[PRCo] Is It Genetic?

[Kenneth Josephson]

ROGER Jenkins wrote:

> Heaven forbid Ken !! Not a traction fan ??  What else is there to be a
> fan of ?

Uh, aero space? Architecture? Automobiles? (Gasp!) Good Music? Food?
(tracie is leaning over shoulder and asking me why I haven't listed
"women".....a loaded question!)

Seriously, though I'm the only traction fan in my family, there is a
traction heritage of sorts in my lineage.

After my father decided to become a specialist instead of a general
practitioner, he took the NSL to Chicago three times a week to attend
classes at U of C. After the NSL was abandoned, he found the Milwaukee
Road "had a bad attitude" (his words, though later on he "forgave" them)
and the Northwestern schedules not compatible with his. So he finished his
classes commuting from Milwaukee to Chicago by automobile and racked up
200,000 miles on our '59 Impala.

My maternal grandfather owned a broom and brush manufacturing company
located in the former Sheboygan Coca-Cola bottling plant. The building had
been a carriage manufacturing concern prior to that. But he sold produce
on the side and used the Milwaukee Northern Railway to receive fruit and
vegetables from Milwaukee concerns. My uncle remembers the "Bathtub
Special" which used WP&L, MN/TMER&L, NSL and CRT to carry plumbing fixures
from Kohler to Chicago.

I have a paternal cousin who is a card carrying member of the Communist
Party. He dropped out of pre-med studies and is now a maintenance of way
worker for the NYC subway system. He grew up in Pittsburgh and seemed to
have an interest in the government versus Pittsburgh railways battles
leading up to and beyond the PAT takeover. He seemed to forget his
socialist leanings by showing some sympathy for C.D. Palmer's family.

During nursing school, my mother rode the CSL "Red Rattlers" from her dorm
to campus & back.

We took a ride on the NSL when I was three, but all I remember from that
trip was passing Ryan Tower.

I do remember coming home from the '65 World's Fair and finding all the
Milwaukee trackless trolleys missing from the streets. That was rather
tramatic, as was seeing less and less traction action in Pittsburgh
everytime we visited my uncle. My uncle was a neighbor and acquaintance of
C.D. Palmer, who was an official at PRCo and later PAT (there's my tie-in
to appropriate subject matter.) Mr. Palmer's family did not like John
Dameron or his polly parrot little sidekick, Ed Jensen.

Ken J.