Contents
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Origin
- 3 Wheeling and dealing
- 4 Background and participation of O.W. Townsend
- 5 Further developments
- 6 Merger into Southeastern GL
- 7 Beyond Teche GL
- 8 Conclusion
- 9 Bibliography
- 10 Related articles
//
Introduction
The Teche Greyhound Lines (also called Teche or TGL), a highway-coach carrier, was a Greyhound regional operating company, based in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, from 1934 until -54, when it (along with the Dixie Greyhound Lines) became merged into the Southeastern Greyhound Lines, a neighboring operating company.
Origin
The Teche Greyhound Lines (GL) began as the Teche Transfer Company, which became incorporated in Louisiana in April 1920 to operate buses between Jeanerette and New Iberia (a distance of about 10 miles in the region west of New Orleans and Baton Rouge and southeast of Lafayette). The firm then grew in steps.
In 1929 the Teche Transfer Company became renamed as the Teche Lines, then in -32 it began to use the hyphenated brand name, trade name, or service name of the Teche-Greyhound Lines (with the consent of The Greyhound Corporation, the parent Greyhound firm) — while at first retaining its own corporate name (until -34) — after it entered into a through-traffic agreement with Greyhound – and after Greyhound began to buy a minority interest in Teche (which interest continued to grow).
Wheeling and dealing
In 1929 the Old South Coach Lines came into existence — to buy a short branch line (with a length of about 59 miles) — between Birmingham and Tuscaloosa (both in Alabama) — from the Alabama Bus Company — then promptly extended about 93 more miles (by application rather than purchase) from Tuscaloosa to Meridian (in Mississippi).
The next year (1930) Teche bought the Old South Coach Lines, thus completing its route between New Orleans and Birmingham.
That same year (1930) the Alabama Bus Company — which (in -29) had sold its branch line from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa (to the Old South Coach Lines) — became bought by and merged into the Consolidated Coach Corporation (which in -36 became renamed as the Southeastern Greyhound Lines) — thus extending Consolidated from Chattanooga (in Tennessee) through Birmingham and Montgomery to Mobile (all three in Alabama) — the entire length of the “Heart of Dixie”.
The Old South Lines (entirely different from the Old South Coach Lines) was a property of John Gilmer, who previously (in 1925) had founded the Camel City Coach Company, based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which (in -29) became the southern half of the National Highway Transport (NHT) Company, based in Charleston, West Virginia, which (in -31) became renamed as the Atlantic Greyhound Lines.
In 1933 the Old South Lines started running between Charlotte (in North Carolina) and Atlanta (in Georgia) and between Columbia (in South Carolina) and Atlanta.
Gilmer’s Old South Lines in 1934 bought the route between Montgomery and Atlanta (including an alternate loop through Columbus in Georgia) – from the Hood Coach Lines – which on that route had begun its first service (in -30 between Atlanta and Columbus, then in -33 onward to Montgomery), and which had soon tried (unsuccessfully) to run additional routes between Atlanta and Macon (in Georgia), between Macon and Savannah (in Georgia), and between Macon and Jacksonville (in Florida) via Waycross (in Georgia).
Hood in November 1934 sold also the latter routes -– to the Consolidated Coach Corporation and the Union Bus Company – acting jointly – with the Atlanta-Macon and Macon-Waycross-Jacksonville routes going to Consolidated (which in -36 became renamed as the Southeastern Greyhound Lines) and with the Macon-Savannah route going to Union (which in -41 became bought by and merged into the Southeastern GL) – thus gaining for Consolidated and Union (and therefore later for Greyhound) not only a new route between Macon and Savannah and a parallel alternate route between Atlanta and Macon but also a quicker alternate route between Macon and Jacksonville (about 50 miles shorter than its older route via Valdosta in Georgia and Lake City in Florida).
After that last sale the Hood firm, no longer holding any other route, went out of business.
In 1935 the Atlantic GL bought the Old South routes to Atlanta from Charlotte (in North Carolina) and from Columbia (in South Carolina), thus preparing to establish connections in Atlanta with the Teche GL and the Southeastern GL.
In February 1936 Teche bought the Old South route between Montgomery and Atlanta (with the loop through Columbus), thus completing its route between New Orleans and Atlanta.
