Peter Pan Bus Lines

Last updated
Peter Pan Bus Lines
Peter Pan Bus Lines.svg
Peter Pan Bus Lines 2013 MCI J4500.jpg
A 2013 model MCI J4500, photographed in Silver Spring, Maryland.
ParentPicknelly family
Founded1933;90 years ago (1933)
Headquarters Springfield Union Station
Springfield, Massachusetts [1]
Locale Northeastern United States
Service area Northeastern United States
Service type
Alliance Megabus [2]
Hubs
FleetMCI-J4500, MCI D4505
Chief executivePeter A. Picknelly
Website peterpanbus.com
Peter Pan/Trailways livery, 2003; the two companies maintained a partnership from the early 1990s through 2005. Bus Peter Pan Massachusetts USA.jpg
Peter Pan/Trailways livery, 2003; the two companies maintained a partnership from the early 1990s through 2005.

Peter Pan Bus Lines operates an intercity bus service in the Northeastern United States. It is headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Contents

It operates service to/from to Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.

Since its founding in 1933, the company has been owned by the Picknelly family.

The company logo is based on an illustration by Roy Best for the Peter Pan Picture Book. [3]

Peter Pan's fleet consists mostly of buses manufactured by Motor Coach Industries.

History

Peter Carmine Picknelly founded the company in 1933 with two Buick limousines and named it after his son's favorite storybook, Peter Pan. [4] The company's first route operated between Northampton, Massachusetts and Boston through Stafford Springs, Connecticut, costing $1.75 and requiring nearly four hours of travel time. In 1957, the Massachusetts Turnpike was opened and travel time was cut in half. [5]

The son of the founder, Peter L. Picknelly, took over upon the death of the founder in 1964 and developed tour packages to the 1964 New York World's Fair. [5]

Peter Pan Bus Lines was affiliated with Trailways Transportation System beginning in the 1990s, but ended that affiliation in 2005.

In 1999, an alliance was formed with Greyhound Lines, coordinating schedules, marketing, and ticket sales. Peter Pan and Greyhound had been bitter rivals for most of the 1990s, when Peter Pan expanded outside New England to serve New York City, Washington, D. C., Philadelphia and Baltimore. This partnership was dissolved in 2017. [6]

In December 2002, Peter Pan acquired Coach USA's Northeastern division with 255 vehicles. [7] [8] [9] In 2004, Peter Pan sold the Maine Line operation in Portland to Cyr Bus Line. [10] In 2005, Peter Pan closed its Pawtuxet Valley, Rhode Island operations. [11]

In 2004, Peter A. Picknelly III took over as CEO after the death of his father. [5]

Controversies

CEO Peter A. Picknelly III has made political contributions aimed at dissuading the development of high-speed railroads in Massachusetts. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad</span> Railroad in the United States from 1872 to 1968

The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, commonly known as The Consolidated, or simply as the New Haven, was a railroad that operated principally in the New England region of the United States from 1872 to December 31, 1968. Founded by the merger of the New York and New Haven and Hartford and New Haven railroads, the company had near-total dominance of railroad traffic in Southern New England for the first half of the 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinatown bus lines</span>

Chinatown bus lines are discount intercity bus services, often operated by Chinese Americans. They have been established primarily in the Chinatown communities of the East Coast of the United States since 1998, and similar services operate on the West Coast. Most Chinatown bus lines are based in the northeastern United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fung Wah Bus Transportation</span>

Fung Wah Bus Transportation Inc. was one of the first Chinatown bus lines in the U.S., running bus service between Boston and New York City. It operated from 1996 to 2015, except for a brief period in 2014 when it was shut down for safety violations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Henry Vanderbilt III</span> American politician (1901–1981)

William Henry Vanderbilt III was an American politician who served as Governor of Rhode Island from 1939 to 1941, and a member of the wealthy and socially prominent Vanderbilt family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amtrak Thruway</span> Connecting transportation services brand

Amtrak Thruway is a system of through-ticketed transportation services to connect passengers with areas not served by Amtrak trains. In most cases these are dedicated motorcoach routes, but can also be non-dedicated intercity bus services, transit buses, vans, taxis, ferry boats and commuter rail trains.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Providence and Worcester Railroad</span> Regional railroad in the Northeastern United States

The Providence and Worcester Railroad is a Class II railroad operating 612 miles (985 km) of tracks in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, as well as New York via trackage rights. The company was founded in 1844 to build a railroad between Providence, Rhode Island, and Worcester, Massachusetts, and ran its first trains in 1847. A successful railroad, the P&W subsequently expanded with a branch to East Providence, Rhode Island, and for a time leased two small Massachusetts railroads. Originally a single track, its busy mainline was double-tracked after a fatal 1853 collision in Valley Falls, Rhode Island.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York and New England Railroad</span> Defunct railroad in southern New England

The New York and New England Railroad (NY&NE) was a railroad connecting southern New York State with Hartford, Connecticut; Providence, Rhode Island; and Boston, Massachusetts. It operated under that name from 1873 to 1893. Prior to 1873 it was known as the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad, which had been formed from several smaller railroads that dated back to 1846. After a bankruptcy in 1893, the NY&NE was reorganized and briefly operated as the New England Railroad before being leased to the competing New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in 1898.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Springfield Union Station (Massachusetts)</span> Train station in Springfield, Massachusetts, US

Springfield Union Station is a train and bus station in the Metro Center area of Springfield, Massachusetts. Constructed in 1926, Springfield Union Station is the fifth-busiest Amtrak station in the Commonwealth, and the busiest outside of Greater Boston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York and New Haven Railroad</span> Defunct railroad in Connecticut and New York

