own name), Mohawk extended its service westwardly from Davenport to Des Moines, slightly more than halfway across Iowa (toward Omaha).

          During May 1929 the MTC merged the Northern Illinois firm into Mohawk.

          Shortly afterward the PG Lines formed a subsidiary, the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines of Illinois (the PG Lines of Illinois), domiciled in Illinois and based in Chicago – then the MTC transferred to the PG Lines of Illinois the route of the Mohawk Stage Lines Company between Chicago and Des Moines via Davenport – so that PG could lawfully use its new intrastate authority (from the Mohawk firm) across Illinois between Chicago and the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois (Davenport, Bettendorf, Moline, and Rock Island).

          When the MTC and the Pickwick Stages made their plan to form the PG Lines – to divide the Purple Swan route (at Saint Louis), to share the segment between Kansas City and Saint Louis, and to allow the MTC to keep the segment between Saint Louis and Chicago – it may well have been easy for Wren (at Pickwick) to have agreed for MTC to keep the segment between Saint Louis and Chicago when Wickman (at the MTC) offered to turn over to the PG Lines (of Illinois) the former-Mohawk route between Des Moines and Chicago.

          After arriving in Kansas City – that is, after opening its branch line between Joplin and Kansas City – the PG Lines extended from Kansas City to Omaha via Saint Joseph, from Kansas City to Des Moines via Saint Joseph, and then between Omaha and Des Moines (the third side of a triangle).

          The transfer (to the PG Lines of Illinois) of the route (with intrastate authority) between Des Moines and Chicago – plus the extensions from Kansas City to Omaha and to Des Moines – allowed PG to offer single-carrier service to and from El Paso (and thus to and from Arizona and Southern California via connections in El Paso) – connecting with not only Saint Louis and Kansas City (via Joplin) but also Saint Joseph, Omaha, Des Moines, Davenport, and Chicago (all five via Kansas City) – along with uncounted intermediate points.

          Also, the extension between Omaha and Des Moines allowed the PG Lines to offer single-carrier through-service between Omaha and Chicago via Des Moines and Davenport – and many intermediate points.

          That route via Des Moines gave the PG Lines a gateway to and from Chicago – not only for traffic to and from Omaha and Kansas City but also traffic to and from El Paso, along with much of the rest of the Southwest, including Arizona and Southern California (via connections in El Paso).  The PG Lines opened also two branch lines between Tulsa and Kansas City, which gave two shorter routes between El Paso and Chicago via Tulsa, Kansas City, Des Moines, and Davenport.

          Further, under the influence of Charles Wren, the PG Lines continued to build its route network – by filling the gaps – by connecting Wren’s older work in the Far West with his newer work in the Midwest – and by extending more and more.  PG added these routes:

              between El Paso and Dallas, Texas;
              between Salt Lake City and Omaha via Cheyenne;
              between Salt Lake City and Kansas City via Cheyenne and Denver;
              between Denver and Los Angeles via Raton, Santa Fe, and Albuquerque, all three in New Mexico;
              between Dallas and Tulsa, thus offering single-carrier service from Dallas beyond Tulsa to Saint Louis, Kansas City, Omaha, and Chicago;
              and between Raton and Amarillo, thus connecting Denver with the PG route between El Paso and Saint Louis – and therefore offering single-carrier service between Denver and much of the rest of the Southwest, including Arizona and Southern California (via connections in El Paso).

          Those additions enabled the PG Lines to offer single-ticket and single-carrier service also between more points in California (and many other points in the Far West and Southwest) and the Midwestern gateway cities of Chicago and Saint Louis.

          Having arrived in Saint Louis (on 01 November 1927), under Wren’s continuing influence, the PG Lines also expanded southwardly – by buying from a trustee (on 18 April 1929) the bankrupt Gregory Bus Lines, based in Memphis.  That action gained routes between Saint Louis and Memphis; between Memphis and Birmingham, and between Memphis and New Orleans via Jackson, Mississippi.  [On 07 March 1931 Greyhound transferred the former-Gregory routes to the new Dixie Greyhound Lines.]

          During those processes the PG Lines added also many short branch lines and feeder lines to support its main routes.

End of the Line for the PG Lines

          During 1929 the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines had reached its greatest extent, running at least 335 coaches along 10,000 route‑miles.

