Purity of Pittsburgh Railways

[Jim Holland]

Greetings!

	There is a general list for trolleycars (trolley at railspot.com) at
http://www.railspot.com where anything concerning trolleycars anywhere
in the world may be discussed.  John Swindler belongs to that list as
well as Don Galt and Derrick and Bob Dietrich and a few others.

	And at e-Groups (former OneList) there is:

	1)--traction  --  also a very general discussion list.
	2)--interurbans (which allows attachments).  The name implies that city
systems are excluded from general comments.
	3)--oscaletraction - which discusses the prototype and models in
O-Scale.
	4)--largescaleTrolley - for scales larger than O-Scale only.
	5)--TROLLEYSca - for California AZ, OR, NV trolleys only

	There may be others.

	Mr. Harold Geissenheimer talks Pgh on the Pgh list and sends separate
mailings when he talks about New Jersey or new startups worldwide - very
interesting and informative.

	Why start a list to be specific if everything general is going to be
included?

	Fred's comments on the Hudson were just that - it was incidental that
Pgh was used for a comparison.  The main intent and focal point was to
discuss the Hudson system.

	Yes - I have mentioined SF and LA on the list, but it was in relation
to something Pittsburgh where the topic of Pgh was the focal point and
SF or LA were used to make a point.  I have not made a general
discussion of SF while mentioning Pgh in passing.  And if someone wants
to make more conversation or ask questions about SF (where I currently
reside), then it would be most proper to take it offlist to a private
discussion.  I have been on other lists where this happened!

	Derrick formed the list quite some time ago but it wasn't until he
posted this on trolley at railspot that  a-n-y  of the rest of us found out
about it.  I undertook an email campaign to drum up subscribers as did
one or two others.  Don Galt, Ken Josephson, Charles Brown, Ed Lybarger
and several others were notified of the Pgh list by me as they were not
on any of the above traction lists.  And when I discovered both John
Swindler and Fred Schneider on the WWW list (now shut down), I also
invited them to join the Pgh list.

	And immediately after this, I did post an off-topic item on the Pgh
list for which Derrick went right down my throat - it was not a polite
reprimand.  But he was right - and I learned and remembered the
specificity of the list.

	This list is definitely well above the others, but comments like
*relevancy police* are meant to incite, offend, and divide.

	YES - I am the one who wrote  PRIVATELY  to Fred in a good natured way
mentioning that Hudson is off-topic for the Pgh list - and Don probably
surmized this.

> Donald Galt wrote:

> > On 12 May 00, at 8:56, Fred W. Schneider III wrote:

> > I received an off-line complaint yesterday from one of the subscribers
> > explaining that this address is to be used only to discuss Pittsburgh,
> > Johnstown, and West Penn, and that my inclusion of news on the
> > Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Line was totally inappropriate.

> Your complainant was misinformed. The scope of the list was determined
> a year or more ago to extend to all of Western PA and even into WV and
> OH. Whether crossing the Delaware should be left to General Washington
> is probably a matter of interpretation.

> Please don't take the relevancy police too seriously. They have to do
> something to occupy themselves.

> Don

James B. Holland

        Pittsburgh  Railways  Company  (PRCo),   1940  --  1950
    To e-mail privately, please click here: mailto:pghpcc at pacbell.net
N.M.R.A.  Life member #2190; http://www.mcs.net:80/~weyand/nmra/