[PRCo] Re: For Our Midwestern Natives and Transplants

[Schneider Fred]

There was a man named Herman Rinke in the ERA office in New York who  
used to be infuriating.   Everything you wanted to mention, he had  
been there and done that and ridden that and seen that.

Now it's my turn to be a S. O. B.   Been there.  Done that.  Rode the  
Electroliner.   Also rode a Libertyliner.

But to be honest, there is always something we wished we could have  
ridden that got away.   I I wished I could have ridden a wooden  
interurban on the Terre Haute, Indianapolis and Eastern.   And, as  
Jim Shuman used to say, just one more time to chase the setting sun  
on the Cincinnati and Lake Erie in a Red Devil ... it was gone two  
years before I was hatched.   And I would have loved to ride a  
Butterfly 1200 from Los Angeles to San Bernardino or the Sacramento  
Northern to Chico or the Texas Electric all the way from Waco to  
Dallas and Denison (170 miles).   And how could we exclude the circle  
tour from St. Louis to Danville to Champaign to Springfield and back  
to St. Louis on the Illinois Terminal.   Or Milwaukee to Sheboygan  
and to Watertown and then to Kenosha on TM and back to Milwaukee on  
the North Shore.   And I have friends who did all of that and more.    
And how about Ohio's Scioto Valley Traction ... a third rail line  
through the farm fields.   And would it not be nice to go to  
Cleveland, pick up Herb, get on the Cleveland, Southwestern and  
Columbus car and then change to the Columbus Delaware and Marion, and  
then the C&LE to Springfield and Toledo, and go back home on the Lake  
Shore Electric.   Might take two days, Herb, to get you back home.

I've actually ridden a third of the way to Sherman, Texas on DART and  
who would have believed it in 1948 when TE was torn up.   The head-on  
collision way out in the corn fields far north of Dallas that was the  
final straw and which ended Texas Electric was well within today's  
DART suburban territory.

I guess I should just count myself lucky that I've seen and enjoyed  
all that I have.

On Jan 21, 2009, at 10:42 AM, Derrick J Brashear wrote:

> On Tue, 20 Jan 2009, Ken and Tracie wrote:
>
>> Forty five years since the end. One is a last night photo.
>
> Wow, I'd forgotten that entirely. Someday I will make IRM and ride an
> Electroliner. The Liberty Liner never moved while I was around, sadly.
>