M454?

[Fred W. Schneider III]

If any of us are to keep the museums going, I truly believe we have to
put our railfan interests behind us and look at the museums from a
businessman's perspective.  I love running little hand brake cars in
Baltimore.  They're great.  But never forget that a two-motor Philly or
New Orleans car is simple to maintain, requires no great electrical
engineering expertise, and is easy on power bills.  And if the streetcar
is red, the public recognizes it (even if it was retired before they
were born).  You can still find parts for PCC cars.  It might be nice to
run 3487 on members day, but why spend that kind of money on the
public?  

There is some question that the level of overhaul needed to restore the
Rio car would be so significant that it could fall under the Americans
With Disabilities Act requirement to make it ADA compliant.  Oak timbers
on a car like that might be good for 90 to 100 years.  Conceivably,
using broad gauge trucks from something else, and a new body with a
wheelchair ramp (ala Lowell, Mass.) would be suitable. It has been
discussed so I'm not surprised that one of the docents picked up on it. 
Not only do I work at PTM, but I'm also active at the Baltimore
Streetcar Museum.  I can guarantee you that an open car is one heck of a
crowd gatherer and a money maker.  Charter?  A open replicacar still
allows us to educate the public about life before autos,
air-conditioners, mechanical refrigerators, and an era in which transit
managers bought such cars to make money in the summer.  The 501.c.3 IRS
exemption covers education. 

Restore M-1?  That is another static display.  It never was a single
truck passenger car.  It was a double truck passenger car that was
shortened to a single truck pay car, and then shortened even farther in
an unforgetable accident.  To restore it means new vestibules and adding
the paymaster's desk and chair, etc.  We've never found plans to enable
restoration.  

West Penn 728 allegedly has a worse body than 739.  I would be surprised
if it isn't stripped of any usable parts and then retired to the dust
bin.   Within my lifetime, 739 will probably be a static display in the
visitors center ... perhaps with the right trucks but wooden or
fiberglas brake shoes ... whatever it takes to make it look right for as
little money as possible.

West Penn 832 is on the short range (10? 20 year?) plans.  Care to
donate $100,000? All the new steel side sheets were cut before Baginsky
passed away.  If the money were available, it could be sent to Barr
Canon for commercial repairs.    

One of those aspects of the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum which makes us
successful is the fact that we are an operating museum, or a blend of
the operating and stuffed 'n mounted. Things like the Market - Frankford
subway car and the P&W Bullet will never run (never is a long time) but
the present people feel they make better static displays than to deface
them with trolley poles or pantographs.  But being an operating museum
does allow us the luxury of thousands of riders when the county fair is
open, for Halloween, with Santa Claus, and without such revenue we would
not be in business.  

The public also seems to enjoy watching grown men work with their toys. 
You should have been there the day that the shop crew installed a new
rewound motor in Red Arrow 78.  Having no shop crane, it had to be done
outside using M-283.  And what a crowd it drew!!! It showed the public
in a way a static display never could, how cumbersome and unwieldy a one
ton motor is. 

Nuff said.  I need sleep.  Gotta go to Elmira before the sun comes up to
take parts up for 1138.  Good night.     


AProchek at aol.com wrote:
> 
> Yeah, if I had Bill Gate's money (oh lets not be greedy, half would do) I
> would hire an army to restore 3498, m1, 728, 3487, and 832.  The later Philly
> steel cars just don't have much attraction for me, but I guess they run OK
> and people can get in and out of them.  Unless I get out of the oilfield and
> out of Texas, I'm stuck down here so there's not much I can do except write
> out an occasional check to help support those who actually work and hope
> these cars will be put back together someday.  Although truth to tell I think
> I'd rather have them as static but original heaps rather than replicated
> using the original parts only as blueprints (the term has been called
> "facadism").  I overheard one docent at PTM muse about ordering a new replica
> open car body rather than bother to restore Rio 1774.  I don't know how that
> could possibly fit into PTM's charter .  The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania
> has a very nice philosophy on this sort of thing on their website.