PRCo. trivia

[Fred W. Schneider III]

And they represent 0.01 percent of the kids!

Kenneth and Tracie Josephson wrote:

> "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.