[PRCo] Re: Changed to Years Make a Difference

Schneider Fred fwschneider at comcast.net
Tue Jun 9 10:17:54 EDT 2009 

Sure.   Go ahead and forward with my blessing.

Demographics of cities change.   Attitudes change.   Edmonton and  
Calgary are two very different cities.   Edmonton is a dump.    
Calgary is very progressive.    But don't forward that.

On Jun 9, 2009, at 12:51 AM, Ken and Tracie wrote:

> Fred,
>
> May I forward your observations to Richard DeArmond's Pacific Rail  
> News
> list?
>
> It may perk up a few members who have been down about the Edmonton  
> trackless
> trolley shut down.
>
> It may even encourage some people to change their outlook of both  
> the hobby
> and the industry.
>
> K.
>
> P.S.- You and I have had healthy discussions concerning the  
> feasibility of
> some of the new systems. Eighty years from now, some historians of the
> Hilton and Due mindset may ask the same  
> questions.............."What were
> they thinking back in 2015 when so-and-so built their new light  
> rail line?"
> ;-)
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Schneider Fred" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Sent: Monday, June 08, 2009 8:44 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] Changed to Years Make a Difference
>
>
>> Yes, John, a few years make a lot of difference.  On my recent trip
>> west I stopped in Los Angeles and in Charlottesville to see two  
>> friends.
>>
>> In April, 1963 I met two very good friends for the first time:
>> Donald N. Duke and William D. Middleton.   Don is now 80 and Bill
>> ihas turned 81.   Bill just lost his wife of 53 years in April.   I
>> can remember when she was young and there were two little boys
>> running around the house.   Now the oldest of those boys is a tenured
>> professor of anthropology at Rochester Institute of Technology.
>> Let's see, Bill is 12 years older than me and Don is 11 years older.
>>
>> Don remembers Los Angeles during World War II ... sow bellies.
>> Wooden standards.   Brand new PCCs.   He would have been nine when
>> Shirley Temple chistened the first PCC.   Long trains of wooden cars
>> on Pacific Electric.   He photographed Birney cars in Fort Collins
>> when he went to college.   Don 's mom supervised the movie studio
>> schools ... he knew a lot of the child actors ... he actually has a
>> picture of himself playing with a little girl named Shirley Temple in
>> her parents' home.
>>
>> Bill claims he courted Dorothy on the North Shore.   He photographed
>> things I missed in my own area like the LIberty Bell Route.   That
>> man got things everywhere that I missed from Bamberger to Fort Dodge,
>> from Milwaukee Electric to Waterloo, Iowa.   He has some fabulous
>> early 1950s stuff on Pacific Electric because he was working in Los
>> Angeles then.
>>
>> But you know John and those of your who are younger than most ... you
>> have a marvelous opportunity that Don and Bill and the old timers
>> will not have.   The industry is being revitalized.   The number of
>> United States and Canadian cities with trolley lines and subways
>> dropped to an all-time low of ten in the 1960s.    Phoenix was the
>> 58th city when it opened just after Christmas 2008.  They're moving
>> 30,000 passengers a day now!   When Savannah's River Street line
>> opened in February, the number reached 59 different cities.   Norfolk
>> should be the 60th when opens.   Portland has announced that the
>> Clackimus line will open on September 12th.
>>
>> The guys who introduced me and most of us to this hobby had a
>> difficult time getting to all the lines before the shut down.   We
>> just could not get to all of them as fast as they were being
>> abandoned.   I missed a lot after I became a "railfan."   And even
>> after I came of legal age, I never got to Los Angeles before what Ira
>> Swett called Die Day.
>>
>> But the biggest problem I'm having today is getting to all the new
>> ones as they open.   What a fabulous problem.   I still haven't
>> gotten to see the SLUT line in Seattle.   And there was that tourist
>> line in Galveston that ran for while until Hurricane Camille ... I
>> saw the cars are sitting at barn in April ... doesn't look like
>> they've run since the storm.   I missed that.   There are about a
>> half dozen new lines in France that I have not gotten too ... Guess I
>> need a few good French dinners too.   And Phil Craig showed me some
>> great videos of a new light rail line in Porto, Portugal ... hell,
>> all I have seen there is are those old Brill semi-convertibles.   I'm
>> told I also need to look at what Spain is doing.   And Kolkata (the
>> Brits called it Calcutta) has some new trams with glass windows up
>> into the roof.  I've got to get back to India.   So much new stuff to
>> see and so little time.
