COLLECTION NAME:
NNRy Background and History Information
Record
Title:
Bus Service
Description:
The hard surfacing of U.S. Highway 93 in Nevada was completed in 1937. By January 1938, the NNRy management was considering the fiscal benefits of replacing railway passenger service with busses; they reportedly lost some $8,272 on passenger service to 1938. An amount over $175,000 in today's dollars. The change from steel wheels to rubber tires was approved by the Public Service Commission on June 15, 1940, and two GM busses were subsequently ordered on September 6, 1940.
The busses, named 'City of Ely' and 'City of Wells,' were products of the Yellow Truck and Coach Manufacturing Company, an affiliate of General Motors Corporation. They were reportedly custom designed for the NNRy and included a completely equipped restroom (toilet and lavatory), as stops were infrequent on the long desert run. The $8,040.52 price for each 21-seat unit (including shipping) covered double shock absorbers and a tire pump, but no air conditioning. Drivers uniforms were a standard "Greyhound" style of the period, olive drab in color with a gold letter "Nevada Northern" insignia.
The vehicles themselves were more colorful than the aforementioned uniforms, have an aluminum roof with a base body color of "desert sand" and "Burlington red" trim. Both the palette and design would form the basis for the livery of the NNRy's lone diesel unit, #401, some eleven years later.
According to David Sellers, "note that the four windows have security bars and that the rear section is also blocked off from the front interior. Access to the rear section is only from the outside and was designed as such to carry baggage, mail and express packages in a secure manner.
Roundtrip daily bus service between Ely and Wells replaced passenger train service beginning August 1, 1941. The initial cost analysis was favorable as a net profit of $801.10 was realized during the first two months. The buses provided both mail and passenger service, but by the 1950s passenger traffic had waned. Steve Swanson recalls, "when I rode it in the fifties, there were only about six seats for about twelve passengers. There was a partition after the seats and the rest of the bus was used for US mail. the mail was the only reason the bus was run for all those years."
The bus service to Wells was abandoned in 1968.
The busses, named 'City of Ely' and 'City of Wells,' were products of the Yellow Truck and Coach Manufacturing Company, an affiliate of General Motors Corporation. They were reportedly custom designed for the NNRy and included a completely equipped restroom (toilet and lavatory), as stops were infrequent on the long desert run. The $8,040.52 price for each 21-seat unit (including shipping) covered double shock absorbers and a tire pump, but no air conditioning. Drivers uniforms were a standard "Greyhound" style of the period, olive drab in color with a gold letter "Nevada Northern" insignia.
The vehicles themselves were more colorful than the aforementioned uniforms, have an aluminum roof with a base body color of "desert sand" and "Burlington red" trim. Both the palette and design would form the basis for the livery of the NNRy's lone diesel unit, #401, some eleven years later.
According to David Sellers, "note that the four windows have security bars and that the rear section is also blocked off from the front interior. Access to the rear section is only from the outside and was designed as such to carry baggage, mail and express packages in a secure manner.
Roundtrip daily bus service between Ely and Wells replaced passenger train service beginning August 1, 1941. The initial cost analysis was favorable as a net profit of $801.10 was realized during the first two months. The buses provided both mail and passenger service, but by the 1950s passenger traffic had waned. Steve Swanson recalls, "when I rode it in the fifties, there were only about six seats for about twelve passengers. There was a partition after the seats and the rest of the bus was used for US mail. the mail was the only reason the bus was run for all those years."
The bus service to Wells was abandoned in 1968.
Bus Service
