[PRCo] Re: West Penn Cars at PTM

[Fred W. Schneider III]

I've not been to Fort Edmonton, but Calgary had a similar park until the
animal rights activists forced them to replace the horse car with a
gasoline bus. 

Jim Holland wrote:
> 
> Good Morning!!
> 
> > Fred W. Schneider III wrote:
> 
> > I'm suggesting that we be capable of recreating 1900 or 1920, and how
> > people lived, and why they used the trolley, and why they went shopping
> > for perishable groceries at the corner store every day (because
> > refrigerators were a 1930s thing), why you rode the trolley to work
> > instead of your horse (old Dobbin didn't like standing in the sun for
> > twelve hours like your car does) and why twelve hours (because it was
> > simply accepted that people worked 60 to 80 hours a week).  And that
> > they used the trolley to go to the cemetery on Sunday afternoon to lay
> > flowers on Aunt Matilda's grave because that is just the thing you did
> > on Sunday.  And I'm suggesting that, if needed, we even have people with
> > props on the car ... the lady with flowers who gets off at the grave
> > yard and the woman with a live chicken for dinner (caged of course), and
> > the kid who gets on the car to peddle newspapers.
> 
> > Or am I not making sense?
> 
>         You are   ---  making sense.   Recreate the scene.
> 
>         Fort Edmonton in that City IS just that.   It has a very large streetcar loop with small
> car yard and just several pieces of equipment.   Double track line which runs down several
> streets with 90-degree turns from street to street, buildings to fit the era, autos from
> the early 1900s, and people dressed the same.   Very Nice turtleback trolleycar.
> Excellently thought out   ---   built this way, so that makes a difference.   WELL  worth
> visiting.
> 
>         But Rio Vista, by contrast, it not so appealing in that manner.   Trying to run a museum
> on 1,000--feet of track like a transit system is ludicrous and even more so if the actors
> ain't no good!!!   So many bells before starting, so many whistles before grade
> crossings.  Car is stopped, bells and whistles go off, car moves 10--feet to a grade
> crossing and stops, more bells and whistles, operator's head snaps right and left (wish
> someone would snap it off!), lurch ahead.   Running museums on schedules ala the
> prototype  --  a need, I guess, but as an operator, I like to escape that atmosphere.
> 
>         Easy job for you at the museum, Fred, and you don't havbe to worry about keeping the
> schedule on the cars   ---   just lay by the prw and someone will throw flowers at you!@!!
> 
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> 
> James B. Holland
> 
> Holland  Electric  Railway  Operation
>     "O"--Scale  St.-Petersburg Trams Company Trolleycars  &
>         "O"--Scale  Parts  mailto:pghpcc at pacbell.net
>         Pennsylvania Trolley Museum (PTM) http://www.pa-trolley.org/
>     Pittsburgh  Railways  Company  (PRCo),   1930  --  1950
> N.M.R.A.  Life member #2190; http://www.nmra.org
> 
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