          Regrettably, though, by the summer of 1930 – during the early time of the Great Depression – after the frightful and massive stock-market crash on the infamous Black Tuesday (29 October 1929) – the PG Lines had begun to run into serious financial trouble due to its sharply decreased revenue (because of its sharply decreased ridership).

          For that reason Pickwick-Greyhound began efforts to reduce its costs and expenses and then to reduce its route system and its workforce and facilities.

          Unfortunately, it appears that the PG Lines had never – not yet – turned a profit during any year of its short existence (since 31 July 1928) – despite – or perhaps because of – its ambitious and dramatic expansion.  [In that era, before the federal regulation of financial reporting to the investing public, it’s hard to be sure about the lack of profit, but the annual reports of both Pickwick and Greyhound (the joint owners of PG) seem to indicate the losses or the absence of profits from the operation of their joint property.]

          Then in January 1932 both The Pickwick Corporation (the parent Pickwick firm) and the PG Lines – along with all the other Pickwick properties – filed for protection in receivership – a step just short of bankruptcy – in California.

          Further, the court proceedings wasted no time in finding and declaring that the situation of the entire Pickwick Corporation, including the PG Lines, was so profoundly insolvent – broken and utterly unable to pay its bills – that the only reasonable solution was for all of the Pickwick kingdom to go into a liquidation in bankruptcy.

          The officials of The Greyhound Corporation had already decided not to take part in continuing the operation of Pickwick-Greyhound (that is, not to make up for the accumulating losses of the PG Lines).  [Apparently that unwillingness of the Greyhound men – not to throw any more good money after money lost – was a major factor in causing the court (the judge) to direct PG directly into bankruptcy.]

          Those Greyhound officials had anticipated the impending bankruptcy of Pickwick and Pickwick-Greyhound, so they laid their plans.  As soon as Pickwick filed, and as soon as the court ordered Pickwick into bankruptcy, Greyhound lawyers and Greyhound executives immediately approached the trustee in bankruptcy and presented their proposal.

          The trustee, with the approval of the court (that is, the judge), allowed and authorized The Greyhound Corporation, with its established and demonstrated expertise in the motor-coach industry, to wind up the business of the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines under the supervision of the trustee.  [There was a need for someone or some firm to wind it up, and Greyhound was obviously the best prepared and best qualified party to do so; of course, Greyhound received lawful and appropriate fees from the trustee (that is, from the bankrupt “estate”) for its services.]

          Thus Greyhound sold most of the routes and most of the coaches and other assets of the PG Lines, but Greyhound kept for itself (openly, lawfully, properly, and with payment to the trustee) several of those routes and some of those coaches in the greatly condensed leftover PG.

          On 07 February 1932 PG discontinued all its operations.

          A large part of the PG route network either duplicated or closely paralleled the routes of the Union Pacific Stages (UPS) and the Interstate Transit Lines (ITL), which were properties (subsidiaries) of the Union Pacific (UP) Railroad.  [Much more about the UPS and the ITL is available in my article about the Overland GL, which began with those two carriers.

          The Greyhound Corporation, with the supervision of the trustee and the approval of the court, acting on behalf of the bankrupt “estate” (that is, the PG Lines), took these actions:

              Greyhound approached those in charge of the ITL and then sold (with proceeds to the trustee) these PG routes and other assets (including intrastate authority) to the ITL:

                   between Chicago and Omaha via Davenport and Des Moines;
                   and between Denver and Los Angeles via Cheyenne and Salt Lake City.

              Also Greyhound approached those in charge of the UP Stages and then sold to that firm the PG route between Portland and Salt Lake City.

          Further, Greyhound, still acting for the PG Lines, simply abandoned four PG routes, each of which duplicated an ITL route:

              between Denver and Omaha;
              between Kansas City and Omaha via Saint Joseph;
              between Kansas City and Des Moines via Saint Joseph;
              and between Omaha and Clinton, Iowa, near Davenport (the PG second route across Iowa between Omaha and Chicago).

          Then Greyhound took the lead in bringing about a deal between the ITL and the remainder of the PG Lines – for both of them (ITL and PG) to run between Denver and Kansas City via Topeka – but with coördinated schedules – and with each carrier’s honoring the other’s tickets.

          Remarkably and surprisingly, because of the expertise and diligence of the Greyhound officials, the wheels of the PG Lines started rolling again – late in February 1932 – albeit on a much smaller route system.

