[PRCo] Re: The Clock

[Mark McGuire]

In fact, that clock would be the perfect complement for Trolley Street. If indeed that clock still exists somewhere, I wonder if the present owners would consider donating it to the museum. What a wonderful piece of the past it would be.

-- "Mark McGuire" <macmarka at netzero.net> wrote:
Too bad you can't get the clock that used to be at the P&LE stop on Smithfield. Or maybe you can? ;>)

-- Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net> wrote:
The note is called thinking out loud or planting ideas.

We can get ideas in the strangest of places.   This afternoon I was  
watching a children's show on PBS.   The subject was watches and time  
and clocks.   The skit started with the actor being asked what time  
is it.   He pulled up his sleeve and asked where?   New York?   
Chicago?   Los Angeles?   London?   He had watches set for  
everywhere.   Digital watches.   Analog watches.  A sand clock that  
didn't work very well because he had to turn his arm upside-down  
every three minutes.

Do you have any idea where I'm leading you all?

No?

Many of our guests in trolley museums have no idea that trolleys ran  
on tracks.   They have no idea that than use electric motors.   They  
have no idea that they get the power from a wire overhead.

They don't know that you have to pay a fare to ride because they do it.

And it just occurred to me this afternoon that most ever saw a  
schedule.  Most do not understand the relationship between a  
timetable and a clock.

Now do you know where I'm going with this?

I've included the Pittsburgh Railways web site because some of those  
guys are museum members.   Some interested.   Some may want to help.

I'm think how train stations in Europe always have platform clocks.    
I think Swiss Federal Railways may have even linked all the station  
clocks in the entire country together because I've never found them  
to deviate by seconds from one another.   If you are in some of those  
countries like Switzerland or Germany, when the second hand moves to  
the top of its sweep, the train usually starts moving out of the  
station.

Now where do we get a large platform clock to be installed next to  
the platform at Arden (Richfol, and perhaps later moved to the east  
site) so we can show the public (particularly children) how schedules  
and a clock relate?