Moon Train
It was probably the song Sweet City Woman that in my youth I misheard as "Gotta catch a moon train." (instead of noon train.) It made me imagine some crazy city of the future.
Greyhound is selling off terminals. From what I gather, they are also shutting down the on-site restaurants in many (if not all) of their remaining terminals.
In some cases, Greyhound is using truck stops or similar in place of a terminal. Some such places are better than others.
Fargo, North Dakota: Perfectly fine. Plenty of seating, happy to let you hang out indoors and eat their food for a fee. Some other places have (sometimes inadequate) seating outdoors, apparently supplied by Greyhound.
The article lists newcomer bus companies, such as Megabus. The website for Megabus says they serve over 500 US cities.
The internet tells me there are 19,502 incorporated cities in the US. Greyhound claims to serve nearly 2,300 destinations in conjunction with connecting partners.
The article also lists "Chinatown buses." and links out to a piece about them. The map in the piece shows all routes originating in New York and primarily serving the Northeastern US.
I have limited info, but generally speaking bus terminals of the past served food and were used not only to wait for your initial bus, but for any connecting buses. They also do not have food served on the bus, so they often make temporary stops at places one may be able to purchase food.
This SEEMS to be less of a thing with trains? They serve food on the train and you can upgrade to a sleeper car for long hauls. Getting off the train temporarily -- especially to eat something -- and back on seems less of a thing with train travel, even though you may change trains at stations and some stations may have food service.
I've been on Greyhound and some of their connecting partners. I've never been on Megabus or Chinatown buses.
So I mentally compare Greyhound to Amtrak, not other bus systems, and find myself wishing Greyhound were a bit more like Amtrak in some ways.
And then I fantasize about the US having a better train system -- one where the answer is not so very consistently "You can't get there from here," (which is how I keep rolling my eyes and ending up on a bus) -- even though I know it's much more challenging and expensive to expand train service than to alter bus routes or add new ones.
The reality is both buses and trains in the US are terrible for traveling long distances, which is likely why so many people happily take a match to our environment and just buy plane tickets instead.
They are both terrible because they prioritize "getting there" over human comfort, even in cases where people obviously have some other priority themselves or they would just buy plane tickets. Duh!
Human comfort involves eating regularly and having adequate access to "your" food, whatever kind of diet you have, for whatever reason.
Diabetic or otherwise on a doctor-prescribed diet? Vegan for political reasons? Keto? It doesn't matter. People need access to "their" foods.
Neither train travel nor bus travel in the US adequately supports that currently. So anyone who can afford it just flies, and the future of planet earth be damned.
Some people get "car sick" (even if traveling by bus or train) and most people don't sleep well sitting up in coach, especially on bus trips where they stop every two hours for a rest stop if only so the driver doesn't pee his pants or wreck from exhaustion.
What I really, really would like to see is:
1. Local businesses close to train and bus stations where people can readily and conveniently get food. It isn't essential that Greyhound per se supply the food, but people need to eat.
2. The ability to go online and seamlessly book travel plus hotel stays such that I'm not required to be rich enough for a sleeper car to get some sleep on the train trip and I don't have a gun to my head insisting I travel by bus or train for 30 or more hours straight and can, instead, break that up with one or two nights in a hotel such that total cost of travel fare plus hotels is less than "rich enough for a sleeper car."
3. Expanded service to small towns by bus or train. No station but you go THROUGH there? Find a way to sell tickets and stop there long enough to get on or off the vehicle, please and thank you.
I constantly get told I'm "asking for the moon."
Oh, bite me. It's 2024. The internet already exists and I'm not EVEN asking you to come up with the idea.
Just make it possible.
Please and thank you.
Footnote
Originally published elsewhere on July 6, 2024. Edited slightly.
