[PRCo] Fwd: More Blackpool

[Fred Schneider]

After I put the Blackpool item on Derrick's site, Peter forward this item of family history to me.   I asked if I should forward.   She sad part is the relative in the Tate - LaBianca murders.   So now you have a brief intro to Peter.   He was bus driver in Portland, Maine and is a member of the Seashore museum trustees.  

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Peter Folger" <transitman at maine.rr.com>
> Date: March 10, 2012 2:54:47 PM EST
> To: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: More Blackpool
> 
> Any of it.
>  
> pf
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Fred Schneider
> To: Peter Folger
> Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2012 2:48 PM
> Subject: Re: More Blackpool
> 
> How much of that is forwardable?
> 
> 
> 
> On Mar 10, 2012, at 2:16 PM, Peter Folger wrote:
> 
>> Fred,
>>  
>> My ninth great grand father, whom I am named after, had two sons and seven daughters.  One of the sons later family settled in California and founded the coffee company the other sons family (whom I descend from) stayed in Nantucket in the whale oil business.  One of ( Peter's ) daughters named Abiah married Joseph Franklin and produced a son by the name of Benjamin, remember him?  His parents are in the old Granary cemetery off Tremont St. in Boston.
>>  
>> The last owner of Folger's coffee was also named Peter Folger and I met him in Nantucket in 1959.  His daughter Abigail was a friend of Sharon Tate's and she was also one of the victims of the Charles Manson murders.  Peter sold the coffee company right after that.
>>  
>> Hence I am not from the coffee side of the family but the whale oil side which slipped into deep depression in the 1840's.
>>  
>> The two sides are way apart now and I have had no communication in eons.  However I do keep in contact with my closer family members who now embrace several nationalities which I am most proud of.
>>  
>> Best,
>>  
>> pf
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Fred Schneider
>> To: Pittsburgh Railways ; Dwight Long ; Dennis Lamont ; Dick Hasselman ; Bill Volkmer ; Skip Gatermann ; Phillip G. Craig ; John Bromley
>> Cc: peter folger
>> Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2012 1:35 PM
>> Subject: Fwd: More Blackpool
>> 
>> Here is another one of Peter Folger's mailings.   I could make some jokes that sometimes they seem to land on my computer as numerous as coffee grounds ... Peter is distantly related to the coffee family.  And now you know how to pronounce it.   
>> 
>> At any rate, the first and the penultimate links are the ones to really watch if you have only time for two.   
>> 
>> For me its difficult to listen to people calling those cars in Blackpool antiques because my first visit goes back to 1960.   Now that's only six years after the last yellow cars quit running in Pittsburgh and eight years after I wrote a West Penn car into Jeannette.   In 1960, Blackpool had those old double-deck Standards, the boat cars, and all those other creatures running around not as antiques but just as everyday transportation.   And there were cars running on the city streets away from the Promenade back then.   That was back when the number one take away meal in Britain was fish and chips (with malt vinegar on the chips); today Indian curries rank higher than the cod fish.   (Don't knock the vinegar on the french fries either --- its acquired tasted --- goes well with the fish.)
>> 
>> Several things that sunk into my mind when viewing that next to last tape:
>> 
>>      1.   In 1960, the USA had its own automobiles.  Germany had its unique cars.   So did France and Italy and Britain.   Today automobile production and sales is a worldwide market and the cars look the same no matter where you go.   The only difference is, if I buy or rent a Ford Fiesta in England, the steering wheel is on right side.    The streetcars in 1960 were also unique to each each nation ... we had PCCs.   Britain had some surviving double-deck cars.   Germany had mostly two-axle motors and trailers.  Today, same as the automobiles, the trams are also the same everywhere.   Maybe that has one benefit in that the railfans are not quite as provincial.  
>> 
>> Those Flexity cars are not unique to Blackpool.   See also Basel, Toronto, Krakow (Poland), Frankfurt a. Main (Germany), Adelaide, Dresden, Leipzig, Minneapolis.
>> 
>>      2.  With short wheelbase trucks under short compartments, those Flexity cars are extremely quiet.   It is hard to hear them over the wind noises.
>> 
>>      3.  In 1980 our clearance problems were hitting station platforms or poles or railings.  With new low-floor cars to meet handicapped accessibility goals, we now have problems with street paving as the wheels wear down.   Notice that they had to remove raised warning strips beside the crossing because they were less than 30 millimeters below    car components (1.18 inches).  (That's 1 and 23/128ths of an inch if you want to American and absurdly precise.)
>> 
>> Begin forwarded message:
>> 
>>> From: "Peter Folger" <transitman at maine.rr.com>
>>> Date: March 9, 2012 10:02:19 AM EST
>>> To: "Peter Folger" <transitman at maine.rr.com>
>>> Subject: More Blackpool
>>> 
>>>  
>>> More Blackpool
>>> Blackpool Trams - Brush 630 says farewell to Blackpool.
>>> 
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOdEGoYxrdA&feature=related
>>> 
>>> 630 departure 21/12/11.
>>> 
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlP07XaxPk4&feature=endscreen&NR=1
>>> 
>>> 671 departure 1 19/12/11.
>>> 
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyMK83JVS7c&feature=related
>>> 
>>> Blackpool Engineer Tram 754 working on Tramway Upgrade.
>>> 
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McRbPcdRAOY&feature=related
>>> 
>>> Blackpool Tramway Upgrade Testing.
>>> 
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G75G9DRs3Mc&feature=related
>>> 
>>> Balloon Tram 703 / Sunderland 101 farewell to Blackpool.
>>> 
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO03lUJiEBA&feature=related
>>> 
>>> I never really editorialize, yet I must comment on Blackpool.  Their giving up the iconic tramway system
>>> 
>>> for the new Bombardier Flexcity trams is on the same course as San Francisco busing all their cable car
>>> 
>>> lines or Paris scrapping the Eifel Tower.  It never should have happened.  That system in Blackpool, along with the
>>> 
>>> beaches and their casinos was one of the greatest tourist draws in the UK.  Now they have given all that up. 
>>> 
>>> They gave away silverware for plastic utensiles.
>>> 
>>> Peter Folger
>>> P.O.Box 1741
>>> Biddeford, ME 04005-1741
>>> transitman at maine.rr.com
>> 
>> 
> 
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