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Intercity bus timetables can trace their origins back to the late 1920s/early 1930s when many intercity bus lines got their
start as supplementary services to the railroads' passenger train services. Reading Transportation Company, Central of New
Jersey Transportation Company, Burlington Trailways (original),Santa Fe TRailways, and Bangor and Aroostook Railroad, to name
a few, are examples of bus lines that were either subsidiaries or wholly owned companies set up by the railroads themselves.
The Bangor and Aroostook Railroad, which sold its Highway Division to Cyr Bus Line in 1983, was the last of these operations.
Many of the early bus timetables bore a strong resemblance to their railroad-issued cousins because of their ownership and/or
control by certain railroads, and both the railroad and its bus line subsidiary used the same printer and timetable format.
Intercity bus timetables come in a variety of sizes shapes and formats. Some regional carriers issue only a single system
timetable, while larger systems, such as Greyhound and Continental TRailways issued a variety of timetable forms covering
their entire systems.Many timetables are pulled from the Russell's Official Bus Guide, which is a thick book containing timetables
of all the major bus lines issuing timetables and operating regular line service. Many smaller carriers publish individual
timetables by lifting the schedule tables from the Russell's Guide. In addition, major carriers such as Greyhound and Trailways
have issued systemwide timetable books in the same format as the
Russell's Guide. In addition, there is a separate Guide issued for Canada that covers most, if not all bus lines in Canada
as well. Carriers, such as Peter Pan, Bonanza and others issued a single system timetable for their entire systems. On a later
page will be listed Form Numbers and descriptions of some of the timetable forms issued by Greyhound, which stopped producing
public timetables in 1991. A few Trailways forms will be listed as well.
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