          The PG Lines resumed running between Kansas City and Saint Louis (on its original route, on which PG had begun), and the ITL withdrew from that route – largely because the ITL had never held or used intrastate rights there.  Soon, however, The Greyhound Corporation transferred that route to the Southwestern GL (SWGL).  [More about the SWGL will become available in my forthcoming article bearing its name.]

          The PG Lines also resumed running on these four other routes:

              between Kansas City and Tulsa;
              between Dallas and Saint Louis via Tulsa;
              between Denver and Los Angeles via Albuquerque;
              and between Kansas City (via Fort Scott, Kansas) and Miami, Oklahoma (a small town on the route between Tulsa and Joplin).

          Greyhound likewise took over the sole ownership of both the Illinois GL (which had previously been a subsidiary of Pickwick-Greyhound) and what was left of the PG Lines – including the route between El Paso and Saint Louis – likewise with proper payment to the trustee.  The routes of the Illinois GL and the route between El Paso and Saint Louis (which Wren’s Pickwick Stages had started, as I describe above in the section entitled “Pickwick Stages”) were important to The Greyhound Corporation.  [More about the Illinois GL is available in my article bearing its name.]

          On 05 April 1932 Greyhound renamed its leftover remainder of the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines as the first Western Greyhound Lines, which ran in part between Kansas City and Los Angeles via Albuquerque – in time to complete a second Greyhound corridor (in addition to the route via El Paso and Saint Louis) between Southern California and the Chicago World’s Fair of 1933‑34 (the International Exposition of a “Century of Progress”).

          Seeking efficiency in its operations, on 01 October 1933 the Greyhound parent firm transferred that route (and the other related assets) to two of its other regional operating companies.  The segment between Los Angeles and Albuquerque went to the Pacific GL, and the segment between Albuquerque and Kansas City, along with the other former PG routes to the east and north of El Paso and Albuquerque, went to the Southwestern GL (SWGL).  [Greyhound had already transferred (to the SWGL) the former-PG route between Kansas City and Saint Louis.]  Greyhound then dissolved the empty corporate shell of the first Western GL (the remnant of what had previously been the PG Lines).  [More about the Pacific GL and the Southwestern GL will become available in my forthcoming articles bearing their respective names.]

          Thus ended both the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines and the first Western GL.

Pool (Interline) Operations

            The routes of the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines were so far-reaching that PG never had a need to take part in interlined through-routes (using pooled equipment in coöperation with other Greyhound companies) – that is, the use of through-coaches on through-routes running through the territories of two or more Greyhound regional operating companies.

PG Lines in 1929

            During 1929, while the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines had reached its greatest extent (before it began to contract because of the Great Depression), it reached as far to the west as Portland, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, and San Diego; as far to the north as Portland and Chicago; as far to the east as Chicago, Saint Louis, Birmingham, and (briefly) Pittsburgh and Vincennes; as far to the southeast as Birmingham, and as far to the south as San Diego, El Paso, and New Orleans.

Pickwick and Columbia Coaches

        By the spring of 1928 the Pickwick Stages had about 350 coaches, about two-thirds of which had Pierce-Arrow chassis with Pickwick-built bodies – along with its Macks in use between Los Angeles and Saint Louis.

          On 27 July 1928, however, when the Pacific Southwest Exposition opened, in Long Beach, California, Wren and Pickwick placed on display two unusual coaches, which were the two latest additions to the Pickwick fleet.  They bore the respective names of Cherokee and Alsacia.  Pickwick had built them both.

          Cherokee, on a Pierce-Arrow conventional long-nose chassis, had a small observation lounge in the tail (with rear-facing seats), a 12-seat raised deck amidships, a tiny galley, a toilet, and a unique raised wheelhouse (for the driver alone) on the centerline.

            Cherokee remained unpopular and unduplicated; soon, however, Pickwick built a similar coach – without a wheelhouse but rather with the driver’s post in the normal place.

               An even more radical surprise was Alsacia (named for the younger of Wren’s two daughters), which was the first of the famous Pickwick NiteCoaches.  Alsacia (the coach) was an invention of Dwight Edwin Austin, the VP and plant manager of the Pickwick coach-building subsidiary (known as the Pickwick Motor Coach Works, Limited).  It was a two-level coach [of a cab-over-engine (CoE) design] that accommodated 26 passengers in 13 semiprivate compartments with convertible bunks.  It had a toilet and a tiny galley.

