[PRCo] Re: Fwd: First outing for Rio 1758

[Dwight Long]

Fred

By now you will have seen my reply to Ed, so you will know that I am in general agreement with what you write.  Some comments:

The largest single draw to railway museums, period, no others need apply, is Thomas the Tank Engine.  For many museums, it means the difference between carrying on for another year and insolvency.  Is there a broad gauge version?  Or could one be constructed under license?  Would really pump up the treasury!  And the true believers only have to suffer through the indignity for a week or maybe two weekends spliced by a week.

I don't agree that either 4398 or WP 832 should EVER be used as daily runners.  Keep them prominent for folks to look at, walk through, etc., but only run them on members day or by special arrangement (like for major donors to their restoration).  They are too central to both the intent of the founders and the alleged mission of the museum today to let them be subjected to the rigors and dangers of daily service.

I agree with you on PCCs, and it only gets worse when one thinks of post-PCC transit cars of whatever stripe.

You and I will simply have to disagree on WP 739.  I and a few others went to considerable trouble to save 722 and bring it to Arden (my photos were used in the campaign flyer for this effort), and all this was done under the assumption and (at least implied) promise that it would be restored to operational condition.  There was even a plan as to how to obtain the necessary bits and pieces to make this happen.  DHH knows about this--unless he has chosen to forget. I am certainly not suggesting that it be a daily runner, but I am greatly disappointed that it seems to be consigned to static exhibit status.

Your idea of having some exhibits that show the progression from trams through auto and bus transport to where we are today is a good one, but it needs to be carefully thought out, as getting into all the various ramifications of this will be way beyond both the thought processes and interest of the casual visitor.

As for presidential museums, I vote for the Millard Fillmore museum (is there such a place?)  As a side note to that, are you familiar with the collected works of Tom Lehrer?

Dwight
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Fred Schneider 
  To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org 
  Sent: Sunday, 27 June, 2010 22:04
  Subject: [PRCo] Re: Fwd: First outing for Rio 1758


  I second Ed.

  If truth be known, every time I go to PTM to work, I try to make mental notes of who comes and pays us to run the cars.   

  On off days ... weekdays in the summer it might be 80 to 90 percent general public but those are the low revenue days.   On the really bus days ... county fair, Santa Trolley, car shows ... those days when we make the lions share of our revenue ... about 98 to 99 percent of the people who come are daisy pickers.   Now if we consider over all averages considering that those busy days carry most of the weight ... perhaps 97 to 98 percent of the PTM guests are general public ... maybe higher.   One to three percent are railfans.   No one wants to tell the railfans to go away because most of our trainmen and shop people come from their ranks but they do not generate much revenue through admissions.   They may provide donations but not admissions.   

  If any business loses 2% of its business, it still survives.   But if it loses 98%, it's gone the way of Circuit City.

  So what is important?   Entertainment is important.   An open car drags in dollars.   I've seen it in other museums.   It need not be authentic.   In only needs to run.   It does not have to be a West Penn Railways 400 or a Pittsburgh single truck car number 3009.   That isn't important to making money.   You show that in a picture.   If you want, you can put pictures of local open cars up in the advertising racks on your open car to show what was there.   The important thing is running it.   It is sort of akin to shovel that scoops up dollar bills.   Those dollar bills keep the door open.   

  The Cincinnati car?   I don't have the same vibrations for it.   If it has to be a closed car, then it my mind it should be something relative simple to keep running.   New Orleans 832, Philadelphia 5326 or 8042 impress me because they are two-motor cars (two is better than four to maintain).   They are rather simplistic ... K control.   Easy to fix.   The New Orleans car without the deadman is probably best.   Best of all?   A two-motor hand brake car at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum because you have also got rid of maintenance on the compressor, the compressor governor, the brake cylinder and all other air brake parts.   The down side is that few people outside of BSM trained operators (and I am one) really are comfortable with hand brake cars.   The people in the other museums are shared skitless of them.   

