[PRCo] Re: Good Old Days

[Mark McGuire]

Speaking of AB Charles Hobby Shop, I used to frequent that place alot after it relocated to a couple doors down from the corner of Biltmore and West Liberty. They had a huge 10-12 car HO racetrack set up in the basement. You paid your quarter or 50 cents for a half hour or an hour. My memory can't recall exactly. I had a black car I called Shadow. In fact, every time i see Derrick's e-mail address I think of this. My car was very fast. We'd all put a dollar down and winner took all. One day my Shadow won again, as usual, and some bully from Dormont picked it up and smashed it on the floor. The owner of the store(Mr. Charles?) heard the commotion and made the creep pay for a new car for me. Of course, it wasn't the same and I had no such luck with it. 
  Right next door to AB Charles was Tony's Barber Shop where dad used to take me to get my hair cut. Tony was a good man. Italian fellow who still had the accent as if he had just got off the boat a few months prior. I'm wondering if he's still around. I'd love to go pay him a visit. 
  Of course, my good old days were in the 70s. But they still were good old days to me.

-- Bill Robb <bill937ca at yahoo.ca> wrote:
> .
> Bill & Walt's Hobby Shop on Smithfield near Blvd.
> .
> Recommended practice for placing overhead frog for models is directly
> above track frog - early to mid-1950s.   In those days we made our own
> frogs and mine were quite crude as very young teen.  Trolley would
> Always Follow the wrong wire because the pole would scrape against the
> large crude flanges I made to guide the shoe.     I finally went out and
> measured By Footsie the frogs at the Dormont wye, at Clearview Loop and
> walked to Castle Shannon to measure frogs there and found that
> """The__General__Rule"""  is that the overhead frog is located about
> 1/3rd the distance from the point to the frog and slightly offset toward
> the curve.    A span Should Be Placed At The Point to hold the wire at
> that location directly centered over the track  --  this allows the
> slight offset toward the curve of the frog to be of practical benefit.
> .
> Told my experience to proprietors of Bill & Walt and they Soundly
> Laughed Me Out Of The Store!~!~!
> .
> Within a year or two, Suydam came out with his classic HO Catalog with a
> section on overhead at the very back which vindicated my observations as
> he stated exactly what I state above!~!~!
> .
Isn't that how motormen located the switches in fresh snow cover?








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