          [Wren had hired Austin in 1923 for the Columbia coach-building program.  Austin successively became the chief engineer, the plant manager, and the VP of the Pickwick Motor Coach Works.]

          Pickwick built all the NiteCoaches from scratch – that is, without mounting bodies on chassis from outside sources.

          On 26 June 1929 the Pickwick Stages began regular NiteCoach service – on its old route between Los Angeles and San Francisco – using two coaches of an improved design (generally similar to the first one).  They bore the names of Gladys and Alsacia, Wren’s two daughters, using Alsacia again.  [A previous author wrote mistakenly that Gladys was the name of Wren’s wife; on the contrary, Stella Teresa (“Tessie”) was his wife, and Gladys and Alsacia were their daughters.]  That service took place after Pickwick sold its nonsleeper service on the West Coast (on 31 May 1929) to the Pacific Transportation Securities (later known as the Pacific GL).

          In September 1929 work began on the construction of a new plant – one to be used exclusively for building NiteCoaches – in El Segundo, near Los Angeles and near the site of the present LAX airport.

          Then in November 1929 Wren announced the impending start of coast-to-coast NiteCoach service by the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines between Los Angeles and Boston.  Although the PG Lines then ran no farther eastwardly than Saint Louis, Wren had arranged for his NiteCoach service to continue to New York City via Indianapolis, Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia – and for the Gray Line of Boston (which ran scheduled service between Boston and New York City) to handle the NiteCoaches between those two cities.  However, none of that ever took place.  [In the following year, 1930, the new Eastern GL of New England bought Gray Line’s two routes (one inland and one shoreline) between Boston and New York City; in 1950 The Greyhound Corporation merged the EGL of New England into the New England GL (NEGL).  More about the EGL of New England and the NEGL is available in my article bearing the name of the NEGL.]

          Late in 1929 Pickwick built two more NiteCoaches – one named Morpheus and one unnamed one.  Pickwick sent Morpheus on an extensive demonstration tour in the East well into 1930, but nobody there placed an order.  That made a total of five NiteCoaches of the first version.

          [According to ancient mythology, Morpheus was the Roman god of sleep and dreams.  His father was Somnus, the Roman personification of sleep, whose Greek counterpart was Hypnos.  The name Morpheus came from the Greek word μορφή (morphé), which means “form” or “shape.”]

          It appears that Pickwick soon sold its NiteCoach operating business on the West Coast (and the five original NiteCoaches) to the Pacific GL.

          The next step for Wren, Pickwick, and Austin was the creation of a day (nonsleeper) version of the two-level coach, using the same basic design as the NiteCoaches.  They dubbed it as the Duplex.  It could seat 50 passengers with a galley or 53 without one.  They offered also a city-transit variation, which could seat 72.

          Extant records show that during 1930-32 Pickwick built 40 Duplex day coaches – some with Sterling engines and some with Hall-Scott engines – 11 of which went to the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines (five with Sterling engines and six with Hall-Scott).  The EGL of New York (later known as the CGL of New York) ran two Duplex day coaches (built in 1930), the Pennsylvania GL ran two of them (built in 1931), mostly between Washington, DC, and New York City, and the EGL of Michigan (later known as the CGL of Michigan) ran an unknown number of them (built in 1930) between Detroit and Chicago.  [More about the EGL of New York, the CGL of New York, the EGL of Michigan, and the CGL of Michigan is available in my article about the Central GL, and more about the PennGL is available in my article bearing its name.]

          During 1931 Austin improved the Duplex concept and created the second version of it, which featured more rounded (less angular and less awkward) lines and a more modern and more pleasant (or less unpleasant) appearance.

          During that same year, 1931, Austin created also his novel and remarkable Austin angle drive, a major engineering development, which allows the transverse (crosswise) installation of an engine and a transmission across the tail of a coach, with a short diagonal driveline to the differential in the drive axle, thus allowing relatively easy access for maintenance from the outside of the coach, rather than from the inside or the underside.  Of course, Austin filed his invention with the US Patent Office.  [Later, in 1934, he assigned the rights to the use of it to the Yellow T&C Manufacturing Company, which in 1943 became the GMC T&C Division of the GM Corporation.]

          During the next year, 1932, while the Pickwick Motor Coach Works (along with The Pickwick Corporation and all its other subsidiaries) was in bankruptcy, work continued with the consent of the court (that is, the judge) and under the supervision of the trustee.  Wren and Austin introduced their new second version of the NiteCoach – with a transversely mounted engine in the tail, along with a gearbox and an Austin angle drive.  The new version used a Waukesha engine.

