[PRCo] Re: Inside PCC 1673

[Fred Schneider]

A post around which the shadow curtain was wrapped at night.

And how can we have a good train system in the U. S. when you can't  
get from your home to the station and then from the station to your  
final destination by public transit?   They can because they still  
live in cities and not suburbs tht go on forever.   I live in a  
suburb .... It is pretty much a continuous suburb that is 150 to 200  
miles wide stretching from Bangor, Maine to Charlotte, North  
Carolina.   There is no f-g way you can adequately connect those  
homes to railroad stations by public transportation.    We're going  
to have to wait until we gradually move back into cities, which I  
predict will happen over the next 50 to 100 years as the price of  
gasoline rises.   Note that the barrel of oil is up to $98 this  
morning and the Euro now costs us $1.48.   (It was $1.42 when I was  
there and $1.00 when it was first introduced).

Sadly most Americans haven't got a clue how much of what they buy  
comes from other countries and how much the devaluation of the dollar  
is going to push up the cost of everything they buy from clothing  
and  lawn sprinkler and a snow shovel at Wal*Mart to their next  
Toyota or Volkswagen or Chevrolet.    Chevrolet?   Certainly.   The  
auto industry buys parts world wide.

On Nov 7, 2007, at 9:03 AM, Barry, Matthew R wrote:

> Well said, Fred.  Europe even retained their train systems and  
> exceeded what we have here.  There was a fairly good article in  
> this past Sunday's paper, in the Parade magazine, about America  
> needing a good train system -- once again.
>
> Now question -- what is the stick for in the back of the motorman's  
> seat in the photo?
>
>
> http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/image001.jpg
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org  
> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of  
> Fred Schneider
> Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 7:08 PM
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Inside PCC 1673
>
> Please don't shoot the messenger before you read the whole message....
>
> It is the American way ... it is not an indictment against Pittsburgh
> Railways as one of you said but an criticism of public transportation
> in general.   It goes back to Henry Ford telling us that each of us
> wanted our own cars.   I think I once mentioned that when my mother
> and father met at Carnegie Tech in February 1928, he had two
> wishes.   One was a vacuum tube radio to replace the crystal set.
> The other was one of those new Model A Fords.   He bought the Ford in
> 1930 when he graduated from CIT and he built the radio.
>
> Cars came with heaters.   You didn't have to stand in the rain on a
> safety island in the middle of the street.   You didn't need to have
> the fat lady beat you to the seat or sit on you.   You didn't have to
> suffer the misfortune of having some other son-of-a-bitch shed the
> water from his umbrella onto your clothing.
>
> I suspect there are also more antique automobile museums than there
> are trolley car museums, if only because we love them more than the
> trolleys.
>
> The other side of the coin is perhaps we've made very idiotic mistake
> burning up oil like crazy.   We worry about cutting trees to make
> paper bags but I wonder if if we have not used more non renewal
> resources using the resins in oil to make plastic bags?????   We've
> decentralized ourselves onto 1/2 acre building lots and left our
> cities as hollow shells in which the welfare recipients and drug
> culture live.   Those who live there, except for a few places like
> New York and San Francisco cannot even shop in the cities any
> longer.  In many cities they need to commute to the suburbs to find a
> store in which to shop (or rob).
>
> And some of you probably wonder why I like the European culture ...
> maybe it is because they still have cities where people live, work,
> eat, shop, worship and are entertained.   They don't have hollow
> shells.   As Josh Coran, who was with us remarked, you don't need a
> shopping center in Vienna ... the whole city is a shopping center.
> Right ... same applies to Munich, Graz, Linz and every place else we
> were.   Seems strange seeing elementary school kids on the streetcars
> by themselves.   Says something about the safety in their culture.
> And Munich ... the S-Bahn (commuter rail) is running at capacity, not
> like ours at 50% of capacity in Philadelphia, but at
> strangulation ... at the point where you really can't put more people
> on it.
>
> So the messenger isn't against streetcars.   He is simply observing
> that many in our culture want to preserve their automotive lifestyle
> come hell or high water ... they want gasoline at 29.9 a gallon with
> big Oldsmobile 98s and no one on the highway in front of them.    I
> don't think that will remain possible.
>
> fws
>
>
>
> On Nov 6, 2007, at 4:19 PM, Jim Holland wrote:
>
>> This will get them writing Matt~!~!~!~!
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Barry, Matthew R wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Here is a page out of the University of Pittsburgh's 1963 Owl
>>> yearbook
>>> with a photo of inside PCC 1673, and a description of riding the  
>>> cars
>>> that year by, apparently one of the editors of the yearbook.
>>> [cid:image001.jpg at 01C8208E.F3EED6A0]
>>>
>>>
>> http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/image001.jpg
>>
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