Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007

Even if this were true, how does a past usage in San Francisco mean that a
usage is "widespread on the West Coast"?

This makes his assertions quite suspect; ambulances are *not* called
"buses" in general New York usage.  They might be called buses by cops (TV
suggests so); similarly, people in San Francisco who work in the bus
industry, like this Carleton seems to have, might use the term "coach" as
jargon.

The existence of a usage in Vancouver (in Canada) and in San Francisco (in
the US) should not lead one to believe that it's "widespread on the west
coast of North America".

But we're talking about the isolated term "coach".  Do San Franciscans
point to one of their trolleys and say "that's a coach"?

fkemmish@optonline.net had it:

I was also travelling around on Greyhounds in 1976, including New
Orleans.  Are you on my photos?  That was the year I spent 15 days on
the bus, travelling from NYC down the coast to the Keys, along to Las
Vegas, up the West Coast to Vancouver and then, with only three days
remaining on my pass, a 3-day trip from Seattle back to NY.  I was
the only person to stay on the bus all the way, day and night.  I
loved that trip through the Rockys and met a lot of interesting
people.

Cheltenam used to have the most astonishing (but simple) scheduling
algorithm.  It is a hub for changing coaches - no matter what time
you arrived, your connection would leave at 14:00.  14:00 was a good
time to stay well away from the bus station as dozens of buses rolled
out on their journeys.

Most of the USA bus stations are built on property acquired by
Greyhound or Trailways in the days when travel by bus was more
acceptable and more common for Americans.  Those run-down and scary
parts of the city were not run-down and scary when the property was
acquired.  They are in the downtown areas and have been there since
downtowns were the thriving center of retail and other business.

The flight of retail businesses to the suburbs and the malls have led
to the deterioration of most downtown areas.  There's nothing downtown
anymore except office buildings, and they aren't present in all parts
of larger downtowns.  The value of the property has increased
considerably - thus increasing the assets of the bus companies - but
the value can't be realized.  With the sprawl of cities, the bus
companies can't centrally locate outside of the decayed area.

The Greyhound station in Orlando has moved from a badly decayed area
to a marginally decayed - but central - area that is centrally
located.  The reason for moving at all wasn't to go a nicer area, but
to go to an area where the streets better accommodated heavy vehicular
traffic.

It's usually the larger cities where the bus station is in the scary
part of town.  In the smaller towns, the downtown areas have held up.
Retail may have fled, but the areas remain "nice" because office
buildings and government buildings have replaced the retail
establishments.  With a small downtown, everything is clustered
instead of spread out over many square blocks like the downtowns in
larger cities.

"Underfloor luggage" has more luck, of course, and "underfloor compartment"
outdoes that one, although other types of storage also come into play for
the latter one.

[...]

It's relevant to the passenger in that it's what makes him
or her climb a few feet farther to get into the bus.  But on
the other hand, it puts the passenger in a position to see
better the passing scene.

It's relevant to the operators of the bus because if the
luggage were stored higher, it would raise the center of
gravity and make the vehicle less stable.

The ancient bus that we bought for the trip that brought me to Australia
had a boot (AmE trunk) at the rear, quite different from the underfloor
space in modern long-distance coaches.

As the OP of "underfloor" I invite you, and anybody else, to provide
the one-word description I should have used instead!

(This all reminds me of the question whether "vicarious" is good
or bad)

Thank you; that is exactly what I have been trying to say.

Not only for price reasons: that man closed half of Britain's railways
down, so a lot of train journeys that we used to take were no longer
possible.

Robin Bignall wrote, in <rb48q2lgqg9rp84h46dogorsltvs4qje7d@4ax.com>
on Tue, 09 Jan 2007 22:13:27 +0000:

I was at prep school near Westerham and spent most of my holidays near
Weymouth.  This involved a train to Victoria as one of a group escorted by
a teacher; there I was handed over to a relative who took me to Waterloo
and put me on the Weymouth train in care of the guard with instructions to
put me off at Upwey Junction, or sometimes Upwey Wishing Well Halt if the
train stopped there.

From the age of 12 I managed the transfer myself and didn't bother the
guard.  

When I was 19 I was working at the far end of Cornwall, Porthcurno just
south of Lands End, and had a girlfriend in London.  I once or twice made
the journey by train but more often hitched.

My eyes must be going: I read that a couple of times wondering where the
training camps were.

I remember taking the train, with my parents and older brother, to go to
visit my mother's family in the Netherlands. We took the bus to
Nottingham and then caught the train at Nottingham Victoria Station.[1]
From London, we took the boat train from Liverpool Street to Harwich.

I don't know how long the train journey was, but, as a child, it seemed
to last forever. I don't know whether it would have been possible to
make the trip by coach in those days. It would have involved many
changes, and probably an overnight stop. I remember the relief we all
felt when the ferry service from Hull to Rotterdam started.

Fran

[1]Whenever I am in Nottingham, we visit the Victoria Centre (a shopping
mall on the site of the old railway station) where you can still see the
blocked off railway tunnel. I often wondered why that line was closed,
rather than the line to Nottingham Midland, which is a dead end.

Same recollection as me. I think they called them coaches in
their own publicity, but everyone else called them buses.

Mike Page

Your recollection is correct.

When I worked for London Transport I had a free pass to travel on the central
city (red) buses, the country (green) buses and the Underground, but it was
NOT valid for Green Line Coaches.