Yes, if you look closely, that is a Greyhound logo on the clock. And that is a plaid vinyl bag which they offer for sale at the concession stand. Its capacity is supposedly 50.8 (not sure of the units).
Now that Peter Pan, Greyhound, Bonanza, and Trailways are all one, I am starting to wonder the Department of Justice isn't sniffing around for antitrust purposes. But of course if you define the relevant market as "long-distance transportation," there is plenty of competition (private cars, trains and airplanes). And that's probably the right way to look at it.
As far as other interstate bus options go, we still do have the supercool Chinatown buses (e.g., Lucky Star and Fung Wah). Only problem is if you want to go somewhere that doesn't have a Chinatown. Like Binghamton.
It took almost 4 hours to Binghamton, and a good 5 hours back - quite a bit longer than advertised. The driver on our return trip was pretty entertaining, however. The bus had started in Syracuse, and had room for 7 more passengers when it stopped in Binghamton. But after the driver collected 6 tickets, his bus was full. He asked the person who had sneaked on to identify himself/herself, and no one stepped forward. So he announced that he would conduct a ticket check on Mount Such-and-Such, and whoever didn't have a ticket would be ejected from the bus. He said he would accept no excuses. Then he started the bus. This sounded like an empty threat - he would never dare leave anyone en route. Or would he? We traveled along for a while, wheels turning and turning. Time went by. People napped. And then the driver suddenly announced we were almost to the top of Mount Such-and-Such. It gave me a bit of a thrill: Was he really going to leave the stowaway at a rest stop?!
Then the driver pulled over at a barren stretch of highway, opened the door and explained that it was time for the ticket check, and that he would not accept the excuse that someone had "lost" their ticket. He counted and re-counted the tickets he had collected. Then he started at the front and worked his way back, checking our receipts/stubs one by one. About a third of the way back, he hit pay dirt. The culprit, a young man in his 20s, dejectedly followed the driver off the bus. The luggage compartment under the bus opened.
When the driver shut the bus door behind him, I knew he was going to give the fellow a talking-to outside our hearing. I wondered whether the driver would get beaten up or stabbed or shot, and if so, whether the young man would hijack the bus. But then the driver came back on, followed by a rather chastened young man, and announced that things had been taken care of. We drove on.
An hour or two later, we stopped at a McDonald's. The driver told us we had exactly 15 minutes at this rest stop, and that we needn't bother asking our spouse or girlfriend/boyfriend to try to hold the bus for us -- if we were late, we would only see them waving goodbye (unless they were kind enough to get off the bus with our stuff). He also warned us sternly not to wander off and try to go anywhere else, because he would not wait. What can I say? After the near-ejection of the stowaway, everyone complied. We were all back in the bus and ready to go at 0:14.
As we cut across New Jersey, the driver made a public service announcement. He warned us not to hand our luggage to anyone unless they were wearing official uniforms and badges which identified them as Greyhound, Peter Pan or Trailways personnel. He told us that if we handed our bags to anyone else, don't come crying to him. He sure as hell wasn't going to chase down our bags for us. He pointed out that everyone goes to New York to do some shopping, and if we wanted to contribute to someone else's shopping by handing them our bags, that was our problem.
Then on the final approach to Lincoln Tunnel, it was basically a parking lot. And the driver had just about reached the maximum number of hours he was allowed to be on the road for one day under the regs. So whenever we stopped (i.e., every 20 feet), he would open the doors, step outside, and smoke a cigarette until the bus in front of us was at least one bus-length ahead. (He could get away with this because we were in a bus-only lane.) I think this must have been relaxing for him. It was nerve-wracking for the rest of us. Especially when he walked over to a bus headed in the opposite direction and the other driver opened his door....
All in all, I highly recommend this sort of adventure. So I'll take a bus tomorrow as well.
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