Western Railroad Discussion > Union Pacific Bus Lines-California question

I have been told that there were UP bus lines that took PX from trains to various destinations, national parks etc. etc. Today, my husband saw an "older bus" Greyhound style, painted in UP colors with Union Pacific above the windows, heading into Monterey CA--it had bicycles and racks on the back---he doesn't know how many people were in the bus etc. Does anyone know anything about this bus, owner, etc.?
Thanks
C.

This is one of the busses UP used to make connections in LA with their trains. The bus is an original (down to the cramped seats!) and has shown up at RR club open houses and the Sacramento Museum from time to time. No doubt someone else on this board knows who the owner is.

djansson wrote:

> The bus is an original (down to the cramped
> seats!) and has shown up at RR club open houses
> and the Sacramento Museum from time to time

It was used when Roseville reopened and might be stored at CSRM.

Is this what you saw? If so, it was part of a fleet Union Pacific used in the Los Angeles basin to shuttle passengers from satellite stations and ticket offices throughout the Southern California area to and from LAUPT and East Los Angeles to make connections with the passenger trains. When Union Pacific deserted passenger service, the buses were stored for a time, then purchased by Bob Fawcett and called American Pacific Stage Lines. It served Amtrak with morning and evening connections between Orange County and Union Station, as well as providing charter service. I drove for them until the company was disolved by union problems in the early eighties. Former Amtrak public affairs director Art Lloyd (a great guy) has been active in the charter bus business for many decades, and is a veritable encyclopedia of motorcoach history in California. This coach is indeed stored at CSRM.

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Carl says that based on what he saw at 60 mph going in his direction and the bus going the other direction at probably the same speed, this was most likely the same bus-------thanks to all for the information. Wonder who was aboard and where they were going and why-----------:-)Thanks, Surflinerhogger!!
C.

One comment and one question:

Comment:

Dan & I got to ride in the CSRM's UP bus back in 1991, at the end of Railfair '91. NICE!! We were invited out to a restaurant on the outskirts of Sacramento by CSRM staff, because I was part of the 2472 crew then. Had a nice ride in that nice old bus. If ya gotta have a BUS, ya might as well have a bus painted with an appropriate railroad paint scheme, with a drumhead on the back! :)

Question:

Does anyone know what happened to the UP bus that was parked until a couple of months ago in San Francisco in the Hunters Point area? That IS a TRUE UP bus: you could easily see both the drumhead AND the slogan "Route of the Streamliners" on her. I also asked that same question of the UP Historical Society just now in an e-mail. I also wonder how many of those lovely buses the UP had, and how many survive today.

Margaret (SP fan)

Hey now that is the bus i want to have for my
tour group for the UPHS 2003 Convention.

I would suggest you contact the folks at http://www.pacbus.org.

Found these goodies in San Diego, years ago.

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As previously mentioned that UP bus was in service the dedication of Jerry Davis Yard, Roseville. When I first saw it there I thought the UP really doesn't miss a detail when it comes to a celebration.

I figured they probably kept the bus in Omaha for special occasions. It's interesting to learn the facts.

surflinerhogger wrote:

> When Union
> Pacific deserted passenger service, the buses were stored for a
> time, then purchased by Bob Fawcett and called American Pacific
> Stage Lines.

Hmmm. I though Alex Allen (Allen Charter Lines & Amador Stages - Sacramento) and Warren Miller (Eastshore Lines - San Francisco) bought most if not all of those PD4101s, and were the owners of American Pacific?

Warren Miller also has a GM Transit that's painted in NCL colors that's occasionally seen around northern California.

As far as I understood it, they assisted Fawcett in his purchase. I also understand that they had at one time been partners, but had a fairly nasty parting of the ways. Some rumors had it that Bob had taken one of the Amador buses, had it converted to a motorhome and hid it in Southern California. But, as far as I know they were only rumors. However there was a converted 4905 on the lot in Santa Ana for a while. None of those folks ever appeared to have a hand in the daily operations. The U.P. buses may have gone to them, as Fawcett almost immediately replaced all of them with 4905's (Buffalo's) and a couple of Prevosts and MC7's. We were based in Santa Ana, sharing the lot with Robert's Holiday Lines (same owners) and we also had a satellite lot and office at the Southwest corner of Macy and Vignes, part of Union Station's property at the time. We did belong to ATU Local 1507, the same local and contract the U.P. drivers had in place when the purchase took place. In late 1980, Dr. Wahl came over from Germany, purchased American Pacific, moved us to Santa Fe Springs and purchased 15 new MC9's and 15 Eagle 10's, as well as the 5 Travelers/TWA custom made Eagle 10's and proposed a new contract to the ATU which they rejected. The negotiations got very nasty, Dr. Wahl made AP an airport transfer service only, moved everything to Phoenix and eventually disolved AP altogether and renamed it West Shores/Western Trails. I know this isn't the right board, but I hope folks will forgive me for not knowing how to move this thread over to the Transit board. Here's a couple of shots I took while on tour, of what the U.P. Stage Lines eventually wound up looking like in late 1980.

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A lot of the drivers I worked with had originally been with Union Pacific, and brother did they ever have some war stories about the internal fighting between the owners.

Miller bought three of the 10 Union Pacific Stages buses. I don't know what happened to the other seven.

1949
"Union Pacific Stage Co. replaced its fleet of buses in May 1949 with 10 new GM PDA-4101s having 32 seats and a large walk-in baggage room at the rear. After 1955, and the opening of Disneyland, the Anaheim route became the mainstay of the service through the declining years of intercity rail travel, ending with the inauguration of Amtrak on May 2, 1971." ("Streamliners of the Highways", The Streamliner, UPHS, Vol. 17 No. 2, Spring 2003)

April 1949
Union Pacific Railroad received 10 GM PDA4101 Parlor Coaches (diesel-fueled, air-conditioned, 41 seats), numbered as Union Pacific Railroad 21-30, GM serials 133596-133605.

According to its September 30, 1951 public timetable, Union Pacific Stage Co. operated:

• Four bus routes between East Los Angeles and Glendale, by way of Pasadena.
• Four bus routes between East Los Angeles and San Pedro, by way of Long Beach.
• Four bus routes between East Los Angeles and Anaheim, by way of Whittier.

According to its September 30, 1951 public timetable, Union Pacific Stage Co. operated a single bus route between Las Vegas and Hoover Dam, and one bus route between Denver and Cheyenne.

The following partial obituary is from the May 29, 2008 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. [Warren K. Miller] was one of the founding fathers of bus operations in California along with Bill Billings, Arthur Lloyd and Brian Thompson who started Sequoia Stage Lines and then became Eastshore Lines.

Mr. Miller/Eastshore also bought the very last GM H8H-649 (serial #233) in 1980. This was Eastshore #340; but, alas, it was not saved and restored. He also co-founded (with Alec Allen of Amador Stage Lines, Sacramento, CA) American Pacific Stage Co. in 1972. This was the successor to Union Pacific Stage Co. which provided bus connections with the Union Pacific in Southern California until the advent of Amtrak. American Pacific began service with three GM PD-4101, acquired from Union Pacific Stage Co. American Pacific also provided bus connection service between San Francisco for Amtrak starting in 1973. (Trailways Bus Driver Yahoo Group, May 29, 2008; obituary for Warren K. Miller)

More information about UP's bus operations is here:

http://utahrails.net/up/union-pacific-buses.php

Don Strack
http://utahrails.net/