[PRCo] A Great Brussels Museum Video

[Fred Schneider]

Thanks to Jack May who alerted me to this item ...
No it isn't Pittsburgh.   So what.   

It is one rather interesting video of a Traction Extravaganza in Brussels using museum equipment.   Their local trolley museum has a feature that who do us all proud.   The museum carbarn sits right on a major STIB line on the Rue de Turvueren.   STIB operators who are museum members run the museum fleet on the outer end of city route 39 and 42 on Saturdays and Sundays.

Their museum fleet is almost entirely former STIB equipment from Brussels.   I think they might have one Vicinal car in the museum.   But the video of the extravaganza shows all sorts of wonderous other stuff ... a red car from Wien (Vienna) (thats 4038 with the Schottentor destination sign), a gold and brown car from Rotterdam, a cream and green PCC from the Hague, a Milan Peter Witt clad in yellow, and that fantastic Liege car in two-tone green.    They brought stuff in from all over.   

For people who like running strange cars, the Liege car has a series - series/parallel - parallel drum controller, i.e. three running points:  (4 motors in series; 2 series pairs connected in parallel; then all motors in parallel)  It goes like hell.   I rode it over that same track about ten years ago before it was sent to Liege for static display.  He left ahead of one schedule car and before long had caught up its leader.   

The interiors of Brussels cars are easy to pick out.   You will see some pictures views of a narrow PCC with do not talk to the motorman signs in two languages:  Ne pas parler au Wattman (French) on the left ... and Niet ........ sparken on the right (Flemish).   The old rules used to be that if you wanted a job driving a bus or a streetcar in Brussels, you had to bilingual or you simply were not qualified.   Can you imagine Dallas or New York or San Diego or Los Angeles telling bus drivers they need to speak Spanish and English if they want to drive bus?   Or the bus drivers serving Alhambra (CA) need Korean, Vietnamese, Spanish and English?   

The final thing I want to draw your attention to ... look for the clutter and trash on the ground.   How much do you see?  Brussels is the capital of Belgium, so why not compare the litter to our capital.   How does it compare to Washington DC?      Now compared to most German cities, Brussels will be dirtier.   Compared to Switzerland, Brussels will be a lot dirtier.   I've seen Swiss people walk a block out of their way just to throw a candy wrapper in a trash can.  

Enjoy. 

http://www.digitaletramfoto.nl/video/2010/201009/20100919-01.htm

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Brussels_Tramway_Museum