PRCo. trivia

[Kenneth and Tracie Josephson]

"Fred W. Schneider III" wrote:

> Tried to describe a yellow Peter Witt as their great grandparents school
> bus.  How the heck do you explain trolley to 5-year olds.  But why not use the
> automobile?   Destination signs?  They've never even seen a bus.  Fare box?

I can relate. Our daughter is only five, but she is already a veteran trolley rider.
She has ridden the cars on the South Shore Line, San Diego, the LA Blue Line,
Angel's Flight, IRM, ETER and OERM. As a three year old, she referred to trolley
cars as "power pole choo-choos" and steam locomotives as "hot choo-choos."  When she
was four, we attended a city sponsored event that used one of those "things"  some
people call "trolleys" ( a diesel powered caricature of a an old deck roof streetcar
mounted on a bus chassis.) The operator said, "Who wants to ride on the trolley?" My
daughter piped up, "Fake trolley! No wires!"

She uses a circa 1918 TMER&L Co. farebox as a bank and knows trolley coaches have
two poles, but no tracks. She loves ringing our Pittsburgh 1700 gong (hooked up to a
power supply) and blowing the Westinghouse whistle I occasionally hook up to our air
compressor.

She took a model streetcar to school for show and tell and came home frustrated
because all the other kids thought it was a school bus.

Sometimes we play a game where I show her a photograph of a streetcar in service and
ask her to pick out what she recognizes in my hardware collection. She calls my PCC
headlight wings "shark fins for trolleys" and laughs about it.

My wife's cousin was planning a trip to San Francisco and told her five and eight
year old children she was going to take them on a cable car. She explained a cable
car was "like a little caboose that goes up the hill in the street." Her seventeen
year old son told her to have, "Uncle Ken explain it to them." When I got through
with them, they wanted to ride all three routes, an electric streetcar and a
trackless trolley. ;-)

I told the five year old to make a wish everytime he saw a spark on the overhead.

They returned in awe of "the silent bus", "the rocket ships" (F-Line PCCs) and the
Muni Metro subway. Their folks only got them on board the Powell & Hyde cable car
and BART was out of the question. But at least they also rode a PCC, a Boeing-Vertol
and a trackless trolley. It hasn't made them traction fans, but it was pleasure to
help the middle child with a report on mass transit for a class project a couple of
years later.

Ken J.