[PRCo] Re: train travel

[Schneider Fred]

Because I had no local advertisements for the Conestoga Birney car, I  
put local photographs in the advertisement racks.   One shows a  
suburban car in 1933 along the Lincoln Highway east of Lancaster.   
The caption I wrote draws attention to the very clear oil stripe on  
the pavement the disappeared along with positive crankcase  
ventiliation and sealed front end ball joints.

I used to be a live and let live sort of guy. I sort of regarded the  
smoke in southwestern Pennsylvania as a Monongahela - Donora -  
Pittsburgh problem.   Then along about the early 1970s I came to  
realize just how much the atmosphere right here in Lancaster,  
Pennsylvania ... the so called Amish farm country or Garden Spot of  
America ... had been cleaned up by the introduction of anti-pollution  
devices on automobiles.  Throughout the 1960s the summer evenings  
were always hazy.   If I went out to take evening pictures on the  
Pennsylvania Railroad, the sky always seemed to be gray and muddy by  
6:30 or 7:00.   Now by 1974 we had sunny evenings again.   I had come  
to realize, because I worked in the field of labor statistics, that  
it wasn't so much what industry was doing or not doing locally, but  
what 6 million cars and trucks in Pennsylvania (or 200,000 in this  
county alone) were doing to screw up the atmosphere.

The line in Pogo, "We have have met the enemy and they is us" began  
to make a lot of sense.   It also began to make a lot of sense that  
it was going to cost a hell of a lot of money to clean up the mess we  
had made.

Did we know better fifty years ago?  Perhaps not.   It was perfectly  
acceptable to bury New York's garbage in Secacus, New Jersey or to  
haul it out into the ocean in barges and dump it.   The sun and water  
will purify ... but it doesn't work when you put 300 million people  
in the country.   Can we clean up the planet and force others to do  
the same so that their costs of producing goods are the same as  
ours?   I have more questions than answers.

Sometimes I wonder if the natives that were here should not have  
tried harder to keep us out?   They were a lot better custodians of  
the land.

So Bob, does the law require that you rebuild with a new crankcase  
ventilation system or is that your choice?   I cannot imagine that  
the few cars left before 1972 would cause enough problems on the  
roads today to matter.   Even on the west coast (and Virginia) where  
personal property taxes on cars make it worth while to keep old  
clunkers, how long can you keep a 1959 hulk?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
Passenger_vehicles_in_the_United_States#Age_of_vehicles_in_operation


Fred Schneider


On Nov 4, 2008, at 7:42 PM, Ken and Tracie wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "robert netzlof" <wb3iqe at rocketmail.com>
> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 4:16 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: train travel
>
>
>
>> And for that matter, when was the last time any of us saw the  
>> black streak
>> of oil drippings down the middle of each lane on a haighway?
>>
>> Bob Netzlof a/k/a Sweet Old Bob
>
> Hey Bob,
>
> I remember a few of us covering this territory last year. The main  
> issue
> "back in the day" wasn't oil leaks as much as crankcase ventilation.
>
> Attached is a photo I took ten minutes ago of my '59 Plymouth's  
> road draft
> tube. Since this car is driven often, it will be receiving a modern  
> positive
> crankcase ventilation system when I rebuild the engine.
>
>
> Imagine hundreds, if not thousands of car with these tubes aimed at  
> the road
> surface.
>
> To get back on topic, we know the reason PAT painted the rear  
> section of the
> 4000 series PCCs black. LATL also figured out greased trolley wire  
> and white
> or tan roofs didn't go well together! ;-)
>
> K.
>
>
> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
> -- Type: image/jpeg
> -- Size: 48k (49355 bytes)
> -- URL : http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/ 
> roaddrafttube.jpg
>
>
>