Trolley Freaks on eBay: This One is Getting Good!

[Fred W. Schneider III]

Let me jump in.  I'm not an airline wierdo like my friend Ed.  I have no
fondness for squeezing my large frame into an airliner seat, liking
trying to squeeze a balloon into a mile bottle, until the top of me
spreads over the adjacent seat and molds itself into the window recess. 
I did try private flight at one time ... came within a very few hours of
a license ... stopped when the property tax bill arrived and I realized
that having a place to live was marginally more important than flying
200 miles for a Coke.  

But what I've enjoyed about this group is that, over time, we seem to
have developed a fondness for one another.  We're small.  Some object to
off course subjects but most either jump in or quietly push the delete
key.  I feel we've become friends.  Or at least some of us.  I've
personally broken bread with probably three-fourths of the people on the
list and I look forward to meeting the rest.  And while I've dropped one
of the other railfan lists, I've stayed with this one because I enjoy
the discussions.   

And if someone wants to discuss planes or trains, even trolleys outside
of western Pennsylvania, or even how to fertilize flowers, I'm all for
it.  I might just learn something!  And I don't mean that with sarcasm.
I would probably only want to rule out religion and porn because I have
no belief that First Amendment rights extend to making others totally
uncomfortable. 

And I would also fight to have a bus, a covered wagon, and a 55 Chevy in
my trolley museum. I think this might be what Ed meant when he said
Multi-Focused.    

Hey, Ed, what do you think of adding a movie marquee over the exit door
of the museum.  We could change the play bill each month (or each year)
... would it not be nice to pose 4398 under a flashing sign advertising
"Birth of a Nation?"  Then after the show they can go to the imaginary
Isaly's for a snack?

Fred S  

Derrick J Brashear wrote:
> 
> --On Tuesday, February 27, 2001 02:54:59 PM -0500 "Edward H. Lybarger"
> <twg at pulsenet.com> wrote:
> 
> > The airline stuff keeps some of us sane, John!  We're multifocused!
> 
> Not to pick on you personally, or anyone else here.... sanity is overrated.
> I lost mine years ago, and yet here I am;-) And that's part of the problem.
> Despite my use of EBay, it's one of my hot buttons.
> 
> > It's transportation, and that's what I like, not just the streetcars.  If
> > there were a commercial aviation museum somewhere close, the trolley
> > museum might never have heard of me!
> 
> I never found air travel to be that interesting, but that's just me. The
> people mover at the Pittsburgh Airport, on the other hand... I wonder why
> they didn't have it run straight under the old airport over to the old
> Airport Parkway, as a way to foster development on the old airport site.
> The current system doesn't begin to test as much stuff as the old Skybus
> demo system was used to test, even if it carries more people, more
> usefully. Skybus may have or have had a place in transit, but not, in my
> opinion formulated based on the Transit Expressway reports and newspaper
> accounts of the era, at the time it was proposed. Rebuilding the existing
> Beechview line and extending the service to South Hills Village certainly
> served a market but did little to improve running times. Sure, the trackage
> along Washington Road was buried, but Broadway is still in-street or
> in-reservation running, and being near your market also means you can't go
> fast, because verily, your market is dumb and will walk or drive in front
> of you, and their family will demand large sums of money because despite
> living there for 20 years they never knew those rail cars they rode every
> day ran at any time other than when they happened to be waiting for a car,
> if they used the service at all.
> 
> And then there are the crossings tucked in the streeets up there, next to
> the houses.
> 
> Someone posited in a paper I have buried somewhere downstairs, probably
> someone reading, that if you intend to have a fully-grade-separated rapid
> service, do it right, right from the start. I think this was in reference
> to Shaker, but this alignment was never that, and unless expensive and
> unlikely to be politically viable upgrades were done, it would never be
> that.
> 
> Have I gotten wildly off the initial subject of this enough yet?
> 
> -D