[PRCo] Re: [Fwd: Pittsburgh Rwy Cars]

[Edward H. Lybarger]

Several years back, I was given a copy of that manuscript to comment on.  I
was brutal.  Judging from the subsequent silence, I infer that they didn't
care for my criticisms that said that it wasn't a very scholarly piece,
merely one designed to extract money from old foamers.  Captions with
content like "The building beamed approvingly at the streetcar" will
continue to incur my wrath.  A copy of my comments is available for
inspection at the PTM Library.  I thought we (PTM) might have some
legitimate input in such a product, as a potentially large vendor of same.

Ed

-----Original Message-----
From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
[mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org]On Behalf Of
Fredbruhn at aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2001 3:01 PM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: [PRCo] Re: [Fwd: Pittsburgh Rwy Cars]



Hi Roger -

Boy I agree things have changed at the museum.  I spent most of my working
days there in the period of 1959 - 1964 and saw slow improvements.  It is
fantastic  that
the second generation of museum volunteers have carried on and made it one
great piece of history.

I hope they can someday schedule 832 for rebuilding.  It was unfortunate
that
the
main force (at the time) died unexpectedly after disassembling the car to
begin work on it.   John was quite young and died after a back operation.

The only other Cinn. curved side car saved for restoration (to my knowledge)
is Co-Op 39 from Wheeling, a one time West Penn property.  After 25 years
work is underway on it to restore it as it was delivered, not as it ended
service.  I guess that is not normal for museums today but 39 was so bad it
is almost like building it back from scratch.  There will be a page devoted
to the current state of 39 in my last Wheeling Co-Op article in the next
Traction and Trolley magazine.   The Seashore
people interested in 39 have a manuscript started on the system which I am
going to
try and add my input and maybe we will get something published.

Your input to our chat group is welcome.  After all the years I have been
involved off and on with PTM, I finally got to meet Ed Lybarger and Fred
Schneider III and Derrick
Bradshar and spend two days with them retracing my (and Ed's) all time
favorite
system, the West Penn (Coke Region only) to see what is left and fill in
blanks from my previous trips to the region in recent years.  The coal patch
doesn't change a great deal over time.  It was as pleasant a two days as I
can ever remember spending, even though we had snow and rain on day two.  If
you ever plan an excursion like that, drop me an email and my notes on
roads,
etc. can save you a lot of time getting around and maximize what you see.

Fred