[PRCo] Re: 2002 PTM calendar

[Fredbruhn at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/14/01 1:21:05 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
transitmgr at worldnet.att.net writes:


> Bill was named after a Presidential candidate.  I was born in 1928
> just after the election and almost was named "Herbert"!  In my National
> Guard unit I had a Roosevelt Nixon and Franklin D. Knuckles.
> 
> 

That is correct, William Jennings Bryan Gwinn.

I wish I had a disposition of all the Co-Op cars.  39, a Cincinnati curveside 
car is at Seashore.  47 sat on Route 250 as a storage shed in a junk yard 
until it rotted away.
It was about a dozen miles out of Wheeling in Ohio towards Cadiz.  Car 9 was 
a shed near Martins Ferry but I think it is gone now.  Most of their cars 
were stripped 
of parts north of Bridgeport on the 79 Rayland line.  I think they may have 
been burned on the spot.  Several were torched behind the Warwood car barn.  
I have a photo or two of the WP 700 type cars (Panhandle Traction, but never 
changed for the front door like WP) sitting in Warwood at the barn missing 
windows, etc.  The two sloped end cars that Harold mentions (100 and 101) 
have been rumored to have gone to a lake towards Columbus for use as cabins.  
Someday I plan on searching this out.  The first car was modified to 
modernize the ends, and the second built from 
scratch.  They initially made trips on all lines, but my photos seem to 
indicate they were used on Martin Ferry lines and Shadyside mostly.

Bill's seniority usually got him route 61 (Lansing) or in bus days route 69 
(Barton).  This allowed him to stop in front of his home at 650 Main St. and 
pick up a hot lunch.

Most probably don't know that Bill requested from the company to allow him to 
post his photos in the dispatch room in the Island barn.  They provided 
several glassed 
cases on the wall for his use and he would rotate the photos from time to 
time.  I 
made my initial contact with him in 1954 by wondering around the barn on a 
visit to Wheeling to see grandparents and saw the photos inside.  Being a bit 
shy, I went home and got my grandmother to find out if I could go in and see 
the photos and she had no reservations of barging right in.  Bill came in off 
his run soon after and that is how I met him.  My first Wheeling trolley trip 
was in 1947.  I think Bill switched to buses before the end of trolley 
service to keep his run intact.  Lansing went off in 1947 and the last lines 
in 1948 were scheduled to close near the end of April, but floods on the 
island on the 12th. ended things prematurely.  Several feet of water
covered the island.  My father used to tell me of his childhood days in the 
20's when flood waters would almost hit the second floor of homes and the 
boys would pull themselves along in a boat using the trolley overhead.  It 
wasn't until the floor control 
dams and lakes built in the 30's came along that the flood waters could be 
controlled Even with that most basements in Wheeling were dirt floors and 
stone walls.  Every spring brought some flooding until the early 60's.

Bill used a Kodak box camera for almost all his photos, and I remember 
towards the end of his trips to Pittsburgh he had a more modern camera.  He 
would rubber band a sheet to the box camera to keep the notes on where and 
when the shots were made.  He did his own developing in a wash room off the 
kitchen on the first floor.
Some think he used his wife's dirty wash water to develop his prints.   

We are fortunate Bill Gwinn and you other photo historians were around and 
had the foresight to capture the trolley years.  If Bill had not discovered 
-- as he once said "gee I found out other people liked to take to trolley 
photos too" from that first fan trip he was conductor on, we would have scant 
coverage of Co-Op.  I have been running
a series in Traction and Trolleys Quarterly off and on for the past 10 years. 
 We have one chapter to go.  All I owe the editor is a system map and its 
done.  Ed and I have tossed around doing Co-Op as a museum project sometime 
and I hope we can get to it.  

Fred