  Our 4398 is probably as good as it gets beyond a two-motor car.   West Penn 832 might also be a good candidate for a four-motor car ... light weight, low, but the steps are rough for someone with knee problems.   

  The worst possible car for a museum?   A PCC.  Did I just become a heretic?   Hey guys.   Did you know that the battery voltage system alone has several miles of wire that needs to be properly insulated so it doesn't cause a short circuit and a fire?   Do you really want to be running a 1937 PCC with miles of wire with old class A insulation that could fail at any time?   A PCC was a great car if you maintained in in the shops and ran it constantly.   It is a terrible vehicle for museums.   Remember rubber in those wheels hardens.   How many museums do you think have taken the wheels apart and replaced the rubber?   Baltimore Transit 7407 at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum was rebodied and rewired but still it spends more time in the shop than any other car ... one contactor after other wants to fail.   I have not run that car in several years because it hasn't been in service for several years.   

  Ed and I have one common view point ... we should be saving the common place and not the unusual.   Museums should not be saving the strange cars; rather they should be saving the things that everyone remembers.   The Philly 8042 is a good choice.   A Pittsburgh 5400 or 5500 would also be a good choice but they got away.  They would have been better than 3756.   A New Castle Birney might have been nice because it could be representative of Sharon, Altoona, Erie, Fairchance, Oil City, Lock Haven, Huntington and many other small towns.    In the area where we are, a West Penn 700 would be nice to display but I cannot imagine teaching people to run it  (I will always have memories of my bringing a London double decker down the long hill at Crich, England, fulling expecting my instructor, a Catholic priest, to start saying a few Hail Marys because I didn't know exactly from memory what control notch to go for for braking at the speed we were moving).   Because interurbans accoun!
   ted nationally for only about 7 percent of the passengers, it's hard in my mind to justify a lot of those cars in museums.   Maybe we already have too may ... 
  1711, 1799 (1614), a Jersey Shore body,  Mon-West Penn 250, West Penn 739.   Based on a ratio of 7 to 93, that would suggest we need 71 city cars.   You got to be kidding.    Using that same logic, depending on the year, 30 to 50 percent of the USA fares were in New York.   Subway cars are important.   We have one.   Someday maybe an older PTC car might just become available or a newer Broad Street subway car.   Do we save it?   Damn, it would be nice to have 1907 car.   And what happens when the N5 P&W cars are ready for scrap?   And the Kawasaki 9000s are now 30 years old and one of these days SEPTA will be looking to replace them.   They are the common place cars.   But I do have problems with saving a Toledo private car.   Do we really wish to convey to the public that railway presidents traveled in posh surroundings just like the president of GM came to Washington in his jet to beg for money?   

  But I would love to see in that museum some artifacts that caused the trolleys to disappear ... the model T is great but a diorama for it with a rutted muddy road would help (who's good at making them?), then another diorama with a smooth concrete road an a 1928 Model A, and finally a diorama with an Interstate curving off into the distance and perhaps a 1970 Mercury to show how our tastes changed.

  We also need a 40 foot GM bus to show how the corporations were able to prolong the existence just long enough for government to step in and take over.   Remember that line, "I'm from the govm't and I'm here to help you." 

  Think of the other museums you go to.   If you had a choice of going to see the home of George Washington or Abe Lincoln or Franklin Pierce or James Buchanan, which ones would you visit?   And don't ask who was Franklin Pierce.   The home of Buchanan here in Lancaster was taken over by the local historical society because the previous owners could not get enough visitors to pay the bills.   I think I got the dean of the society upset one day when I suggested he advertise, "Come and visit the home of the country's dumbest president......"   That was when I understood that Buchanan had lead us into the Civil War.   Since then I discovered he tried to start a war with the Mormons going to Utah because they didn't choose to shop for supplies at Fort Bridger in Wyoming.   Point is, you visit the common place ... the names you remember.   If you inflict all sorts of strange things on people, they're going to tell their friends not to go there.     