Background and participation of O.W. Townsend
O.W. Townsend, who in 1932 obtained control of the Teche Lines, had begun in the highway-coach industry in -24 when he founded the Cornhusker Stage Lines (based in Hastings, Nebraska, running between Hastings and Lincoln, the capital of the Cornhusker State), which in -27 became a link in the chain of independently owned carriers which – acting separately but together – operated under the collective name of the Yelloway Lines (in an attempt to reach from coast to coast).
Soon under the Yelloway name Townsend ran his coaches across Nebraska between Chicago (in Illinois) and Denver (in Colorado) — and maybe onward to Salt Lake City (in Utah).
In 1928 Townsend sold some of his rights to the newly formed American Motor Transportation Company, which bought also most of the other independent Yelloway member firms, and which then operated them variously as the Pioneer Stages or the Yelloway-Pioneer System.
In 1929 the Motor Transit Corporation (MTC) bought the Yelloway-Pioneer System, and later in -29 the MTC became renamed as The Greyhound Corporation (with an upper-case T — because the word “the” was an integral part of the legal name of the corporate entity).
Townsend in 1929 sold his remaining property in the Cornhusker Stage Lines to the Union Pacific (UP) Railroad, which merged it into its new Interstate Transit Lines, which in -43 (along with the UP Stages, another bus subsidiary of the UP Railroad) began operating under the brand name, trade name, or service name of the Overland Greyhound Lines (after The Greyhound Corporation began to buy a minority interest in each of those two bus companies of the railroad), and both of which in -52 became wholly owned subsidiaries of the parent Greyhound firm, then became combined and merged — under the name of the Overland Greyhound Lines — as a division of The Greyhound Corporation.
Meanwhile, even before Townsend sold the remainder of Cornhusker to Interstate – that is, not later than 1929 – he began another carrier – the Atlantic-Pacific Stages, running between Saint Louis (in Missouri) and Los Angeles (in California) via Kansas City (on the state line between Kansas and Missouri), Denver (in Colorado), and Albuquerque (in New Mexico) -– which in -30 he sold to the Interstate Transit, Inc., a completely different firm with a confusingly similar name, operating as the Colonial Stages, which afterward became renamed as the Colonial Atlantic-Pacific Stages (CAPS), and which succumbed in -32 during (and as a casualty of) the Great Depression.
In 1931 and -32 Townsend lived and worked in Philadelphia (in Pennsylvania) as the regional manager of the eastern end of the CAPS.
After the second (and final) failure of the CAPS, Townsend moved to New Orleans (lawfully taking with him about 20 of the newer coaches, Macks of the model BK), bought a controlling interest in the Teche Lines, and began making deals with The Greyhound Corporation.
Further developments
About 1934 Greyhound increased its partial ownership of the Teche Lines to a controlling (majority) interest, and Greyhound renamed Teche as the unhyphenated Teche Greyhound Lines; then in -39 Greyhound bought also the last remaining minority interest of Townsend (first leaving the new Teche GL as a wholly owned subsidiary); and in -41 Greyhound merged the TGL into itself as a division of the parent Greyhound firm.
By 1954 the TGL ran from New Orleans to Baton Rouge (in Louisiana), Natchez (in Mississippi), through Hammond (in Louisiana) to Jackson (in Mississippi and on the way to Memphis, Saint Louis, and Chicago), through Hattiesburg and Meridian (both in Mississippi) to Birmingham (in Alabama), through Mobile and Montgomery (both in Alabama) and Columbus (in Georgia) to Atlanta (in Georgia), through Mobile to Marianna (in Florida and on the way to Tallahassee and the rest of the Sunshine State), and westward through Lafayette to Lake Charles (both in Louisiana and on the way to Houston, the rest of Texas, and the rest of the West), plus along several regional and feeder routes in the southern part of the Pelican State.
The Teche GL met the Dixie GL to the north, the Southwestern GL to the west, and the Atlantic GL and the Southeastern GL to the east.
TGL took part in major interlined through-routes (using pooled equipment in cooperation with other Greyhound companies) — that is, the use of through-coaches running through the territories of two or more Greyhound regional operating companies — connecting New Orleans with Los Angeles, Houston, Memphis, Saint Louis, Chicago, Detroit, New York City, Washington, Jacksonville, Miami, and Saint Petersburg.
Merger into Southeastern GL
In October 1954 The Greyhound Corporation merged Teche and a neighboring operating company – the Dixie GL (Dixie or DGL), based in Memphis, Tennessee – into the Southeastern GL (also called Southeastern, SEG, SEGL, or the SEG Lines), another neighboring regional company, based in Lexington, Kentucky. The three fleets of the three divisions became consolidated into a single fleet.