>>
>> Think about it ...
>>
>> Could we be living at better time?
>>
>> Perfesser Fred
>>
>>
>>
>> On May 31, 2009, at 11:09 AM, John Swindler wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Fred and I have often discussed the difference that seven years
>>> makes.  He has memories of low floor cars in Pittsburgh; my
>>> memories are of PCCs.    I remember only 8 and 15 in Baltimore;
>>> Fred has a longer list.  And the list goes on.  But there are some
>>> 'impressions' from earlier years.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> One impression is that there were four movie theaters in
>>> Wilkinsburg.  Memories start with a theater across from the Rowland
>>> on Wood St. being boarded up.  There is also an impression of
>>> passsing a streetcar on what would have been the Laketon Rd.
>>> terminal, but I was only about 5-6 at the time.  And there were
>>> three stores that carried model trains in Wilkinsburg.  Sol's on
>>> Penn, a hobby store on Wood and what seemed like a key maker on
>>> Rebecca.  I bought my last Lionel there around 12 with 'paperboy'
>>> earnings:  a green Rock Island box car.  But that falls into the
>>> 'memory' rather than 'impression' category.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> As for being 'let loose', that around my 13th birthday in summer
>>> 1959 when parents allowed me to start Sunday/Holiday pass riding.
>>> First time was 64 to Oakland, then 77/54 to northside, then 18
>>> towards Woods Run, then everything after kind of merges together.
>>> Delivering the Post Gazette paid for some 620 film and helped this
>>> to become a frequent warm weather weekend ritual for next several
>>> years.  In retrospect, I would have taken more photos, not
>>> concentrated so much on Library and Drake, and asked a lot more
>>> questions.  But hey, I was just a kid.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>> John
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> p.s.  our barber was on Coal St. near Jane St. terminal of 76
>>> Hamilton.  Cost was $1 during early 60s.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> CC: shaney7366 at aol.com
>>>> From: fwschneider at comcast.net
>>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Verona Road at Frankstown 1936
>>>> Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 19:26:54 -0400
>>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>>>>
>>>> You should never say Thanks for the Memories because some damn fool
>>>> might just add more to it.
>>>>
>>>> I remember being told that after World War II, the two fastest
>>>> growing municipalities in Pennsylvania were Levittown, Bucks County
>>>> and Penn Hills Township, Allegheny County. But much of that came
>>>> after I left.
>>>>
>>>> My parents remembered Deere Brothers running school buses from
>>>> Universal to Pittsburgh and Wilkinsburg via Frankstown Road. I
>>>> remember in 1955 that he had escalated up to 35 foot air-ride GM
>>>> diesels and Mr. Deere, as my mother called him, was one of a  
>>>> handful
>>>> of profitable carriers that actually fought inclusion into the Port
>>>> Authority. He was making money for the same reason that Merrit
>>>> Taylor was churning over dollars in Delaware and Chester Counties
>>>> with his buses and trolleys .... location, location, location.
>>>>
>>>> But what is a suburb. It is nothing more than the next ring beyond
>>>> the urban core that we are now filling up. At least that is a
>>>> definition that works for me. In the aughts, teens and twenties
>>>> there were trolley suburbs within the city of Pittsburgh.
>>>>
>>>> Penn Hills was simply the suburb of my youth. Dad had a aerial
>>>> photograph of Crescent Hills, where we lived, that Meadow Gold  
>>>> dairy
>>>> was giving away. About one out of every four lots was filled so it
>>>> must have been exposed in the very late 1930s.
>>>>
>>>> There were no major stores out there. At the top of Crescent Hills
>>>> Drive on Frankstown Road, there was a small frame convenience
>>>> store ... the 7/11 or Turkey Hill or Get and Go of its era. Seems
>>>> to me it had a soda fountain in one end. Eastwood was the nearest
>>>> major grocery store.
>>>>
>>>> Wilkinsburg was vibrant. If we went out to dinner on Saturday
>>>> night, Wilkinsburg was the place to go.
