RE: Re: Today's trolleybus photo

That's just fine, comes through as a .JPG attachment.

At 04:55 PM 2/28/02 , you wrote:

Well, see what this looks like - the same photo reprocessed through
Photoshop and 'saved for the web'. If that doesn't work I'll just stick to
text.

But first a story: Graeme's photo of Christchurch 210 pre-preservation
reminds me of when I was present at the discovery of the body by the THS.

'Twas in September 1964, and the young Tramway Historical Society, with
similarly young members such as myself, was involved in its first big
venture. A Stephenson California horse car had been kept by the Chch
Tramway, later Transport, Board and (along with Kitson steam motor 7)
survived the scrapping which was the fate of all the other trams after the
last Christchurch line to Papanui closed on Sept 11 1954. (Both are now at
Ferrymead, of course). To mark the 10th anniversary of the closing the
fledgling THS restored the horsecar at the CTB workshops and arranged with
the local business association to run it and take the public for rides on a
length of tram track which had been left intact in the shopping centre at
the end of Papanui Rd (it was sealed over a year later).

The opening of this venture took place on a Saturday, and attracted tram
enthusiasts from Wellington as well. (Technically, it made the THS the first
tram museum organisation to operate in NZ, even if we didn't have a museum.)
The next day was a rest day (no Sunday shopping in those days) so John
Shanks, another gunzel, Ian Little (from Wellington - now the owner of the
Foxton Trolleybus Museum) and myself took off in John's car for a quick tour
of tram bodies on farms north of Christchurch. We were driving through
Kaiapoi when Ian shouted "hey, there's a trolleybus". We stopped, piled out
and found 210 at the back of a large shed in a trucking company's yard. It
turned out they had aquired 210 to use the chassis for a 3-axle trailer but
had found it would not convert satisfactorily. If Ian hadn't been looking in
precisely that direction at that time we probably wouldn't have known about
it, and 210 would have been scrapped in a yard cleanup shortly afterwards.
The body was in reasonable condition, more or less as in Graeme's photo,
though not in that location. It had been in service less than 8 years
previously, and was complete except for motor and poles, so it was a
candidate for early preservation. It was the start of the concept of the THS
being a complete public transport museum, not just trams.

Cheers,
[zap]

.
.
.
Obfuscation specialist


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