  On Jun 27, 2010, at 4:48 PM, Edward H. Lybarger wrote:

  > Yes, it fits right in with the New Orleans car and all the Ohio stuff.  The
  > West Virginia cars were at least owned by a Pittsburgh concern (if you
  > ignore the New York holding company).
  > 
  > But it's a strong marketing tool that will bring revenue and help keep the
  > doors open.  If PTM had to survive on historians, it wouldn't.
  > 
  > Ed
  > 
  > -----Original Message-----
  > From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
  > [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of Dwight
  > Long
  > Sent: Sunday, June 27, 2010 12:35 PM
  > To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
  > Subject: [PRCo] Re: Fwd: First outing for Rio 1758
  > 
  > Fred
  > 
  > And of course there is nothing like a Brazilian tram to illustrate the
  > mission of PTM--preserving Pennsylvania's tramway history!
  > 
  > Dwight
  >  ----- Original Message -----
  >  From: Fred Schneider
  >  To: Pittsburgh-Railways at Dementia.Org
  >  Sent: Saturday, 26 June, 2010 10:29
  >  Subject: [PRCo] Fwd: First outing for Rio 1758
  > 
  > 
  >  Following photographs of the open car at Pennsylvania Trolley Museum
  > received from Dave Hamley and forwarded with his permission.
  >  The car was one of a group of Rio de Janeiro open cars imported in the
  > 1960s, two of which (and this was one of those two) went to the Magee Museum
  > in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.   For those who don't know the story,
  > Hurricane Agnes devastated the property in June 1972 and a few days later
  > its owner and local carpet company baron, Harry Magee suffered a fatal heart
  > attack.   His children showed no interest int he trolley and antique car
  > museum and the equipment was spread to the winds.  The other open car he
  > owned is at the Midwest Threshers Museum in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa.    This one
  > passed through Florida before coming to rest at PTM.   
  > 
  >  "The car was purchased in 1973 by the Lionel Train and Seashell Museum in
  > Sarasota, Florida, where it was used indoors as a display and as a seating
  > area to watch videos.  In 1990, the car was purchased by the City of
  > Orlando, Florida.  It was to be used as the first streetcar (and as a device
  > to generate public interest and Federal funding) for a proposed Heritage
  > Streetcar line in Orlando.  The car was refurbished, re-numbered 1 and given
  > the nickname of "Oscar" (for Orlando Streetcar).  ...Orlando never created
  > the proposed Heritage Streetcar line, and the streetcar sat unused in indoor
  > storage for many years until being sold at auction in [to PTM] 2006."
  > [This paragraph was lifted off the internet with minimal editing.]
  > 
  >  Other cars imported from Rio at the same time include but may not be
  > limited to:  Number 1875 at Rockhill Trolley Museum in Lancaster,
  > Pennsylvania livery, 1850 at Connecticut Trolley Museum at Warehouse Point,
  > 1794 running on the streets of Memphis converted to a closed car for their
  > heritage line, 1718 and 1779 are at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa and one may be at
  > Northern Ohio Railway Museum (NORM).   I thought that Paul Cass had one in
  > Oregon but that isn't turning up on a quick search.  
  > 
  >  Of course the PTM ca has been slightly altered.   The original standard
  > gauge trucks don't work.   In the process it has been lowered slightly.   
  > 
  >  So here is Dave Hamley note that goes with the pictures:   
  > 
  >  "After several years in PTM's shop, ex- Rio open car 1758 was out in the
  > sun today.  Towed out by shop switcher RG2 while the guys were still
  > painting the floor.  First public exhibit is Sunday 6/27, actual in-service
  > date probably early August.  I also took the occasion to shoot RG2, with the
  > Porter for background, and P&OC's SW1500 1545 rolling past.
  > 
  >  Dave"
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > 
  >