[PRCo] Re: Railway museum slipping off the tracks | The Columbus Dispatch

[Dwight Long]

Fred

On Monday I rode on top of a truck from one of their cars, controlled by controllers from same, at the Ft. Smith tram museum.  This was an ex-KCPS Birney which Ft. Smith has used to restore a Ft. Smith Birney from chicken coop status.

The Ft. Smith operation is a nice little deal, but it does have one alarming feature--there are no hand brakes on the car and the motorman has only a vestigial idea of what to do if he loses the air.  His response was "we have to keep a very close watch on the air pressure gauge."  The outer end of the line ends on a descending grade and they have lost the car off it at least once-------

Dwight

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Fred Schneider 
  To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org 
  Sent: Thursday, 09 September, 2010 21:30
  Subject: [PRCo] Re: Railway museum slipping off the tracks | The Columbus Dispatch


  For God's sake, Dennis, I hope we don't feel a compulsion to acquire any of their junk.   

  Forty or more years ago they had a strong membership base interested trolleys.   They took two carbodies that were sheds, chicken coups or outbuildings and restored them.   One was a Columbus, Delaware and Marion Red Bird built by ACF in the middle 1920s.   Fabulous job.   The other was a mid 1920s Columbus, Ohio streetcar.   Those were great restoration efforts.   They also had (still do have) an Illinois Terminal PCC.   They also had a C&LE Red Devil, brought back from Crandic and restored.   Look great.  

  Then the steam types took over and the trolley guys left.   All the work that went into the property in the 1960s and 1970s evaporated.   The restored cars rusted.  You can totally restore a streetcar, then put it out in the weather for 40 years and it looks like &^%$.   Those restored cars need a transfusion of a few hundred thousand dollars each all over again.   

  They also have an Erie gas-electric car.  It also looks today like something that was expelled from the rear of a passing horse.   The N&W steam engine they were running in the 1950s is a bucket of rust today and incapable of being operated.   

  I made a quick inspection of the property the morning of that day you qualified me on 4398.   It's not worth the investment to bring it back to life.   What they have today is like trying to revive the 100 year old man that just had a heart attack and has all his arteries plugged with cholesterol.   It isn't a museum;  to quote the guide book that reviewed Seashore some years ago, "it's a junk yard masquerading as a museum."    But it makes Seashore look like a supreme effort.    Worthington actually looks like a junkyard behind a hurricane fence.  You actually look for the dog but that would cost money to feed.   

  The Cynic


  On Sep 9, 2010, at 6:55 AM, Dennis F Cramer wrote:

  > http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/09/08/worthington-museum-slipping-off-the-tracks.html?sid=101
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > DF Cramer
  >