[PRCo] Re: crossing the border

[Bob Rathke]

I made dozens of trips to Canada over the decades, and I always carried a
birth certificate or a passport with me, but I was never asked to show them
until 1993.  Since then, the Canadian immigration officers have always asked
to see my papers, and one time they even threatened to deny access to me
because they couldn't detect the raised seal on the papers, but they finally
used their fingers to find it.

Bob 3/6/05


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harold G." <transitmgr2 at earthlink.net>
To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2005 7:54 PM
Subject: [PRCo] crossing the border


> Greetings to Ed and Fred
> About crossing the border.   Coming to the USA is no easy job.
> I withhold any comments about recent changes,
>
> When I first went to Canada as a high school student, I had no
> drivers license or photo ID.  Took the overnight CP train from Boston
> to Montreal.  I had no passport.  I took my birth certificate but
> no one asked for it.
>
> When I first went to Juarez Mexico from ElPaso, I took the PCC
> across the bridge.  This was l960.  No problems or check in
> People from Mexico had work permits or were shopping.  The
> seats on the PCC were turned the long way so that you faced
> the aisle
>
> In l953 I used the Tunnel bus to Windsor from Detroit.  The first
> of many visits.  Coming back you exited the bus and walked thru
> an immigration building.
>
> Boy has Washington changed all this.
>
> Now go to Europe.   No passports or immigration within the
> European community.  Free movement for free people.
> Even before there was never anything too involved.  For a while
> in the late l980's, France wanted a visa after some terror attacks.
> Even then many local trips had no inspection.  You could take the
> local EMU from Brussels to Lille with no checks.  Or walk over
> the border from the end of the Geneva tram.   Or ride an international
> bus across the 3 way border at Aachen, France and Belguim
>
> Going into the east you needed a visa to go to Poland, Czekslovak,
> Hungary or Romania.  I always went ti the enbassy in Wash DC.
> But this is what I did when I went to Australia.  Nice people in the
> embassy and at the border.  They all had relatives in the USA
>
> East Germany and East Berlin was something else.  They ran a jail
> for a nation.  They collected West German hard currency and gave
> you worthless east money.  At the subway crossing in Berlin,
> they took your passport away and you sat sometimes as long as
> an hour.  East Germany may have been worse than Russia.
>
> But once you were in, I was never bothered riding trams or trains.
> I used good sense about photo taking.  Now NY and NJ wants to
> play police state about train photos.  Metra in Chicago says OK
> for such photos.  Its the Police that are doing all this.in NY and NJ.
>
> Small cities in Easr Germany often had few English speakers.
> On a visit to the tram in Karl Marx City I encountered none.  So
> we talked street car with lots of gestures.
>
> I visited Romania on a trade mission but had no problem with
> the officials.   On the way out on an overnight sleeper to Budapest,
> I counted 13 Romanians check every thing three times.  Then we
> crossed into Hungary and one Hungarian Sgt did every thing.  He
> spoke German, English,Russian as well as Romanian and Hungarian.
> This was when both were still Communist.
>
> The Romanians were proud of their transit work.  Very crowded and old
> but trying.  The Romanian bus manufacturer actally was trying to
> sell buses in the USA.   Two went to Nassau County  They made
> their own subway cars..did not use the Russian car forced on
> Budapest and Prague.  And the tramway actually built articulated
> lrvs for Cairo to earn hard cash.  I operated this car on the streets
> of Bucharest.  I checked closely to see if I was followed
> in Bucharest.  I was not.  I rode all over town.
>
> On recent visits to East Germany every thing is now normal German.
>
> Interesting to note that none of the East German airline Interflug
> merged with Luftshana.  No planes, no crews. no nothing.
> Interflug formerly flew every where in the world.
>
> But DB rail continued to use East crews.   In East Berlin, I only found
one
> East Berlin manager on the combined BVG.  He was a young guy
> who ran the East Berlin subway shop.
>
> Harold Geissenheimer
>
>
>