>>>>
>>>> Doctors made house calls. But he also stayed in his office until he
>>>> had seen the last patient in much the same manner that barbers
>>>> work. You go, sit in the waiting room, and when he gets to you, you
>>>> see him. Our family doctor's office was on the main drag in
>>>> Swissvale. Now remember that this was before the era of two, three
>>>> or four car families. Mom never drove a car. So if it was my
>>>> mother who had to visit the doctor or my sister, then dad had to
>>>> driver her there. Then he had the problem of entertaining me for an
>>>> hour or two. Well, my father was sort of a closet railfan. Not as
>>>> nuts as me though he did makes some models in OO gauge and he was
>>>> charter subscriber to Model Railroader. So, when they were in the
>>>> doctor's office, dad would introduce me to sitting along the PRR in
>>>> Edgewood or Swissvale or up on the high level platforms in
>>>> Wilkinsburg. I remember getting scared of a fast moving train and
>>>> running into the enclosed platform shelter. I guess all kids do
>>>> that at age 6 or 7. I also remember him parking and killing time
>>>> along Ardmore Blvd. in Forest Hills one night. I wonder if that
>>>> helped to spawn an interest in trolleys? It might be or it could
>>>> also be his tale of being overtaken as be a fast moving Ohio  
>>>> Electric
>>>> car as he drove his aunt's 1925 Chevy (that was pre Govm't Motors
>>>> car) along the National Pike.
>>>>
>>>> You want a haircut? For a while dad frequented a barber in Oakmont
>>>> until he found Charlie in East Liberty. Rather strange isn't
>>>> that ... fits right in with the commercial, "Get Wildroot Cream  
>>>> Oil,
>>>> Charlie." I used to assemble Strombecker wooden models that I
>>>> acquired in a model store on Penn Avenue in East Liberty. Seems to
>>>> me that East Liberty might have had seven movie palaces at that
>>>> time. I remember going there once to see something.
>>>>
>>>> What about the Miracle Mile in Monroeville or the shops on Rodi  
>>>> Road
>>>> just off Frankstown? They were built after we moved out in 1949.
>>>> Monroeville was where you went on Sunday to milk from a farmer  
>>>> if you
>>>> ran out. The other option was the man who ran Stoner's Dairy on the
>>>> hill between Coal Hollow Road and Lime Hollow Road. Rodi Road?
>>>> That's where the old Morrow School was ... one of those classic  
>>>> eight
>>>> room yellow brick schools. I went there for first and second grade.
>>>>
>>>> It was all country out there up until we moved out in 1949.
>>>>
>>>> Yes, I can remember when the Parkway East and West were built. I
>>>> can also remember that you drove out old route 30 to get to the
>>>> turnpike at Irwin.
>>>>
>>>> But John Swindler would have to tell you about West Penn. My only
>>>> memory of that was conning my dad into letting me ride 289 for a  
>>>> few
>>>> blocks in Jeannette just after I turned 12 and a few months  
>>>> before it
>>>> quit. It was a Saturday morning and the car had a full seated
>>>> load. But apparently there were not enough passengers at all hours.
>>>>
>>>> In was the next year that I finally managed to break away. We were
>>>> in Pittsburgh for the obligatory Easter vacation week at grandma's
>>>> home. Dad had given me enough money to buy two interurban zone fare
>>>> books. I rode to Roscoe and Washington on my own. Come summer we
>>>> were on vacation in Montreal. Dad was asked to solve a corporate
>>>> problem between his plant in Lancaster and the Armstrong Cork plant
>>>> in Montreal. (He never did get that day back.) Mom took us on the
>>>> sightseeing tour car around Montreal thinking that would get  
>>>> trolleys
>>>> out of this 13-year-old's system. Was she ever in for a rude
>>>> awakening. By lunch time she apparently tired of my wining and told
>>>> me to "be gone" but I had to be back a intersection on Rue Ste.
>>>> Catherine at 5:00 that afternoon. I took off like wild for the
>>>> Montreal and Southern Counties. When I got back she wasn't there.
>>>> Mom was almost a half hour late. I took having my own children to
>>>> realize that sometimes it is better to be late yourself than be on
>>>> time and risk worrying about where your children are. I had one
>>>> more trolley ride on that trip and that was on a former wooden New
>>>> York or Staten Island trailer on the Quebec Railway for the eight
>>>> miles from Montmorency Falls into Quebec. That was one of hell of
>>>> a ride.
>>>>
>>>> Funny thing about growing up. In your youth you tend to have tunnel
>>>> vision. I've spent a lot of money in my later years seeing all
>>>> those places that I didn't want to see when my parents were  
>>>> dragging
>>>> me around on family vacations because the trains and trolleys were
>>>> all important then.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On May 29, 2009, at 9:59 AM, Barry, Matthew R wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Great memories! Thank you for sharing!