          Late in that year, 1932, Wren and Austin introduced the new second version of the Duplex day coach (with an engine, a transmission, and an Austin angle drive, all mounted transversely in the tail), and they began to produce some and to fill orders.

          Even later in 1932, however, the bankruptcy court ordered the closing of the Pickwick Motor Coach Works, so the trustee wound it up and closed it.

          Meanwhile the Pacific GL had already placed an order for 10 of the second version of the NiteCoach, which Pickwick had begun to fill but had not yet completely filled.  Pickwick delivered an unknown number of them (probably a small number).

          Not surprisingly, though, Charles Wren had read the tea leaves, made some plans, and took some action.  He formed and incorporated three more firms – the Columbia Finance Company (to hold the two other concerns), the Columbia Pacific NiteCoach Lines (to operate a fleet of new NiteCoaches between Los Angeles and Chicago), and the Columbia Coach Works (to build new NiteCoaches and to refurbish old ones).  Wren owned a controlling stake in each of those three concerns.

          Wren then approached the trustee in bankruptcy and acquired the rights to the order (from the Pacific GL), the rights to the design of the NiteCoach (which was a property of the bankrupt Coach Works), the use of the plant, and the required tooling for the production of further NiteCoaches.

          From a time late in 1932 through -33 Wren produced a total of 18 NiteCoaches of the second version, each (apparently) with a Waukesha engine.  He finished and delivered all 10 of them in the order from the Pacific GL, and then the other eight went to his Columbia Pacific NiteCoach Lines, which struggled during the Great Depression.

          Then late in 1934 the Columbia Pacific NiteCoach Lines also failed in business and followed into bankruptcy.

          On 24 December 1934 the Burlington Transportation Company [BTC, the motor-coach subsidiary of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy (CB&Q or the Q) Railway] bought (from the trustee in bankruptcy) Columbia Pacific and its eight NiteCoaches.

          The BTC placed the NiteCoaches into short-term temporary storage and soon sold them to the freshly formed Santa Fe Transportation Company, which used the brand name, trade name, or service name of the Santa Fe Trail System.  [The new firm was the motor-coach subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe (AT&SF or simply Santa Fe) Railway.]

          Santa Fe refurbished its two-year-old NiteCoaches (and referred to them as “new” in its advertising and its press releases) and placed all eight of them into its service between Los Angeles and Kansas City.  [One might wonder why Santa Fe did not extend that service to Chicago, its terminus in the Midwest, but the answer is easy and simple:  Kansas City is as far away from Los Angeles as the carrier could properly and reasonably operate that service with only eight coaches, since additional NiteCoaches (or similar cars) were not then available from any source.

          No known documentary evidence tells what ever happened to the 18 Columbia NiteCoaches after the uses described here – except for one of them, which I’ll mention below in this section.

          Extant photographs show them in the markings or liveries of only four carriers – the Pacific GL, the Columbia Pacific NiteCoach Lines, the Santa Fe Trail System, and the Santa Fe Trailways [the new brand name, trade name, or service name of the Santa Fe Transportation Company after it joined the National Trailways Bus System (NTBS) – indeed, after it served as one of the five founding members of the NTBS].

          Although the Columbia Pacific NiteCoach Lines failed in business and became liquidated in bankruptcy late in 1934, the Columbia Coach Works continued to run for an unknown short time.  It did not build any further coach of any type (except one experimental prototype), but it did do maintenance and renovation work on some of the existing coaches, possibly doing the refurbishment of the eight NiteCoaches for the Santa Fe Trail System.

          Further, in 1936 the Columbia Coach Works developed an innovative drivetrain and installed it in the tail of one more NiteCoach of the second version.  It featured a pair of Ford flathead V-8 automotive engines, one on each side of the coach, arranged diagonally with the flywheel housing of each engine facing a spiral-cut bevel gear and a single common clutch, mounted on the centerline at the rearmost point of the engine compartment.  The single clutch then provided rotational motion to a single transmission, which turned the driveline, which reached a short distance forward to the differential in the drive axle.  The two engines were arranged in such a way that they fired alternately, thus giving 16 alternating impulses during each rotation of the input shafts of the bevel gear.