Thus ended the Teche Greyhound Lines.
Beyond Teche GL
After that merger the newly expanded Southeastern GL served 12 states along 13,227 route-miles of highways – from Cincinnati (in Ohio), Saint Louis, Memphis, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Lake Charles — to Savannah and Jacksonville – from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean.
In October 1957 The Greyhound Corporation merged also the Florida GL (also called Florida or FGL), one more neighboring operating company, based in Jacksonville, Florida, into the SEGL.
In November 1960 The Greyhound Corporation further merged the Atlantic GL (also called Atlantic or AGL), yet another neighboring regional company – not into – but rather with – the Southeastern GL – thereby creating the Southern Division of The Greyhound Corporation (also called the Southern GL) – the third of four huge new divisions (along with Central, Eastern, and Western).
Thus ended the Southeastern Greyhound Lines, and thus began the Southern Greyhound Lines.
Later The Greyhound Corporation reorganized again – into just two humongous divisions – named as the Greyhound Lines East (GLE) and the Greyhound Lines West (GLW); even later it eliminated those two divisions, thus leaving a single gargantuan undivided nationwide fleet. When the Southern GL came into existence, the headquarters functions became gradually transferred from Lexington, Kentucky, to Atlanta, Georgia; when GLE arose, many of those administrative functions became shifted from Atlanta to Cleveland, Ohio; eventually those functions migrated to Chicago, Illinois, then to Phoenix, Arizona – when (in 1971) The Greyhound Corporation moved its corporate headquarters from Chicago to a new building in Phoenix.
In 1987 The Greyhound Corporation — the original parent Greyhound firm — which had become widely diversified far beyond transportation — sold its entire highway-coach operating business — its core bus business — to a new company — named as the Greyhound Lines, Inc., also called GLI, based in Dallas, Texas — a separate, independent, unrelated firm — which was the property of a group of private investors under the promotion of Fred Currey, a former executive of the Continental Trailways (later renamed as the Trailways, Inc., also called TWI, also based in Dallas), which was by far the largest member company in the Trailways trade association (then named as the National Trailways Bus System).
Later in 1987 the Greyhound Lines, Inc., the GLI, the new firm based in Dallas, further bought the Trailways, Inc., the TWI, its largest competitor, and merged it into the GLI.
The lenders and the other investors of the GLI ousted Fred Currey (as the chief executive officer) after the firm went into bankruptcy in 1990.
The GLI has continued to experience difficulties and lackluster performance under a succession of new owners and new executives — while continuing to reduce its level of service — by hauling fewer passengers aboard fewer coaches on fewer trips along fewer routes with fewer stops in fewer communities in fewer states — and by doing so on fewer days — that is, increasingly operating some trips less often than every day (fewer than seven days per week) — and by using fewer through-coaches, thus requiring passengers to make more transfers (from one coach to another).
After the sale to the GLI, The Greyhound Corporation changed its name to the Dial Corporation, then the Viad Corporation.
The website of the Viad Corporation (http://www.viad.com) in September 2008 makes no mention of its corporate history or its past relationship to Greyhound — that is, its origin as The Greyhound Corporation.
Conclusion
The Teche GL made a major and lasting contribution to the present Greyhound route network.
Bibliography
Hixson, Kenneth (2001). Pick of the Litter. Lexington: Centerville Book Company. ISBN 0-87642-016-1.
Jackson, Carlton (1984). Hounds of the Road. Dubuque: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company. ISBN 0-87972-207-3.
Meier, Albert, and John Hoschek (1975). Over the Road. Upper Montclair: Motor Bus Society. No ISBN.
Schisgall, Oscar (1985). The Greyhound Story. Chicago: J.G. Ferguson Publishing Company. ISBN 0-385-19690-3.
Motor Coach Age (a publication of the Motor Bus Society), various issues, especially these:
July-August 1990;
March-April 1991;
April-June 1995;
October-December 1996;
October-December 1998.
Backfire, the corporate newspaper for the Southeastern Greyhound Lines, all issues, from January 1938 through February 1956.
Related articles
Please see also Wikipedia articles on the Atlantic Greyhound Lines, the Dixie Greyhound Lines, the Florida Greyhound Lines, the Southeastern Greyhound Lines, and the Tennessee Coach Company.
Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teche_Greyhound_Lines”
Category: History of transportation