[PRCo] Vicinal's PCC

[Schneider Fred]

Let us hope that Derrick's system property strips this and puts the  
picture into a link.

I found the picture, unattributed, in a message from Dan Joseph in  
Chicago.   Whether or not he took it is unknown.   It is listed as  
Charleroi, Belgium.

The car is the one St. Louis Car Company vehicle that was built for  
the Vicinal interurban system in Belgium.   I do not have my notes or  
my books.   Seems that the car went second hand to a Yugoslavian  
property and then must have been brought back home to the museum.     
Vicinal (including the tiny bit along the coast that remains) was  
meter gauge.

Essentially you are looking at a narrow-bodied Johnstown PCC on  
something resembling Los Angeles trucks.

By the way, the interpreted traveller is back home after having  
looked at Phoenix, Tucson, San Diego, construction in Los Angeles,  
the Escondido-Oceanside Sprinter, the Albuquerque commuter rail, New  
Orleans, Galveston (in spite of what the agency's web site said ...  
it ain't running since the flood), Savannah and Charlotte plus a lot  
of national parks (Death Valley, Organ Pipe Cactus, Big Bend, Grand  
Canyon (five times more visitors in a year than when I was there in  
the 1970s), and some pretty remote places like old US route 90 across  
Texas.   I was doing my very best to find roads I had never driven  
over before and it is getting difficult to do so ... car got pretty  
dusty on those dirt roads!  Found a few strange restaurants too ...  
one would not really expect Indian in Yuma, AZ would they?   Or  
Korean in Charlotte, NC?   Found a great English pub in Phoenix ...  
the steak and kidney pie was really authentic.

The ultimate in strange was the place in Sanderson, Texas that  
advertised fish and chips.   Now that is a British dish.   One would  
expect cod or plaice with a touch of vinegar on the fries.   This  
place had hot chile peppers ground up in the batter on the catfish.    
Just about as authentic as the "Mexican restaurant" I ventured into  
in Brighton, England, that served me a burrito stuffed with peas and  
carrots.   But Sanderson had 3000 people before the Interstate was  
built 60 miles north of town.   Then the UP wiped out the division  
point there when they took over the SP.   Today there are about 70  
families left, three struggling motels, two gas stations, one  
convenience store, one restaurant ... I was just lucky I ate.   The  
people who still live there have to drive hundreds of miles just to  
find a Family Dollar store.   The nearest city of any consequence?    
El Paso, Austin or San Antonio would be a 600 mile round trip.    
That's what you do to buy a new truck or a suit of clothes or go to a  
good hospital.

Speaking of hospitals.   On the way home I stopped to see an old  
friend who is scheduled for surgery on April 28 for a broken back.    
To complicate matters worse, his wife of 53 years died one day after  
their anniversary on April 1st.    I've known this man for 46  
years.   If any of you know Bill Middleton ... sympathy and get well  
cards are in order.

Now I need to get to hospital for blood work for my own surgery on  
Friday ... routine stent.   I'm tired of the angina pains at 7000  
feet above sea level.

Perfesser Fred







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