          Although the Columbia Coach Works built that one experimental prototype coach (named as the Pickwick Sleeper) with the new drivetrain, there’s no record of whether it ever went into service – or how well or poorly it worked – or whether it had a finished interior – or whether the plant ever built any more cars of the new design.

          Hollywood has preserved some footage of one Columbia NiteCoach in action – with scenes showing both the outside and the inside of that special car.  It appears in Sullivan’s Travels, starring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake, an acclaimed rom-com movie with a silly feelgood storyline, released on 29 December 1941.  The dialogue refers to the NiteCoach as a land yacht.  The Pacific GL had withdrawn its NiteCoaches from service in 1939 and sold them, and the Santa Fe Trailways did likewise at some unknown time.  The land yacht in the flick does not bear any marking suggesting its heritage, but it does bear large extra grilles on its nose and on its tail, apparently in an attempt to disguise its previous life.  [Recently I watched Sullivan’s Travels on Amazon Prime.  The NiteCoach appears during the first 11 minutes and again starting at about 46 minutes.]

All American Bus Lines

        Meanwhile Charles Wren had moved on to his next challenge.  In 1935, after the bankruptcy of his Columbia Pacific NiteCoach Lines (late in 1934), Wren took an active part in the formation and the incorporation of the All American Bus Lines, based in Chicago, again chasing his dream of offering sleeper coaches on routes between Los Angeles and New York City, between San Diego and New York City, and between Los Angeles and San Francisco.  Wren served as the founding president of the firm, and he remained in that post until his death, on 06 October 1944.

          In 1936 the Crown Coach Company, of Los Angeles, built two single-level sleepers for Wren and his new firm.

          Before long, however, Wren turned to nonsleeper intercity parlor coaches as well, using mainly a variety of Availables (a barely recognizable brand), FitzJohn Falcons, and Flxible Clippers.  At the outset of WW2 he ended his sleeper-coach services so that his company could provide maximum seated services during the war.

          Wren had provided free meals en route aboard his NiteCoaches (and perhaps aboard his Crown sleepers), and he did not eliminate the free meals when he added nonsleeper coaches – because that had been one of his major marketing techniques – along with the free use of rental pillows.  Instead he provided free meals to his passengers during stops at his own stations with restaurants along the routes all across the nation.

          In 1935, when Wren organized his new carrier, to reach from Chicago to New York City (with the requisite operating certificates), he bought an inactive firm by the name of the Ni Sun Lines.  Walter Albert Nisun had bought the defunct Nuway Lines (formerly known as the Safeway Lines, which was separate and different from a later Trailways member company with a similar name, the Safeway Trails, the Safeway Trailways, which long ran between Washington, DC, and New York City, and which in 1936 was one of the five founding members of the National Trailways Bus System).  Nisun then obtained for his Ni Sun Lines an Ohio certificate (just before the deadline before the federal ICC began to exercise its new jurisdiction), and then, without starting to operate Ni Sun, he sold it to Wren’s All American Bus Lines.

          In 1940, according to the US census, while Wren ran All American, he, his wife, and their older daughter, Gladys, lived in the Harrison Hotel, just outside the southeast corner of the Chicago Loop.  Gladys had married and divorced, and she then worked as the bookkeeper of her father’s firm.

          Sadly, on 06 October 1944 Charles Francis Wren at age 60 died in a hospital in Chicago after a stay of five weeks there.

          Afterward the All American Bus Lines, which then owned and ran 85 coaches along 5,500 route-miles, underwent a change of ownership and a reorganization (on 29 January 1945) and became renamed (on 10 April 1946) as the American Buslines [sic].  The new board of directors hired I.B. James, a former president of the BTC (the Burlington Trailways), as the new president.

          Late in 1945 the American Buslines (ABL) bought a 51-percent (controlling) interest in the first Burlington Trailways, and early in -47 the ABL bought the remaining 49-percent (minority) interest.

          On 03 June 1946 the ABL and the Burlington Trailways began to run as a single coordinated network, although the two corporations (and their accounting) remained separate from each other (albeit temporarily).

          In the spring of 1947 the board of directors of the ABL hired Manferd Burleigh, a former president of the Great Lakes GL, to succeed I.B. James as the president of the ABL.

          In the spring of 1951 the ABL filed a petition to merge the Burlington Trailways into itself.  On 18 June 1951 the ICC gave its approval, so the ABL carried out the merger soon afterward.

          In December 1951 The Greyhound Corporation offered $3,000,000 in stock for the expanded American Buslines, but the board of directors of the ABL refused the offer.

