"I do remember how the car had bad gearboxes, going "clunk, clunk, clunk" with ever(y) turn of the wheels." A bad gearbox on a PCC causes a loud gear whine. "clunk, clunk, clunk" is a flat wheel.

P.R.Co. PCC 1711 is at the PA Trolley Muesum near Washington PA.

I do like your description of an old look GM with a Detroit 671 or a New Look (Fishbowl) with a 6V71. That's only 426 cubic inches. The Bluesmobile had a Dodge 440 Interceptor.

You should have ridden a Philadelphia air conditioned Bowl on E Route (now 65) climbing Ridge Ave at Wissahickon Station. The driver had to shut off the A/C so there was enough HP to climb the hill.

Phil Mulligan

"What's with all the "stir the pot" posts on here recently? The Trains Magazine discussion forum has (or had, I haven't looked at it in half a dozen years) the right mix of freight railroaders who resent passenger trains and anti-tax libertarian types to embrace the anti-passenger rail crowd, those of you here might check it out. I personally am not interested in rehashing what hypothetical alternative could replace passenger rail, and I think the people making those arguments aren't in earnest anyway."[/i]

Maybe the pot needs to be stirred.

First of all, this NOT a preservation issue.

One does not have to be a freight railroader or a libertarian to oppose spending on projects that are answers to questions nobody is asking.

Nobody is looking to replace anything. The question is whether or not we build a new line that had scant reason to exist when proposed a couple decades ago, and in a post-COVID world of telecommuting; it makes even less sense.

I could care less whether somebody finds bus travel beneath them or has access to alcohol-that is beyond shallow. I care that the young people I care about aren't left holding fissile financial burdens. We can't let adult children have every bauble and trinket they want, even if they are choo-choos!

And yes, I fully realize I'm urinating in the galeforce wind, but somebody has to ask who pays for the bread and circuses.

We now have an acknowledged debt load of $28.6T, every tax-payer is on the line for almost $230K.

https://usdebtclock.org

If you don't look at this and realize that this is unstainable, I can't help.

The pot sure as hell needs stirring!

I'm of the opinion that the loss of rail service, and the loss of so much infrastructure, was a huge mistake for this country. I would put it in the top ten of the errors this country made over the last 240-odd years. Those errors would include some serious civil rights blunders, the effects of which we still feel (not on subject, just pointing out how high I rank this one.)

I'm old enough to remember the first Arab-OPEC oil embargo in 1973. Even then, I thought, and said to anyone who would listen, that we needed to do something about oil, we needed to get serious about that issue, and that would include getting around in some other way than driving.

Of course nobody listened, to me or anybody else with a working brain, and the result was two more oil shocks, in 1979 and 2007 (yes, overpriced and overleveraged housing was a problem, but an oil price shock was the breeze that blew the house of cards down), and at least two oil wars. (How much did all that cost?)

I would argue that our lack of seriousness about this--what seems now to be a national lack of maturity--even was a strong factor in the attacks in New York in September of 2001. If we had gotten serious about oil, the House of Saud wouldn't have been the center of global interest today. That fellow, Osama bin Laden, would have just been some crazy guy in the desert causing troubles for the House of Saud, and we would likely never have heard of him.

And the tax cuts, which were supposed to help generate investment in this country? Their problem is, at best, that they only tackle half of the economic equation. You can give the rich all the money in the world, but they won't invest it to build a factory or a shopping center or anything without customers, people with money to buy what they might sell. Given how wages have been stagnant for ages, it's no wonder a lot of businesses have had troubles for years.

Those stagnant wages included my own. There were times I went for years without a raise--and when I did get one, it was a lordly $40 per month. In the meantime, everything else kept going up--except, as noted, my pay.

And it didn't help when my wife lost her job, and we had a house that was supposed to have two people helping to pay for it. Thankfully we were conservative about what we could afford, but it meant a lot of other things got deferred over the years. We're in better shape financially thanks to a traditional pension combined with Social Security, but there's still a lot of that backlog there to work down.

Back on subject, as I've noted, we made a huge, HUGE mistake. It's been needing fixing for almost 50 years now. If we don't fix it (and a lot of other things) now, then when?

If we don't fix all that needs fixing, all that has been neglected--including a major bridge that has suffered a structural failure (not a "crack" as was described, but an actual broken member), what good is our money, what good is our military? What good is anything?

When do we fix the mistake? When do we restore what was taken away--and make it better than before?

"Restore what was taken away--and make it better than before."

How much does that sound like a modern steam locomotive rebuilding, like Santa Fe 2926, or the reopening of the East Broad Top--or a new PRR T1? Not the same, I know, but an interesting parallel.

Perhaps I should have used a better description! It was really more like "grrunk, grrunk, grrunk--" Certainly not a flat wheel, and not having all the rough riding a flat wheel would give. I've ridden a Washington Metro car with flat wheels, and at the speed that system runs--WOW, what a rough ride, and incredibly noisy, too!!




And a great museum, too, especially since its track has been extended. My own experience is limited, but it may represent the closest thing to the feel of an interurban in the east.



I never had that, but I've heard that some of the hills in Pittsburgh caused the same issues.

And in regard to Pittsburgh, the 21-Fineview line was never converted to bus. It was abandoned entirely, partially because buses could never negotiate the hills, couldn't handle some of the sharp curves in cramped intersections, nor could they work in the tight clearances on even a converted private right of way that was also part of that line.

There's something to be said for the elegant, simple, passive self steering rail cars have in which the rear end tracks perfectly behind the front end, instead of shortcutting to the inside of the curves like almost all rubber tired vehicles.

No, I'm pointing out consumer preferences that contribute to the viability of things like this. I've got insight into those preferences because I work around the type of people this type of effort would look to attract.

I'm not saying the opinions are right or wrong, but they exist, and boosters of these efforts need to be aware of them.

There are reasons people come out to ride on trains and trolleys, but I've never seen a "heritage bus company" spring up as an attraction anywhere.

Not so fast there, Bunky…. I rode both of these buses last weekend: https://antiquecoachexcursions.com/

At Yellowstone National Park, people line up to ride in 1930's vintage Yellow Coach buses with
as- built sunroofs. I believe it's the same story at Glacier NP as well.

There are a few guys with old look Bawlmer Transit buses that appear ay Baltimore Streetcar Museum periodically.

Illinois Railway Museun and Seashore Trolley Museum both have bus divisions.

NJ Transit has a historic bus collection.

The Greyhound Museim is in Hibbing MN.

Phil Mulligan

"Not so fast there, Bunky…. I rode both of these buses last weekend: https://antiquecoachexcursions.com/"

Not quite as charming, but pre-Covid there was "luxury bus" operation in Harrisburg.

They may not be doing inter city anymore, not sure.

Of course Baltimore isn't a place you necessary want to take an expensive modified vehicle.