[PRCo] Vacation

[Fred Schneider]

Derrick:  Please put me on vacation ... the lure of the Swiss mountain
railways is too great to pass up.    If you remember, turn me back on
January 15th.

Wish some of the rest of you guys were going ... maybe I should go into
business running small railfan tours to Europe.  Nothing really beats
Switzerland ... a country about the size of Pennsylvania and with
unparalleled grandeur, and with a public railroad timetable an inch
thick.  The post bus schedules are close to an inch and half.  There
really isn't anywhere you can't go without an automobile.  And the
schedule keeping is virtually flawless ... I've never seen a train more
than five minutes late, and over two minutes is highly irregular.

Also plan to see a buddy from Germany ... a meeting in Innsbrück,
Austria to look at trolleys on the 12th.   Going back to a great hotel I
found in Mutters ... up in the mountain.  The view from the dining room
is fabulous when the lights come on a dusk down in Innsbrück, several
thousand feet below in the valley of the Inn River. (Much nicer than
looking down into McKeesport from across the Monongahela.)   The lady
that runs it speaks flawless "American."  I asked where she learned it.
She said in school.  I pointed out that no one learns it that well in
school.  Then she acknowledged that her husband works for a company
situated in Concord, California, and she goes with him on business
trips.  It's a great place for older Duewag cars in the snow covered
mountains.

Funny thing ... in the 1950s most railfans didn't like Europe because
their trolleys looked different.  Hmmm. Now they look just the same as
here.  Same concept.  But they have cleaner cities.  I was left
speechless one day when I saw a dumpster in a small Swiss town with
folowers planted around it.  Tells a lot about the people.

Auf wiedershen bis fünfzehnten Januar

fws