[PRCo] Re: Trolleys

[Fred Schneider]

Isn't that a great little vest pocket trolley system, Harold?

When I first saw the line, it was close to the border but I thought entirely in
Germany.  At least the electric locomotives running on the same metals had the
Deutsche Bahn (DB) logo and not the Societé National Chemins de Fer Français
initials.  That area was part of Germany, then part of France, then again after
some point in the 1950s it reverted to Germany.  It could be anyone's guess what
is the most common language.  I would imagine that most people are at least
bilingual and the hotel people were certainly capable of at least three
tongues.  The fare inspectors, Harold?  Probably very easy in that region to
find tri-lingual employees.

I just looked at the slides I took there in 2000 and 2002.  I have my 1 in
150,000 German Atlas in front of me.  I have pictures in the Saarbrücken -
Brebach station, and again from an overpass farther south.  I did not apparently
go to the end of the line, which I believe to be in Sarreguemines, which is just
across the border into France.   However, the border is somewhere in the Saar
River and the new interurban follows the east side (or German side of the river)
for miles.

This is one of those new schemes, like the one in Karlsruhe, Germany, in which
the local trolley company provides local service over the national railroad
network.  And it was electrified in the 1960s with high voltage alternating
current.  So we have streetcars that run on low-voltage direct current on the
streets, and high voltage a.c. outside of town.  The new cars were delivered
under their own power over the national railroad network.

On a peripheral subject: I was staying one evening in a Mercure Hotel outside of
Saarbrücken.  I was having a chat with the bartender and the desk clerk late
that evening.  The guy from the desk was upset with the hotel owners (Accor,
based in Paris, France) telephoning and simply starting a conversation in French
without first having the civility to ask if the person on the other end spoke
French.  After all, the hotel was in Germany.  As the conversation progressed, I
asked where was the international boundary.  The answer?  Down the middle of the
street in front of the hotel.  The other side of the street was in France.
Things have change under the European Union ... we no longer bother about
borders!

Now which brand of German is it?  Well, any one understands Hochdeutsch or High
German because it is the language of the media ... television, radio,
newspapers, and many travelers use it to be understood.  Not all can speak it,
however.  About 25 years ago we had company for a week ... school teachers who
came from North Germany.  She came from Hamburg, he from Blieskastle in the
Saarland.  She said she could not understand his parents because the language
was so different.  But, while driving around Lancaster County, they struck up a
conversation with an Amish farmer working in his fields.  They were all
astonished that the present day language in the Saar is virtually identical to
the German that the farmer's ancestors brought to Lancaster County 250 years
ago, and it has survived virtually unchanged.  These Germans were very warmly
accepted ... the farmer had them over for dinner two nights later ... a
privilege the "English" are never accorded.

"Harold G." wrote:

> Greetings.  more about international dialects.
> The cross border dual power lrt in saarbrook
> crosses into France and runs on SNCF track and power
> I wonder what diaect the fare inspectors speak.   Harold
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: Donald Galt <galtfd at att.net>
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Date: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 1:46 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Trolleys
>
> >On 7 Mar 2005 at 18:02, Harold G. wrote:
> >
> >> Fred and all.    There is high german and low german.
> >> Prussian and swiss..
> >>
> >> In France you have French people but also people
> >> from Normandy. Brittany, Alsacce, Basque and Catalan.
> >> But one country basically French.
> >
> >And in Alsace the local language is . . . still . . . a form of German. It
> >manages to persist even though even rurals speak French from earliest
> school
> >years. And even though if Alsatians want to be understood by Germans from
> just
> >across the river they have to speak Hochdeutsch - or perhaps French.
> >
> >To my ear, Elsässisch sounds a lot like Switzerdütsch - though I doubt that
> >either the Swiss or the Alsatians would agree with me.
> >
> >Don
> >
> >