[PRCo] Re: Another trip

[Fred Schneider]

I know, its off course again:
Harold:

My first car was a Packard.  Couldn't have any loyalty because they were already
out of production but the dealer had an enormous spare parts inventory in
1961-1963 that there was nothing he couldn't fix on a 1949 Packard.  He also sold
Studebakers.  Now there is another one that carried on.  The firm is still in
business ... they sell only Mercedes Benz cars today and that is a little beyond
my reach.  I can buy one but I'm not one to advertise how much money I had before
I bought the car.

The next cars were all Fords ... 1967, 69, 70, 71, 72, 76.  I bought the earliest
ones because my father-in-law (first) was in the car rental business and my car
was simply an add-on to a Hertz order.  I was spending less on new cars than my
dad was on used ones.  The last two came from a great Lancaster dealer with a
saleman who knew how to listen instead of tell.  The dealer went down the train
because his cashier embezzled money.  Again, so much for dealer loyalty.   I lost
an interest in Fords because they usually started to nickel and dime me to death
after 30 to 50,000 miles.  And more recently because they don't build them for
5'-10" people unless they lean the seat back.  I know longevity has improved.
John Swindler's has three cars have been Ford Tarus machines ... he usually buys
them at 50,000 miles used and runs them up to 200,000 miles.  But I still don't
fit right.

I had one Buck Regal (1991) which needed a transmission at 80,000 miles.  When I
complained, the dealer asked me what my bitch was.  "After all," he said, "it's a
high mileage car."  I comfortable walked away from GM at that point and have not
looked back,  even though wife is driving a 95 Buick.  She has no idea about
longevity ... with great effort on her part she has the eight year old car all
the way up to 35,000 miles.

I've also owned four water cooled Volkswagens.  I traded in the 1980 Rabbit at
112,000 miles and knew I'd made a mistake when I learned that the dealer used it
the next day for a parts run to Washington DC ... best car on the lot I was
told.  I later found out that one of their salesman bought it for his son who was
going away to college.  Then I had a 1986 Jetta ... got it up to 100,000 and my
sister-in-law then put another 87,000 on it.  And the 1987 Jetta went to my niece
at 150,000 miles and she gave up at 175,000 only because someone ran into the
side of it and she felt it was not worth fixing.  My 1998 Passat is now up to
108,000 and is worth 3,500 on trade-in ... I'm figuring if I put a clutch in it
next spring it should give me absolutely no problem on another trip to the west.
Maybe by the end of 2004 it might be closer to the end of the line ... might have
160,000 on it by then.

Amazing isn't it, how cars have improved over the last century decades!  My
father remembered that a Ford Model A was good for maybe 60,000 miles if you
overhauled the engine at 30,000.  He might have run his 1939 Chevy up to 70,000
when he traded it in in 1948, with 1" pine running boards and fenders rusted
completely through (and no salt either) but he had put new rings, valves, and
main bearings it it at about 50,000.  I don't think the 1948 Chevy or the 1952
Ford ran much longer but the engines had not been torn down.  The real miracle
was the 56 Mercury with the small V8 that he coaxed up to 146,000 ... probably a
fluke.

Does this help us understand why Pittsburgh Railways isn't around today?

fws

P. S.  Maybe we should talk about what roads were like in 1945.  I remember being
stuck in bumper to bumper stop and go traffic on US 20 in northern Indiana on a
summer Sunday night in 1948.  We thought we would never get to my mother's
cousin's home in Palos Park, Illinois.  It was disturbing to see a South Shore
train, with probably eight or more full cars, roll by at 60 or so.    And then
driving from Chicago to Marietta, Ohio a week later .... 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. the
following day ... we drove at an average of 30 miles an hour in those days ...
and things really didn't change until the Interstates opened in the 1960s.  And
yet 30 miles per hour was far superior to a 15 mile per hour interurban car.

And Derrick would like this ... driving east out of Chicago toward Fort Wayne dad
saw smoke in the rear view mirror.  He was a closet railfan (compared to us).
Pull over.  Bail out.  Set up the movie camera.  Somewhere in this house is a
rather brief 8 mm color film of a passenger train on the Pennsy flying across
northern Indiana at a speed almost incomprehensible then.  I wonder how many
times I gone just that fast on remote German autobahns???

fws