Kastoria is a town in northern Greece, the capital city of a region also called Kastoria. The city (currently) has a population of just 37,000 making it smaller in size that the City of Moonee Valley which has about 115,000 residents and which takes in the suburbs of Moonee Ponds, Essendon, Niddrie, East Keilor, Airport West and Strathmore.
The surge in migration after World War II saw many people come from the Mediterranean countries, including Greece. Two such families were the Spyrou and Sikavitsas families, with Evangelos (Angelo) Spyrou and Nikos (Nick) Sikavitsas being employed as bus drivers with Barnes Bus Lines.
In 1964/65, (James) Doug Barnes disposed of a number of routes to some of his drivers including Tony Bono and George Sita.  Angelo and Nick also joined forces to purchase some of the routes and called their company Kastoria Bus Lines, after the region in which the families had lived in Greece. So, in May 1964, routes 209A (Moonee Ponds – Sunbury) and 210A (Moonee Ponds – Broadmeadows) were acquired and six buses came with the sale.
In July 1965, two further routes were acquired from Barnes, route 39 (Moonee Ponds – Keilor) and a branch of route 39 (Moonee Ponds to East Keilor). A further 4 buses came with the subsequent sale.
These routes were renumbered on January 1971 as the 479, 477, 476 and 475 respectively.
However, before that, on 10/5/1970, the two families decided to divide the business, which had grown the 16 buses. The Spyrou family maintained the Kastoria Bus Lines name with routes 475 and 476 and seven buses, and the Sikavitsas family formed Tullamarine Bus Lines with routes 477 and 479 and 9 buses.
Subsequently, Kastoria gained route 501 from E & L Pincini, in March 1973.
Deveson’s Bus and Coach Service was purchased by Kastoria on 26th October 1979.
In July 2009, Dom Sita acquired Kastoria Bus Lines from Alex Spyrou. Dom continues to trade under this name as part of the wider Northern Transit Holdings business.
