VIVE LA BUS The last Greyhound bus to travel through the historic Shenandoah Valley of Virginia serving regular stations or stops at a point which, oddly enough duplicated many of the remount station locations the horse drawn public transportation which served the Valley portion of the Old Dominion State many years ago.
The stage needed fresh horses about every ten miles or so if they were expected to maintain the rapid pace needed to maintain a schedule which made the rigorous trip worth while. Stage management chose stores, homes, a specific farm, an inn or tavern or, at times, a wide place in the road, to serve as a "Station" where fresh mount were stabled and ready to lug the heavy stage for a ten mile or so phase. The old maps tended to mark these stops on printed maps of the time by pen or pencil and this accounts to this day for the number of towns going by a name including the word mount places where you have trouble locating even a few low hills. Mount were be had at Crawford's and the stop called Mount Meridian was half way between the towns of Rocktown (Harrisonburg) and Basic (Waynesborough). Check out some others: Mt. Sidney, Mt. Jackson, and others faded away up and down the Valley and know that the Greyhound bus, directly or indirectly served them all for many years - and well, at that. There was, I suppose, only one rival to the Greyhound line - one called National Trailways and it operated an East-West configuration which caused it to serve as a feeder like when it crossed the Valley at Staunton.
Early buses were, of course, little more than truck chassis fitted out with two rows of seats. The wagons which were used ahead of them had scant covering and the bus bettered them on that score with a box and sides top protect the riders from bad weather and from the dust and grime of traveling on unpaved roads. The early buses were high, too. They became lower and wider, in time and, today enjoy the most modern fittings and they are high up again with passengers seated above luggage storage and power equipment below. When it all began to fold in 200 the bus was high rise once more... sleek, fast powerful. sturdy, monsters arising out of the puzzling post war era and many have been privately purchased very much like the tycoon of yesteryear bought Pullman cars. Others buy them as recreational homes.
The stage coach died because the trains were coming in and fewer passengers were awaiting arrival of the stage at the set stations. The problem is still here today. Americans are in love their cars, trucks, SUV's, RV 's such. We can't blame the railroads this time because it appears they have virtually ceased to exist save in symbolic sense only. They are dependent on just a few stops and are no longer concerned with those of us along the rural way.
We depend on our cars now, and, the glamorous travel guides laud the idea that we will soon be flying the family chopper anyway. Don't wait around for the car to disappear. It will be a while.
Who can say? We might even take another swing at the bus while waiting for our wings. Vive le Greyhound! Let them do our flying for us.
A.L.M. August 3, 2005 [c576wds]
