[PRCo] Re: PCC #1776

[Fred Schneider]

In Harold Geissenheimer's reminiscences about his teen age years, I can 
see a thread developing that might be of interest to others.  What he 
said intrigued me and therefore may interest others too.  So I'll add my 
youth to the stack and some of the rest of you might just do it too.

I'm not really sure when I began to "speak train" but I know my sister 
was a toddler when I already knew about Hudsons, Atlantics, Pacifics, 
the Pennsy T-1s and arch bar trucks and I was beginning to focus on 
electric traction.  That was in Pittsburgh, perhaps 1948 or 1949 and I 
would have been 8 or 9.  (Susie was born in 1945)   Dad was a closet 
railfan and a model builder who knew Albert Kalmbach and subscribed to 
Model Railroader starting with volume one in 1934.   When Mom was 
waiting in the doctor's office in Swissvale, Dad would have me watching 
trains near the old Union Switch and Signal plant or perhaps on the 
platforms at Wilkinsburg.   The food store we used was in Unity and on 
the way home we would often stop at North Bessemer to walk through the 
enginehouse.   (No frozen foods then.)  I remember dad talking to the 
B&O shop people at Glenwood asking what they thought of the diesels 
(answer: " ...too early, we've haven't torn any down yet.").  After the 
Wabash Terminal fire, dad had me up in an adjacent office building 
looking down on the twisted rusty rails.  And the PRR 28th Street 
Enginehouse in Pittsburgh was a favorite of his.  So it goes without 
saying that he was tolerant of my escapades.   I also remember waiting 
all afternoon on the Horseshoe Curve for a diesel, and just after dad 
collapsed the tripod and put the movie camera away, the Red Arrow came 
eastward behind those polished new E7s.   That could have been as early 
as 1947. 

But unlike Harold's father who taught him the "transit way," may dad 
just let me follow my own instincts, ask questions, and find my own way 
there and back.  Mom was  much more fearful.   If dad understood the 
risks involved, he never showed any fear. 

In March 1952 (just turned age 12), I was off to Castle Shannon on my 
own with a six-foot folding rule to measure a Differential Dump car in 
order to make my own drawings.  I had not yet concluded that I could 
talk the engineering staff at Homewood out of a copy.  Later that week 
Dad drove me along the West Penn from Irwin to Jeannette and I had my 
own and only ride on a West Penn car (photos show it to be 289).   I was 
also all-over the Lancaster Birney that year measuring it.

March 1953 (again, just turned 13), I rode from Pittsburgh to Washington 
one day, Pittsburgh to Roscoe the next, and then had three gloriously 
sunny days of boredom.  I just had to get out and go to Washington that 
Monday on a miserable cloudy day.  Ah, youth.   None of us could wait, 
could we? 

In August we went on a family vacation to Canada ... included Ottawa, 
Montreal, M&SC, Quebec, Claremont Railway (NH) and Branford.  Dad was 
wasting a day of vacation in Montreal on business at the request of his 
employer.  Mom had custody of the son who didn't like to be 
incarcerated.  She figured that by taking me and my sister on the 
sightseeing trolley ride of Montreal (remember those Golden Chariots?) 
that I would calm down.  So she spent 75 cents.  And it only whetted my 
interest.  She finally gave up listening to the whining and told me to 
be back at a certain intersection on Ste. Catherine St.  at five 
o'clock.  And I was off on the Montreal and Southern Counties.  I got 
back; she wasn't there.  It took many years for me to realize that she 
didn't want to be on time and find me late and worry.   December 1953 
... well back to Pittsburgh for my grandpa's funeral and I rode the hell 
out of a Sunday pass.  As Harold said, cities were great then.   

By 1953 dad had finished remodeling an 1870s farm house, and now had his 
weekends free.  The pattern gradually evolved into going shopping on 
Saturday in Baltimore or Philadelphia, and once or twice a year to New 
York.   My patter became meet them at 5 PM  either on Howard St. in 
front of Hutzler's Department Store or next to the huge bronze eagle in 
the Wannamaker Store, each in the respective cities cited before.   I 
think dad spent most of his afternoons in a burlesque house. 

It goes on from there ... mostly photographing steam and diesel and 
buses.  Our family vacations were predicated on just wandering ... no 
plans other than a general direction.  Mom knew where all the ante 
bellum mansions were.  I knew where every wheezing and leaking steam 
locomotive could be found. 

After a succession of used cameras, the first new camera was a Minolta 
Autocord 6x6 in November 1957.  In the next two years it helped me 
document a lot of Pittsburgh, St. Louis, CTA, CSS&SB, CNS&M, Cleveland, 
Shaker, El Paso, St. Louis, two trips to New Orleans, Baltimore, 
Washington, Philadelphia .... everything still running in 1959 except 
the two west coast cities.  And the army was a big help though I now 
admit to violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice by hitchiking 
over 7,000 miles in 1959 and going as far as 600 miles from base on a 
class A pass.    Were we not all young once? 

The most significant point was that either I was dumb as hell then or 
the cities were far safer then than they are today.  Only once did I 
ever feel threatened and that was in a not so good part of Queens, LI in 
1955.   I wish some of today's youngsters could understand what the 
cities were all about.   

Harold:  Remember when the men and women in the army didn't need 
automobiles because recreation could be had downtown in any city?  And 
buses ran from the bases to the cities?  Fort Dix had hourly bus service 
to both Philadelphia and New York, with however many sections might be 
required to handle the loads.  Fort Gordon Coach Company existed only to 
haul the troops between the base and Augusta, Georgia.  Fort Hood had 
regular bus service into Temple, Texas (but I found the Santa Fe's train 
from Houston to San Francisco a much more civilized way to return late 
at night).   Where do our servicemen go today for rest, recuperation, 
and relaxation now that our cities have declined?  

Fred Schneider