Trolleys and Trains

[Vigrass, Bill]

Did you ever ride and/or photograph the miniature train at Hershey Park?  I
recall having seen it a long time ago.  It had a power car in the middle and
pushed and pulled two trailers on either side of it. It actually performed a
transportation service taking people from one end of the park to the other.
Then it disappeared.  I go to Hotel Hershey every April for the annual
PennDot/Penna.Public Transit Assn meeting, and I see the train in some of
the photos on the hotel wall.  It is mentioned briefly in the book on
Hershey Park.  I wonder if it is still in storage someplace.  Do you or
anyone of the group know?  Perhaps we could persuade HersheyPark to put it
back into service. 
Bill Vigrass

> ----------
> From: 	Robert E. Rathke[SMTP:brathke at juno.com]
> Reply To: 	pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Sent: 	Monday, September 13, 1999 10:40 PM
> To: 	pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: 	Trolleys and Trains
> 
> A few days ago I answered  offline some questions about trolleys and
> miniature railroads, and though they might be of interest to readers of
> this e-mail list:
> 
> I rode the miniature railroads at Kennywood and West View Parks many
> times.  Both parks had gasoline engine powered trains, although
> Kennywood's locomotives were designed to look like bullet-nose steam
> locomotives.  My uncle Ray Rathke lived in West View, and after
> retirement from the B&O, he was engineer on the miniature train at West
> View Park, probably right up to the time the park closed.  The West View
> Park train station was near the Dips loading station, and the train
> tracks paralleled the roller coaster line, weaving in and out of the Dips
> wooden structure on the way out to the end of the roller coaster line at
> the fence along Rt. 19.   I spent many days and nights photographing the
> 10-West View line in 1963-65, including time at the West View Park stops
> trying to get the roller coaster and other park buildings in the photos.
> 
> Jim Holland mentioned the new PCC trolley line in Kenosha, Wisconsin
> which is less than an hour's drive from my home.  I've been to Kenosha
> four times in the past two months, but I didn't know about the new
> trolley line there.  Ironically, about an hour ago, a friend from Kenosha
> stopped by our house, and I asked him about the trolley line.  He knows
> all about it, and says they expect to have it running next year.  It is
> being built to serve a new lakefront marina being built there, but
> construction was delayed because of hazardous wastes that had been buried
> at the site years ago.
> 
> Last week I visited the Riverside & Great Northern RR at Wisconsin Dells,
> Wisconsin.  What's interesting about this 15" gauge railroad is that it
> was originally a manufacturing plant for the trains, and its 1-1/4-mile
> line was built as a demonstration railroad for prospective amusement
> park/zoo customers. It's built on the former Milwaukee Road right of way,
> and is parallel to the current Soo Line (Amtrak) route to the Twin
> Cities.  The 15" demonstration line and manufacturing facilities were
> built in the early 1950's to make live steam trains.  The company
> (Sandley Manufacturing Co.) went out of business in the late 70's, but
> all of the old shop buildings, roundhouse, 3 turntables, water tower,
> two-story station and other structures are still there.  The whole place
> was re-opened to tourists in 1990.  It's now operating again,and they run
> a couple of steam locomotives and a diesel.  And if you're there at the
> right times of the day, you can pace Amtrak's Empire Builder on the
> parallel right of way!
> 
> Bob Rathke 9/13
> 
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