The New York Museum of Transportation
|
WINTERFEST! Each year, volunteers at museums which operate trolleys gather at one of these museums to share their common interests and to see what is new at the museum being visited. In 2009, just after the overhead had been completed to Midway, NYMT hosted Winterfest. Now, ten years later, it’s NYMT’s turn again. Last year, at Halton County Radial Railway Museum, NYMT was approached about hosting the next Winterfest. After deliberation by those in attendance and, ultimately, approval by the NYMT Board of Trustees, Winterfest 2019 at NYMT was a “go.” Numerous volunteers have invested their time and effort to make the 2019 edition of Winterfest be successful. So, how will it all work? On Friday, February 15, volunteers will be arriving just after noon to open up the museum, get cars ready for action and take care of the last-minute problems which always arise when operating antique trolleys in the winter. |
By 3:00 p.m. or so, we probably will begin to operate trolleys on a half-hour schedule. A pizza dinner will be served around 5:00 to 6:00 after which several more nighttime runs of 161 will be made. The last run will conclude at 8:00 and we will close the doors around 8:30 or so. Saturday, February 16 will start with volunteers arriving around 8:00. Between 9:00 and 9:30, a classroom session will be held in the gallery for motormen from other museums who wish to guest-operate our Strafford cars. Right after that, we will begin running both 161 and 168 on alternating 20-minutes. Our event will conclude with an off-site dinner and a slide show highlighting the Rochester Subway and some of the many cars which have survived to the present day in museum service. |
ROCHESTER STREETCARS......................... No. 92 in a series
© Charles R. Lowe Whenever I see a color photo of the Rochester Subway, my first emotion is one of sadness. All known color photos of the Subway date from after the end of the Second World War in 1945, and about 95% date from the years 1954 to 1956 after the fate of the Subway had been determined. How could we have been so careless as to discard what today could be a gem? Oh, the could-have-been possibilities are endless. WHAT IF Rochester Transit Corporation had bought a new fleet of PCCs from Minneapolis and St. Paul, when they became available in 1953? Newark, N.J. did just this, buying 30 practically new PCC cars (NYMT's car 7 is from this group) for its 4-mile-long subway in the Morris Canal that is still running as you read this. WHAT IF a way had been found, as had been proposed in 1947, to add the Eastern Expressway alongside the Subway by sacrificing the freight track from Clinton Avenue to Winton Road? WHAT IF bus lines had terminated at Subway stations, feeding passengers into it and freeing Rochester city streets, just as was done in Newark? WHAT IF the Subway had been extended on the north to Kodak Park and south to Monroe Avenue as was proposed in 1948? WHAT IF a coalition of public-minded citizens could have descended on the September 9, 1954 meeting of the Rochester Common Council, when the fate of the Subway was sealed, to fight yet again for the Subway but, this time, win the day? The terrible "ifs" just pile higher and higher the more you think about it. One must recall, though, that the lure of the private automobile and that king of highways, the expressway, outweighed all else by the early 1950s. The final demise of electric traction in Rochester was a foregone conclusion, and the wonder of it all is that the Subway lasted until the advent of color film. When I saw our current photo, it made me ponder all this. I see two young girls, waving to the motorman as he speeds past a relic from the marvel of a previous era, the Erie Canal. The Lock 65 wall seen here is still on guard along today's I-490 near Culver Road. In our photo, car 54 is on yet another westbound run, bringing passengers safely to their destinations. My personal hope for the promise of electric rail transportation has been an important factor in my volunteerism at NYMT. At NYMT, all the interlocking parts of a traction system have been laboriously assembled by volunteers so that they can be enjoyed by the community, as if to say this is what could have been with the Rochester Subway. More than that, though, NYMT is a place where a community of volunteers can flourish and, working together, make electric traction benefit Rochester far into the future. |
HEADEND Volume 32, Number 6 November-December 2018 HEADEND is a publication of New York Museum of Transportation, © 2018. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.
www.nymtmuseum.org
(585) 533-1113
Headend
Board of Trustees
|
Department Leaders
EDITORIAL COMMENT We have finally come to the end of a challenging year at NYMT. Through the diligent effort of its volunteers, NYMT not only weathered the setbacks but ended up attracting a very strong amount of visitation. I hope you will join me and one another in pressing ahead during 2019 for another successful year at NYMT. Charles R. Lowe, Editor |
ALL ABOUT US The New York Museum of Transportation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit museum chartered by the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York. We are managed and operated entirely by volunteers, and the welcome mat is always out for anyone wishing to join our work. Open for visitors all year on Sundays only, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., we also welcome group visits during the week by appointment. |
We are located at 6393 East River Road in the Town of Rush, and our mailing address is P.O. Box 136, West Henrietta, NY 14586. www.nymtmuseum.org is the place to find us on the internet and learn much more about us. Also, you can visit us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/NYMTmuseum. Want to contact us? Call us at (585) 533-1113 or send us an email at info@nymtmuseum.org. And, remember to tell your friends! |
Consider becoming a member www.nymtmuseum.org/Membership.php . |