          In 1953 the Transcontinental Bus System, using the brand name, trade name, or service name of the Continental Trailways, made a similar offer, and the directors of the ABL were ready to sell.  With approval of the ICC (in February 1954), the ABL soon became a subsidiary (not a division) of the Continental Trailways, and it became known as the Continental American Lines.  Thus Continental’s new property enabled Continental to make its first reach from coast to coast, between Los Angeles and New York City.

          All American had begun to use a trademark consisting of a circle, a flying eagle, and a red-white-and-blue ribbon.  After the ABL bought a majority interest in the BTC, Burlington also adopted that trademark.  When the Continental Trailways (CT) bought the expanded ABL, Continental thus acquired the right to the use of the eagle trademark, which remained in use for CT for many years.

          In 1969 the Holiday Inns of America bought the Continental Trailways, and in 1979 Henry Lea Hillman Sr., said to be the most wealthy person in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, bought the Continental Trailways and hired James Kerrigan as the president.  [Kerrigan had previously served as the president of the Greyhound Lines, Inc., until Gerald Trautman, the chairman of the board of directors, fired him.]  The Continental Trailways became renamed as the Trailways, Inc. (the TWI).

          In 1987 Fred Currey’s GLI Holding Company bought the TWI, fired Kerrigan, and merged the TWI into the Greyhound Lines, Inc., thus acquiring the largest member of the National Trailways association and thus eliminating most of GLI’s competition.

          [More about the creation of the second Greyhound Lines, Inc., GLI, in 1963 – along with the later changes of ownership and organization of the GLI, the Continental Trailways, the TWI, and the GLI Holding Company – is available in my article about the Greyhound Lines after WW2.]

Dwight Edwin Austin

        Dwight Edwin Austin was born on 26 September 1897 in South Bend, Indiana.  By 1910 his father, a carpenter, had moved his family to Los Angeles.  Dwight’s formal education ended with the eighth grade, but he had much innate ability in mechanical and engineering areas.  In 1918 at age 20 he worked at a shipyard in San Pedro, California, near Long Beach, and in 1920 at age 22 he worked as a mechanic in an automotive garage in or near Los Angeles.

          Then in 1923 Charles Wren hired Austin to work in his motor-coach plant.  Quickly Austin successively became the chief engineer, the plant manager, and the VP of the Pickwick Motor Coach Works.  He designed several notable coaches, especially the Cherokee, its simplified version, both versions of the NiteCoach, and the Duplex day coach.  And in 1931 he created his revolutionary Austin angle drive.

          At or about the end of 1932, after the various Pickwick companies went through bankruptcy, Austin did not follow Wren to his Columbia Coach Works.  He first designed a small 21-seat city-transit car, which he called the Austin Utility Coach, and which predictably used his angle drive and a rear transverse engine.  Unfortunately, the Depression prevented his building and selling more than just a few copies.

          In 1934, however, Austin accepted an offer of employment with the Yellow T&C Manufacturing Company, which in 1943 became the GMC T&C Division of the GM Corporation.  That deal included Austin’s selling to T&C the right to use the Austin angle drive in its future products – Yellow Coaches and (later) GM Coaches.  Austin joined the coach section of T&C, where he promptly went to work on the design of the 718 and the 719 and then the 743 – and soon the Silversides as well.

          Austin continued to work for T&C until 1943, when he felt a need for another change of scenery.  The Fageol brothers, Frank and William, had begun to make their plans for their new postwar coaches, and they tried to coax Austin to work for them.  Austin had gotten his fill of working for other people and corporations, but he was willing to move to Kent, Ohio, the home of the Fageol brothers’ Twin Coach Company, where he established the firm of Dwight Austin and Associates.  He then served as an outside consulting engineer, taking a major part in creating the designs of the postwar Twin Coach products.  He formed also the Dwight Austin Products Company – to design and produce seats, convertible bunks, and sleeping compartments for railway passenger cars – using his knowledge and experience from his years with the NiteCoaches – because the executives of several railway firms – especially the Santa Fe and the Canadian Pacific – had seen his work and liked it.

          Sadly, Austin died at age 62 on 11 April 1960 in the Cleveland Clinic Hospital in Cleveland, near Kent, after an illness of six months.

Conclusion

        Despite the lack of a financial success by the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines, it nonetheless made a major, significant, and lasting contribution to the modern Greyhound route network.

