While we are on the subject of Pennsylvania does anybody remember the Johnstown Traction Co.? That was where I got to ride my first streetcar in 1959. It was a very attractive little system with some backyard running reminiscent of the J line in SF.

With some public subsidy this system could have kept going indefinitely and would have set the town apart from all the rest. But the townsfolk were dead set against old-fashioned. I learned that very well from a heated discussion I had with an uncle, a longtime resident of Johnstown, who was very angry they had installed streetcar tracks on a new bridge in town and that they had to jackhammer out the rails when Johnstown Traction quit.

It was then that one teenager realized how hard it was going to be talk some people into rail transit.