The New York and New Haven Railroad (NY&NH) was a railroad connecting New York City to New Haven, Connecticut, along the shore of Long Island Sound. It opened in 1849, and in 1872 it merged with the Hartford & New Haven Railroad to form the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. The line is now the Metro-North Railroad New Haven Line and part of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vermont Transit Lines</span>

Vermont Transit Lines (VTL) was a bus carrier company serving New England. Founded in 1929 by William Appleyard, it originally linked the communities of Barre and Burlington, Vermont, with stops along the route. VTL grew to add destinations throughout the state, and added routes to Montreal, Quebec; to Boston and Springfield, Massachusetts; and to Maine and New Hampshire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trailways of New York</span> Privately held transportation company

Trailways of New York is one of the largest privately held transportation companies based in New York State. It employs over 450 people and carries passengers more than 80 million miles annually.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Connecticut Company</span>

The Connecticut Company was the primary electric street railway company in the U.S. state of Connecticut, operating both city and rural trolleys and freight service. It was controlled by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, which also controlled most steam railroads in the state. After 1936, when one of its major leases was dissolved, it continued operating streetcars and, increasingly, buses in certain Connecticut cities until 1976, when its assets were purchased by the state government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BoltBus</span> American commercial intercity bus service

BoltBus was an intercity bus common carrier and a division of Greyhound Lines that operated from March 2008 until July 2021 in the northeast and western United States and British Columbia, Canada.

The Great Lakes Greyhound Lines, a highway-coach carrier, was a Greyhound regional operating company, based in Detroit, Michigan, USA, from 1941 until 1957, when it merged with the Northland Greyhound Lines, a neighboring operating company, thereby forming the Central Division of The Greyhound Corporation, called also the Central Greyhound Lines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New England</span> Region in the Northeastern United States

New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick to the northeast and Quebec to the north. The Atlantic Ocean is to the east and southeast, and Long Island Sound is to the southwest. Boston is New England's largest city, as well as the capital of Massachusetts. Greater Boston is the largest metropolitan area, with nearly a third of New England's population; this area includes Worcester, Massachusetts, Manchester, New Hampshire, and Providence, Rhode Island.

Central Greyhound Lines is a name used in six different contexts or applications in the intercity highway-coach industry in the USA. In each of the first five instances, the name was used for a regional operating company of The Greyhound Corporation. In the last instance, the name was used for an internal administrative department of the (second) Greyhound Lines, Inc., the (second) GLI, a separate, independent, unrelated firm, after the GLI bought the core bus business of The Greyhound Corporation.

The New England Greyhound Lines, an intercity highway-coach carrier, was a Greyhound regional operating company, based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, from 1937 until 1955, when it became a part of the Eastern Division of The Greyhound Corporation (called also the Eastern Greyhound Lines, the first of four huge new divisions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Station Bus Terminal</span>

The South Station Bus Terminal, owned by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, is the main gateway for long-distance coach buses in Boston, Massachusetts. It is located at 700 Atlantic Avenue, at the intersection with Beach Street, in the Chinatown/Leather District neighborhoods. The facility is immediately south-southwest of the main MBTA/Amtrak South Station terminal, and is located above the station platforms and tracks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Student Prince (restaurant)</span> German restaurant in Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.

The Student Prince Cafe & The Fort Restaurant, commonly referred to as The Student Prince, is a German restaurant, established in 1935, located at the corner of Fort and Main Street in the Metro Center neighborhood of Springfield, Massachusetts. The restaurant has been described by The Boston Globe and The New York Times as a city landmark, and has served German foods and beer in its grand hall for 88 years. Closing briefly from June until November 2014, the restaurant was purchased from longtime owner Rudi Scherff by Peter Picknelly of Peter Pan Bus Lines and Andy Yee, of the former Hu Ke Lau restaurant, in an agreement making them general partners, with Scherff remaining "the face of Student Prince". In 2008, Gourmet listed it among "20 Legendary American Restaurants", among the company of Galatoire's, Locke-Ober, and the Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant.

References

  1. Goonan, Peter (January 30, 2019). "Springfield names Union Station bus entrance Peter Pan Way in honor of local company". The Republican .
  2. "Megabus.com and Peter Pan partner to expand bus service". Bus & Motorcoach News. December 21, 2022.
  3. "Peter Pan Picture Book: Shape Book". Barnes & Noble.
  4. Bayot, Jennifer (October 15, 2004). "Peter Picknelly, 73, Chairman of Peter Pan Bus Lines, Dies" . The New York Times .
  5. 1 2 3 Chimelis, Ron (September 19, 2022). "Next generation taking the wheel at Peter Pan Bus Lines". The Republican .
  6. Vaccaro, Adam (August 29, 2017). "Greyhound, Peter Pan will split up and be rivals again" . The Boston Globe .
  7. "Peter Pan buys Bonanza, other bus lines" . The Standard-Times . The Associated Press. December 6, 2002.
  8. "Stagecoach negotiates sale of U.S. operations". Metro Magazine . May 1, 2003.
  9. "Peter Pan acquires Bonanza and Pawtuxet Valley Bus Lines". Providence Business News . June 25, 2003.
  10. "ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS RECOGNIZING JOHN T. CYR AND SONS, INC".
  11. "Rhode Island operator returns to coach industry after lengthy sabbatical". Metro Magazine . January 1, 2006.
  12. Glaun, Dan (July 29, 2016). "Peter Picknelly lobbied against proposed Springfield to Boston rail study, sending email two days before Gov. Baker's veto". The Republican .

Further reading