Very Special Articles

         Please check also my very special cornerstone articles at this website:

                   “Northland Greyhound Lines” (NGL):  It tells not only the history of the NGL but also the origin and the early years of the overall Greyhound Lines, starting in 1914 in Hibbing, Minnesota.  [The people and the events involved in the early part of the story of the NGL are the same people and events involved also in the origin and the early development of the larger Greyhound empire (including its many divisions and subsidiaries).]
                   “Greyhound Lines after WW2”:  It describes:
                            the major mergers and consolidations (1948-75);
                            the changes in leadership at the top;
                            the move from Chicago to Phoenix (in 1971);
                            the sales of the Greyhound Lines, Inc. (GLI, in 1987, 1999, 2007, and 2021);
                            the purchase (in 1987) of the Trailways, Inc. (TWI, previously known as the Continental Trailways) and the merger of the TWI into the GLI;
                            the sad and regrettable deterioration in the level of service of the formerly great and formerly respected (but now utterly disgraced and discredited) Greyhound Lines;
                            and the latest development of Greyhound under the ownership of FlixMobility (a German firm) and under the oversight of Flix North America (with a recent Turkish immigrant as the chief executive).
                   “The Scenicruiser”:  It covers the background, conception, evolution, development, design, creation, production, rebuilding, repowering, and operation of the GM PD-4501, the famous, beloved, unmatched, and iconic Scenicruiser (an exclusive coach built for Greyhound alone, which served in the fleet from 1954 until about 1975).
                   “Growing Up at Greyhound”:  It tells about my growing up at Greyhound — as the title says — while my father worked as a longtime (37-year) coach operator for the Greyhound Lines, starting in 1940.

Related Articles

        Please see also my articles about the Atlantic Greyhound Lines, the Capitol Greyhound Lines, the Central Greyhound Lines, the Dixie Greyhound Lines, the Florida Greyhound Lines, the Great Lakes Greyhound Lines, the Illinois Greyhound Lines, the New England Greyhound Lines, the Northland Greyhound Lines, the Northwest Greyhound Lines, the Ohio Greyhound Lines, the Overland Greyhound Lines, the Pacific Greyhound Lines, the Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, the Richmond Greyhound Lines, the Southeastern Greyhound Lines, the Southwestern Greyhound Lines, the Teche Greyhound Lines, the Valley Greyhound Lines, The Greyhound Corporation, the Greyhound Lines after WW2, the Tennessee Coach Company, and the Scenicruiser.

Bibliography

          Coachbuilt.com.

          Jackson, Carlton, Hounds of the Road.  Dubuque: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company, 1984.  ISBN 0‑87972‑207‑3.

          Jon’s Trailways History Corner, an online Trailways history by Jan Hobijn (known also as Jon Hobein) at http://cw42.tripod.com/Jon.html.

          Luke, William, and Linda Metler, Highway Buses of the 20th Century.  Hudson: Iconografix, 2004.  ISBN 1-58388-121‑2.

          Meier, Albert, and John Hoschek, Over the Road.  Upper Montclair: Motor Bus Society, 1975.  No ISBN (because of the age of the book).

          Motor Coach Age, ISSN 0739‑117X, a publication of the Motor Bus Society, various issues, especially these:

                  March 1954;
                  March 1955;
                  November 1956;
                  Fall 1960;
                  April 1965;
                  April 1966;
                  December 1967;
                  October 1972;
                  January 1975;
                  December 1979;
                  March-April 1991;
                  January-February 1992;
                  March-April 1993;
                  October-December 1995;
                  October-December 1996;
                  October-December 1999;
                  January-March 2001.

          Online schedules and historical data at www.Greyhound.com.

          Plachno, Larry, Modern Intercity Coaches.  Polo: Transportation Trails,1997.  ISBN 0-933449-27‑5.

          Rushing, Duncan Bryant, Wheels, Water, Words, Wings, and Engines.  New Albany: Fidelity Publishers, forthcoming.

          Schisgall, Oscar, The Greyhound Story.  Chicago: J.G. Ferguson Publishing Company, 1985.  ISBN 0-385-19690‑3.

          Von Fange, Paul, Scenicruising: The Greyhound Scenicruiser Story.  Raleigh: Lulu Press, 2015.  ISBN 978-1-32-942508‑8.

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Posted at 21:42 EDT, Wednesday, 17 May 2023.

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