[PRCo] Re: Street Cars and Amusement Parks

[Fred Schneider]

Willow Grove Park; it became a shopping center in the 1960s.    
Typical ... the land was worth more to real estate developers than  
for amusement rides.   There was also an issue in the 1960s that skin  
pigmentation might just rub off, which, in turn caused the land to be  
worth more for apartments (West View) and shopping centers.    The  
solution was to put the parks out in the country where you had to use  
a car to get there or charge an exorbitant all day rate to get  
in.     There are still some old ones around.

Whalom Park in Fitchburg Mass is still (or was a decade ago) in the  
same family ... when Fitchburg and Leominster St. Ry. went public,  
one brother got the park and the other got the charter bus business.

Lakemont in Altoona exists.  So does the one in Erie.   Same goes for  
Rocky Glen in Moosic.   Hershey Park ... it wasn't a trolley park per  
se but Milton Hershey owned the park, the trolley, the town, the  
chocolate company ... is very much in business.   Dorney Park, once  
owned by Allentown and Reading Traction Company, is still very much  
active.    There is another one ... name escapes ... near Berwick not  
all that old but a lot of old rides scavenged over 50 years or so.

Santa Cruz Calfiornia has a delightful beach front amusement park ...  
boardwalk ... sandy beach ... water probably too cold to swim in.

Rick Seback of WQED, the Pittsburgh PBS TV station did a great show  
on nationwide amusement parks, all the way from Santa Cruz to Coney  
Island.   This was a show about the old parks, not the Disneylands  
and all those built new along the Interstates.   If you want to see  
it, you can buy it from the WQED in Pittsburgh.   Go to Google ...  
type in WQED, click on it, under WQED Multimedia in Google, click on  
it or click on shop, when WQED comes up, click on shop, click on All  
American Documentaries, you will find the Great Old Amusement Parks  
iin both VHS tape or DVD for $19.95 plus freight.    Or you can call  
WQED and pay the toll call and do it that way.   Or wait until your  
local PBS station buys and broadcasts it.

On Oct 10, 2005, at 10:08 AM, <mtoytrain at bellsouth.net> wrote:

> In my reading I fround that in many cities in the early days of  
> Street Car Operations many lines generally ended up at a amusement  
> park, many of which were "built" by the Street Car companies.
> In Piitsburgh there was of course the line to Kennywood Park, and  
> West View Park.   i remember as a small boy back in the late 40s  
> seeing a numbr of jones low floor cars at Kennywood in the park  
> sidings for the cars to park.    If I am correct I believe as a boy  
> we rode Washington DC trolley to Glen Echo park. Also while in the  
> Navy rode a Philly to a Amusement Park in North Philly forgot the  
> name of it.
>
> What your memories of these operations and others and basically it  
> again was the family car that killed the trolley lines to he  
> amusement parks.
>
> Jerry Matsick
> Trackless in Jacksonville
>
> ps - we do have the Skyway Express which covers several miles in  
> downtown Jacksonville, to me
> it looks like the rubber tire experiment PRCo operation at South  
> Park back in the late 50s!
>
>
>