[PRCo] Re: March(?) 1968 Fan Trip with M-454

[Fred Schneider]

Opinion, not backed by any official action of the museum.....

No one today destroys anything.   I think the plan is keep them both to show the difference between the restored car and the tow car.   

Maybe in the distant future, when the museum management realizes that the public has no interest in streetcars and only wishes to be entertained, the collection will be rationalized.   I could easily visualize a collection of horse drawn carriages and wagons, cars, trucks, streetcars, buses ... anything relating to urban transportation but with the numbers rationalized (that R word also means reduced) to a number that one can afford to keep when the museum management realizes that no one knows or cares about the differences between a 1911 Pressed Steel car, a 1923 Brill car, a 1926 Brill car, and five PCC cars and three Red Arrow high speed cars that look like PCC cars.

The farther away we get from the "time of the trolley," the more compressed that era becomes in peoples minds.   When I was began to get interested in 1950, the era from 1890 to 1950 was a long time.   Long because it represented six times my own life at that point.   

Today that 60 years is less than my own life.

If PTM is around a 100 years from now, the trolley era that we convey today will be 20% of the elapsed time.

How important in our own minds is the Roman Empire?   It is so long ago that we don't even think about it do we?   (When I'm done reading them, I'll let you borrow a couple of books, Ken, on the Greek and Roman civilizations.)    

What is important to people today?   Well, I think those things which Ken collects.   He loves automobiles from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s ... the toys of his youth.   I think those are the toys most of us love.   A friend was here this weekend named Phil Craig.   He is spending $200,000 restoring the car he used to drive to college ... a 1931 Auburn.   Again, a toy of his youth.

Fifty or a hundred years from now there will be different toys of their youth.   What will be preserved?   I don't know but PTM, if it exists, will struggle to place any emphasis on the trolleys of our youth.      


On Aug 18, 2010, at 10:45 AM, Ken and Tracie wrote:

> I'm wondering what may become of M-452 now that PTM has 4145.
> 
> K.
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 6:02 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: March(?) 1968 Fan Trip with M-454
> 
> 
>> Knowing that these cars were retired when the 1000s and 1100s were 
>> deilvered ... they were the last two-man cars only because the system 
>> needed tow cars in rush hours for a few trailers that remained on 10-15, 
>> 13 and down in the Crafton area until 1937, I guess I'm wondering how many 
>> 4000s and 4100s were ever repained in orange.   Yes, I do have a picture 
>> received from Steve Maguire showing one of them at Tunnel Car House in the 
>> 1930s in orange paint.    Guess we need to study those paint books to 
>> figure that out. 
> 
>