[PRCo] Pennsylvania Trolley Museum Vosit

[Schneider Fred]

Then you make a typographical error in the subject line and you  
realize it can be funny you leave it...
A Visit becomes a Vosit when you are so damn worn out by the weekend....

Saturday was particularly grueling because we had our own pumpkin  
trolley operation plus we were running a shuttle service to the craft  
show at the fair grounds.   Essentially we were a museum masquerading  
as a transit company or vice versa.   I was working the shuttle on  
Saturday ... we ran the south end every 20 minutes ... that's 17 or  
18 minutes for the round trip plus 2 or 3 minutes of recovery time at  
the museum site (and the run to the bath room) .... 9 hours and no  
lunch break.   The other guy and myself just kept swapping back and  
forth between the motorman's job and the conductor's job.   At the  
end of the day we had something like 370 people on the manifest.  The  
gift store collected most of the money but we still had to punch  
tickets.   We still had sold 94 fares to people who got on during the  
afternoon at the Fair Grounds.   I went to have a quick Mexican  
dinner on Saturday night and went back to the motel about eight  
o'clock.   I made an attempt at "Keeping up appearances."  I got  
through Mrs. Bucket.   But I only remember part of Are you Being  
Served.   Next thing I remember it was 11:30 and the boob tube was  
still on.

Sunday?   I let two other fools have the shuttle car and I took the  
east end car figuring that would be easier to just haul the parents  
and kids who came to get pumpkins.  Well about 3:00 Don Anderson, a  
Methodist minister with whom I haven't worked in a couple of years  
showed up with his new wife and all the kids and grandkids and he  
wanted to run.   I said I would be delight to leave and let him  
finish the day.   Whoa, Schneider.   You aren't getting out of here  
that easily.   The restoration crews had moved 4398 out of the shop  
and Bernie wanted me to move 1711 over the pit.   Then take 2711 out  
of the barn and move it down in front of the shop for an evening  
run.    Then I got a chance to get my first ride on the  
remanufactured Pittsburgh 1917 car ... one of those old yellow cars  
completely remade from the wheels up.    Then what happened?   Would  
you believe several cars were used for an after hours charter for 100  
attention deficit disorder kids.    Frank, the house cat was locked  
up for his own protection.

There is a play-house trolley in the visitors center with two bells  
actuated by pull cords.   Can you imagine what 100 ADD kids can do  
with that?

After a walk through that I didn't even think of going out to  
something resembling dinner.   I passed through Burger King last  
night and went to bed.

Regarding 4398:   The bearings are still running hot.   The axles  
still do not quite fit the new journal bearings perfectly.   It may  
require more machining.   The spur gears are noisy as H-e-double  
tooth picks.   I remember a low-floor car during the war when I was a  
very large toddler ... it had so much gear noise that I was crying  
from the pain and to this day I can remember riding on it.   All I  
can remember was that my mother had taken me dawntawn to see Snow  
White and the Seven Dwarfs ... it had to be a rerelease because the  
original film came out in 1937 and I wasn't born until 1940.    
Afterwards we rode out on the 8 car to Grandma's.    To this day I am  
bewildered that I am a railfan after listening to those howling  
gears.   Well, the ones on 4398 are loud enough that you cannot hold  
a conversation over them.

By the way, I've been told that the museum cat ... the animal who  
adopted us and now allows us on his property ... has been named after  
Frank Julian Sprague.   I discovered this weekend that he does answer  
to the name Frank.