| Raise your hand if your uncle owned his own personal steam engine. Uh huh, I thought not. Not to say my family is weird, but at my grandfather's place of business, his sons built a half loop of track around the building. It ran along the front, around the back of the building, and then inside through an overhead loading door. Suffice it to say real estate was A LOT cheaper then. My uncle is no longer able to recount his past, so some of the details presented here may be a little speculative on my part. He also delighted in playing "I've got a secret" games. Who knows if the stories he did tell me were true. |
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This is an early 20th century single truck electric street car. My uncle once told me, on a trip to Kyoto, he came in contact with the mayor, and mentioned he would love to buy one of the city's old street cars. Some time later, a letter arrived notifying him his street car was on its way. Sounds a little crazy to me. You can ride it today at the Orange Empire Railway Museum. |
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The interior of the car really does look as though it was plucked off the line in Japan one afternoon, and landed in Los Angeles the next. My aunt recently gave me my uncle's own stereo photos. Included are pictures of the car being loaded on a truck, and then offloaded at the museum. When I was little, I used to crawl around on this thing in the warehouse. Restoration work was accomplished at the Orange Empire Railway Museum. |
