Atlantic Greyhound Lines

Meanwhile, in December 1925 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the Camel City Coach Company (bearing a nickname of its hometown due to the Camel cigarettes made there) came into existence, under the leadership of a merchant by the name of John Gilmer – to run between Charlotte (in North Carolina) and Martinsville (in Virginia) via Winston-Salem – and to expand.

Hill and Gilmer together organized the National Highway Transport (NHT) Company in December 1929 in Charleston, West Virginia, to buy the capital stock of the Blue and Gray and the Camel City concerns.

Further, in 1929 three major players in the developing highway-coach industry – Arthur Hill (of the Blue and Gray Transit Company), John Gilmer (of the Camel City Coach Company), and Guy Huguelet (of the Consolidated Coach Corporation, based in Lexington, Kentucky, which in -36 became renamed as the Southeastern Greyhound Lines) – organized yet another carrier, based in Roanoke, named as the Old Dominion (called also OD) Stages, using the nickname of the state or Commonwealth of Virginia – to run between Knoxville and Washington, DC, via Bristol, Wytheville, Roanoke, Lexington, Staunton, and Winchester, Virginia, along a route which divided between the territories of the B&G and the Camel City companies – with those three men owning the new firm in three equal shares.

The Tennessee Coach Company continued to run that leased segment (between Knoxville and Bristol) – and on that route took part in through-schedules (interlined pool operations) – that is, the use of through-coaches on through-routes running through the territories of two or more operating companies – in cooperation with the Atlantic GL, the Dixie GL, and the Southeastern GL – including through-schedules between Birmingham (in Alabama) and Bristol and between Memphis and Washington – until 1956, when the TCC joined the Trailways trade association (then named as the National Trailways Bus System), and when the TCC returned its leased right to that segment to the Atlantic GL (as the successor in interest of the OD Stages) – as a part of the deal related to the dissociation of the TCC from Greyhound.

John Gilmer, the founder of the Camel City Coach Company, participated also in a number of other activities during the early development of the highway-coach industry.

The Capitol GL, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, came into existence in November 1930 – as a joint venture (owned in two equal shares) by the Blue and Gray Transit Company and The Greyhound Corporation (with an uppercase T, because the word "the" was an integral part of the legal name of the corporate entity) – to operate a single new main line, between Washington, DC, and Saint Louis (in Missouri), via Winchester (in Virginia), Clarksburg and Parkersburg (both in West Virginia), Chillicothe and Cincinnati (both in Ohio), Bedford and Vincennes (both in Indiana), and Olney and Salem (both in Illinois), along US-50 – a route shorter and quicker (six hours faster) than the best (then available) alternate route [via Hagerstown (in Maryland), Pittsburgh (in Pennsylvania), Wheeling (in West Virginia), Columbus (in Ohio), Indianapolis and Terre Haute (both in Indiana), and Effingham (in Illinois)] – plus a branch line between Shoals and Louisville (in Kentucky) via Paoli (in Indiana).

AGL took part in a large number of major interlined north-south through-routes (using pooled equipment in cooperation with other Greyhound companies) – that is, the use of through-coaches on through-routes running through the territories of two or more Greyhound regional operating companies – between various pairs of cities (first between New York City and Jacksonville), including: in the north, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Boston, New York City, and Washington, and in the south, Norfolk, Memphis, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami, Saint Petersburg, and New Orleans.

In November 1960, in another round of consolidation, Greyhound merged the Atlantic GL with – not into but rather with – the Southeastern GL, based in Lexington, Kentucky, a neighboring regional company – thereby forming the Southern Division of The Greyhound Corporation, called also the Southern GL, the third of four huge new divisions (along with Central, Eastern, and Western) – which reached as far to the north as Springfield and Effingham (both in Illinois), Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Washington, as far to the east as the Atlantic Ocean, as far to the south as Miami and Key West, and as far to the west as Cincinnati, Saint Louis, Memphis, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Lake Charles (in Louisiana and on the way to Houston, the rest of Texas, and the rest of the West) – from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Ohio River to the Gulf of Mexico..

In 1987 The Greyhound Corporation (the original Greyhound umbrella firm), which had become widely diversified far beyond transportation, sold its entire highway-coach operating business (its core bus business), to a new company, named as the Greyhound Lines, Inc., called also GLI, based in Dallas, Texas – a separate, independent, unrelated firm, which was the property of a group of private investors under the promotion of Fred Currey, a former executive of the Continental Trailways (later renamed as the Trailways, Inc., called also TWI, also based in Dallas), which was by far the largest member company in the National Trailways trade association.