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
>>>>> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On  
>>>>> Behalf Of
>>>>> Schneider Fred
>>>>> Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 9:30 PM
>>>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>>>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Verona Road at Frankstown 1936
>>>>>
>>>>> Correct. Brain is at low energy state Art.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On May 28, 2009, at 7:43 PM, ArtS32 at aol.com wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't think it was Rosedale, I believe this was Eastwood.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Art Swartz
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In a message dated 5/28/2009 6:25:17 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>>>>>> fwschneider at comcast.net writes:
>>>>>> Amazing. Simply amazing.
>>>>>> I am sending this to my sister as well. She might enjoy  
>>>>>> clicking on
>>>>>> the link which should appear in red when she gets it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We grew up in Penn Township, later Penn Hills. Well, I spent nine
>>>>>> years there and she was there for the first three and half years.
>>>>>> She moved back and is living off Penn Avenue above Wilkinsburg,
>>>>>> perhaps no more than 2 miles from the location of the photo in  
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> link.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I was born three years after the Hulton - Oakmont - Verona -
>>>>>> Wilkinsburg trolley line was removed. All that I can remember is
>>>>>> remnant of the line, i.e. Laketon Road shuttle. I can vividly
>>>>>> recall a day in 1949 when my sister tried jumping off the foot
>>>>>> board
>>>>>> of my parent's bed head first on to the floor instead the  
>>>>>> mattress.
>>>>>> I spent several hours waiting in the car of a family friend  
>>>>>> parked
>>>>>> outside a hospital or doctor's office in Wilkinsburg. The shuttle
>>>>>> car went by many times and that was the day I remember
>>>>>> observing, at
>>>>>> age 8, that Pittsburgh Low-Floor cars had arch bar trucks. My
>>>>>> sister, by the way, did suffer a fractured skull from her sky
>>>>>> diving
>>>>>> attempt and spent quite a bit of time in a hospital that year.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But back to the picture below. I don't have a map here. Was that
>>>>>> neighborhood not known as Rosedale? I remember that there was a
>>>>>> food store there, perhaps a Krogers or an A&P where we did  
>>>>>> most of
>>>>>> grocery shopping. It was situated on the south side of Frankstown
>>>>>> just to the east of Verona. I suspect that the photographer was
>>>>>> standing almost in front of the grocery store. Sometime after
>>>>>> World
>>>>>> War II they offered a promotional gimmick that I suspect  
>>>>>> management
>>>>>> figured would not cost them anything. If you can bring in the  
>>>>>> cover
>>>>>> from the first issue (vol. 1 no. 1) of Life magazine, you will
>>>>>> get a
>>>>>> week's worth of groceries free. That was probably about a $5.00
>>>>>> value at that time. Maybe a little more. My father marched in
>>>>>> with the magazine.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Does that suggest that being a pack rat runs in the family?  
>>>>>> The run
>>>>>> of Life magazines was finally destroyed about 1962. I think it  
>>>>>> was
>>>>>> helping to cause the center of the house to sink and pull ends  
>>>>>> away
>>>>>> from what was becoming a free standing chimney.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks Matt for forwarding it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Fred Schneider
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On May 26, 2009, at 3:14 PM, Barry, Matthew R wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I have only ever seen a photograph of a streetcar with a VERONA
>>>>>>> destination sign, and also, a photograph of the trestle that  
>>>>>>> once
>>>>>>> crossed over Coal Hollow Road at Verona Road, but no other
>>>>>>> pictures
>>>>>>> that documented trackage somewhere on the line. Taken in 1936, I
>>>>>>> imagine the cars were still running over this trackage since the
>>>>>>> line wasn't abandoned until the following year - I think
>>>>>>> cutback to
>>>>>>> Laketon Road. The photo is from the Historic Pittsburgh site,  
>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>> here is the description:
>>>>>>> Title: Atlantic White Flash
>>>>>>> Date: October 6, 1936
>>>>>>> Creator: Pittsburgh City Photographer
>>>>>>> Description: An Auto Shop and Barber Shop at the intersection of
>>>>>>> Verona Road and Frankstown Avenue. Looking west from Verona  
>>>>>>> Road.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Matt
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
>>>>>>> -- Type: image/jpeg
>>>>>>> -- Desc: verona_frankstown_Oct1936.jpg
>>>>>>> -- Size: 64k (66521 bytes)
>>>>>>> -- URL : http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/
>>>>>>> verona_frankstown_Oct1936.jpg
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>>>>> 355/47.796964/-66.374711/2/Youve-Found-Where-Its-At?ncid=eml
>>>>>> cntnew00000007)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> _________________________________________________________________
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>>
>>
>
>

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