MegaBus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago, KC added

Transportation topics in KC
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MegaBus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago, KC added

Post by kard »

Looks like Grayhound has some (limited) competition.  www.megabus.com


Bus service offers $1 rides to Chicago
By Elisa Crouch
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
04/19/2006

It was 10 minutes before scheduled departure time, and there was no bus to board. There was no marked bus stop, and no person to take tickets.

Some passengers waiting outside Union Station in downtown St. Louis this week wondered whether their dirt-cheap bus fares to Chicago were legit. Some paid as little as $2.50 for a round-trip ticket. Some paid as much as $50.

"I can't afford to be skeptical," said Sidney Cogen, in his 30s, his duffel bag at his feet. And then a big blue bus with "From $1" painted in gold on its side pulled up to the curb. The driver hopped onto the sidewalk. He asked to see confirmation numbers and then motioned people aboard.

The latest mode of intercity transportation is megabus.com, an Internet-based bus service with multiple express runs between Chicago and eight Midwestern cities: St. Louis; Minneapolis; Indianapolis; Cleveland; Columbus, Ohio; Cincinnati, Milwaukee and Detroit. Tickets really do start at $1, though no more than five seats per trip are sold for a buck. There's a 50 cent booking fee. Average fares are $10 to $12 one-way, and the highest ticket prices are about $30 one-way.


Continued... 

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/s ... enDocument
Last edited by staubio on Fri Mar 23, 2007 2:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

Post by chingon »

in a related story:

St. Louis records highest single day population drop in history
by Stan Lewis
A.P.

April 19th 2005 saw the city of St. Louis, lately recovering from a half-century long slump in population statistics, set an unofficial record for non-wartime/non-natural disaster single day depopulation.  While the sudden exodus has officials puzzled, remaining residents are even more stunned by the concurrent phenomenon of a sudden, inexplicable shortage of small denomination currency.

"I wanted to get a soda machine, that's what we call pop machines herrre on the east coast" says one Bosnian-born South St. Louis resident, "but the only bills anyone has are fives and up...and i am NOT paying five dollars for a frickin Vess."

Continued...
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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

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I guess they all went to the east side?

The interesting thing I thought about the article I posted was that there's a new regional player in bus service with some interesting fares.  Same company operates in Europe.

www.megabus.com
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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

chingon wrote: in a related story:

St. Louis records highest single day population drop in history
by Stan Lewis
A.P.

April 19th 2005 saw the city of St. Louis, lately recovering from a half-century long slump in population statistics, set an unofficial record for non-wartime/non-natural disaster single day depopulation.  While the sudden exodus has officials puzzled, remaining residents are even more stunned by the concurrent phenomenon of a sudden, inexplicable shortage of small denomination currency.

"I wanted to get a soda machine, that's what we call pop machines herrre on the east coast" says one Bosnian-born South St. Louis resident, "but the only bills anyone has are fives and up...and i am NOT paying five dollars for a frickin Vess."

Continued...
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Oh Christ that funny. I never tire of humor at the expense of our east coast missourians. 
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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

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Woah! How long is this offer running? I was thinking about going to Chicago for a couple of days this summer...
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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

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beccanator wrote: Woah! How long is this offer running? I was thinking about going to Chicago for a couple of days this summer...
I don't think there are any lines out of KC at present.
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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

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Tosspot wrote: I don't think there are any lines out of KC at present.
I was planning on taking Amtrak the entire way, KC to Chicago, but if I can get by more inexpensively by taking the train to St. Louis first and paying $1 for the rest of the trip, then that would be the route I would take.
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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

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I would stick with the SW Chief...would save you a lot more in time.
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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

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Time I've got (well, after exams at least)...it's the money I'm lacking. Poor student, remember?  :lol:
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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

Post by bahua »

That's a lot of time, though. Probably about 10-12 hours.
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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

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May 1st to September first Amtrack to St.Louis will be by bus because of line upgrades by UP.
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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

shinatoo wrote: May 1st to September first Amtrack to St.Louis will be by bus because of line upgrades by UP.
Wouldn't the bus itself be a "line upgrade"?  I imagine it can make the trip about two hours faster.  :D
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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

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No, shit, and 50% more reliable.
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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

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They probably wouldn't be taking I-70 straight to St Louis.  The buses would, I imagine, stop at each train station, meaning they'd have to take curvy state highways.

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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

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I rode commuter buses between cities in southern spain, winding around curvy mountainous roads at high speed...it was always amusing to watch some of the other passengers get dizzy and sick.
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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

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i rode commuter buses when i lived in northern spain, and in the mountain of southern and central mexico pretty extensively.  usually i got dizzy and sick.  other people were amused by this. 
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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

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beccanator wrote: Time I've got (well, after exams at least)...it's the money I'm lacking. Poor student, remember?  :lol:
It would still be cheaper to take Amtrak from KC to Chi...they are running weekly specials for something like $30 each way. If I remember correctly, the Amtrak from KC to StL takes the same amount of time as the one that goes direct to CHi. The KC-CHI leg also has a much larger train as it is coming direct from LA.
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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

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trailerkid wrote: It would still be cheaper to take Amtrak from KC to Chi...they are running weekly specials for something like $30 each way. If I remember correctly, the Amtrak from KC to StL takes the same amount of time as the one that goes direct to CHi. The KC-CHI leg also has a much larger train as it is coming direct from LA.
The train it is! I prefer traveling by train anyway (even though the rail system in this country is something "even the Bulgarians would be ashamed of" ~James Howard Kunstler)- it makes me think of home. There's something so comforting about the rhythmic clacking of the train on the tracks and the gentle sideways sway of the cars.
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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

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trailerkid wrote: It would still be cheaper to take Amtrak from KC to Chi...they are running weekly specials for something like $30 each way. If I remember correctly, the Amtrak from KC to StL takes the same amount of time as the one that goes direct to CHi. The KC-CHI leg also has a much larger train as it is coming direct from LA.
Good catch.  This sepcial goes through St Louis...it's not the SW Chief.  It would still take about 13 hours (scheduled).  But it IS only $32.50 each way.


And now everybody sing:
The City of New Orleans
by Steve Goodman, sung by Arlo Guthrie

Riding on the City of New Orleans,
Illinois Central Monday morning rail
Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders,
Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail.
All along the southbound odyssey
The train pulls out at Kankakee
Rolls along past houses, farms and fields.
Passin' trains that have no names,
Freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles.

CHORUS:
Good morning America how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son,
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

Dealin' card games with the old men in the club car.
Penny a point ain't no one keepin' score.
Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle
Feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor.
And the sons of pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their father's magic carpets made of steel.
Mothers with their babes asleep,
Are rockin' to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel.

CHORUS

Nighttime on The City of New Orleans,
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee.
Half way home, we'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness
Rolling down to the sea.
And all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still ain't heard the news.
The conductor sings his song again,
The passengers will please refrain
This train's got the disappearing railroad blues.

Good night, America, how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son,
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

©1970, 1971 EMI U Catalogue, Inc and Turnpike Tom Music (ASCAP)
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Re: Bus service offers $1 rides from St Louis to Chicago

Post by shinatoo »

bahua wrote: Good mornin' America. How are you?
I'm mad as hell, and I'm just not going to take it anymore!
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