Greyhound buses, emblematic of a bygone era in American travel, have left an indelible mark on the collective imagination, gracing the frames of classic films and the pages of literary works. In this article, Joanna Pocock follows in the footsteps of Simone de Beauvoir as she crosses the country by bus, only to encounter a transport network that's now a mere spectre of its former glory.
Reading this, I was surprised to learn that Greyhound now belongs to cheap German bus company Flixbus. That's quite a fall.
With regard to my recent link to a post about high speed trains having negative effects on rail travel, it looks like a standard rail link may be coming back between Brussels and Paris thanks to low-cost German operator Flixtrain.
With the arrival of high speed trains and low-cost airlines, rich and poor are simply swapping long-distance transport modes.
This is exactly the case. I doubt the return of traditional cheaper trains would change much. They did let you carry your bike onto them which is not the case for most high-speed lines today though. As long as airlines are basically subsidised and we all take for granted that we can go anywhere in the world whenever we want to, the situation has little chance of changing.
Two weeks ago, we hopped on a train and spent the evening wandering around Ghent, exploring the installations dotted around the city for their annual light festival.
