Re: PC: PC/PRR 120

[Bob Rothrock <bobr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 01:03 AM 12/09/1999 -0500, Philip J. Kuhl wrote:
>There was also a fairly long segment on the car in one of PBS's "Great
>Railway Journeys" about 13-14 years ago.
>
>Phil
>

 I remember seeing that show, and what sticks with me was a scene
shot in the observation end of the 120 while rolling through the Jersey
meadows with the show's host (whose name escapes me at the moment), George
Pins (the car's owner), and no less than the inimitable E. Rogers Whitaker
(a.k.a. "E.M. Frimbo") with the three of them discussing the decline of
rail travel in this country.

  George Pins also went on at some length to describe the ongoing
maintenance burden that a car like that presented to its owner (he had
begun to rent his cars out, but the operation was still "a big loser" as he
put it), and told of a time when ex-PRR president James Symes and his wife
were traveling on an Amtrak train that had the 120 tied to the rear of it,
and Pins invited them back for a visit...turned out that the 120 had been
Symes' private car during his tenure on the Pennsy, and he was delighted
with the restoration Pins had done to it.

  Somewhere around Philly, they showed the car going through an
interlocking behind a GG-1 in fresh PC paint, it was a sunny day, the G
looked terrific, and they even captured the horn blast on the sound track.

  A sad footnote to the car's history occurred not long after that when it
was being used on lease for a private party, and someone crawled out onto
the roof of the 120 and was killed by coming in contact with the overhead
wires in the station where the car was parked. Pins sold off his private
cars not long after that...which is a shame, because he was doing what any
of the rest of us would have done (making the dream real, preserving classy
stuff and sharing it, etc.), given the availability of capital to do so.

Bob Rothrock
Leroy Township, Ohio