[PRCo] Re: Trolleys

[Fred Schneider]

Interesting, Dave.   Thank you.

By the way, for a brief period about late in 1959 I was assigned to teach servicemen
how to drive in order to get basic licenses (jeep through deuce and a half).  We were
all assigned to a signal company in Pirmasens, perhaps 35 miles southeast of
Saarbrücken.  We started northwest, and I just let the fellows with me drive to get
experience.  I didn't really care where we went.  We passed Zweibrücken (Two
bridges).  And continued northwest.  Eventually we found a trolley line along the side
of the country highway.  We passed a streetcar.  And I made a strong suggestion that
we pull off.  Out came the camera. There was a fair degree of bewilders and amused
people on the truck.   And then we continued into Saarbrücken.  It reminded me of a
city I had been in before ... steel mills along the Saar River.  Streetcars on narrow
streets.  Only difference is someone forgot the can of red paint.

The next time I passed through the town ... perhaps 25 years later ... it again
reminded me of Pittsburgh.  The steel mill was closed ... unable to compete in a world
market against cheaper labor costs.  And the trolleys were long gone ... I think their
demise dated to 1962.  I've been back several times since to see the new expanding LRT
network.

Commenting farther on the linguistic frontier ... there are a lot of towns on the map
on the French side that still have German names.

Donald Galt wrote:

> On 10 Mar 2005 at 17:01, Fred Schneider wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> The first stage was entirely in Germany but the plan was always to extend it
> across the border into Sarreguemines.
>
> > 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.
>
> Lorraine (Ger. Lothringen, in origin the part of Charlemagne's empire awarded
> to his son Lothar) became French in the conquests of Louis XIV. It fell to
> Germany in 1871 and remained German until after WW1 - along with Alsace, which
> is why the two provinces tend to be linked in our memories. And was so again
> from 1940 to 1945.
>
> The linguistic frontier between French and German (like that between French and
> Dutch) has long tended to press hard to the disadvantage of French, though that
> has been countered by France's long tradition of centralised education. That
> pressure, coupled with the long period of German government 1871-1918 and the
> shorter one 1940-45 aided the survival of German dialects as the local
> languages in Alsace and parts of Lorraine no matter how French the people
> considered themselves nor how fluent in French they were.
>
> Even though nowadays you won't see Sarreguemines officially called Saargmünden,
> you can still hear that name on the street.
>
> Don