AAPRCO Trip 2014 - Day 6: Wednesday, September 23

Today Beth Gallie picked me and Debbie up for Breakfast at Becky's Diner and to look around the historic neighborhoods. 

A lot of the homes are undergoing rennovations - -which is good. The two shots of the first house shows the carriage house that has also been rennovated.

This was a view looking up the hill from a nice open park overlooking the ocean.

This is the park, looking toward the gazebo - which had people doing tai chi inside.

Here's a picture from a little neighborhood park overlooking I think the back bay in Portland with me, beth and Debbie.

After we got back from Beth's tour, the AARCO group then took a bus and visited the Shoreline Trolley Museum in Kennebunk, Maine where we ate our box lunch. Kevin Moore won the drawing  to learn how to drive a trolley. Here are a few pictures:

 

After calling 4 numbers, Kevin Moore was the lucky winner!

 

We got on a trolley car for a ride to one of the "parks."  Trolley companies needed to make money on Sundays so they would create a park to take people to for picnics, carosel and Ferris wheel rides.....The rides operated on the same equipment as the trolley cars - - then, later, they created suburbs and sold lots for homes.  Tickets are punched with punches with different symbols. 

 

Took a couple trolley rides, toured trolley barnes to house and restore, and shops. Debbie said their guide said that the Trolley Barnes were called Trolley Houses, because barns have hay, hay burns, and insurance is more expensive for a "barn."  

 

Here is a little house at a flag stop.

This was the inside of the trolley that we took out to the park.

Here is the trolley driver. They said on some lines the driver would put the car at half speed and go back and punch tickets then come back to drive.

They would have to get out and change the switches manually - - and sometimes there was a hole in the floor and they could reach down while inside to do this.

Restoration. They have 4 full- time people on shop staff and a lot of volunteers. This guy was spray painting.

 

  

We saw lots of different trolleys from all over the states and world. The first one is one of the oldest pulled by horses, and turned into a paddy wagon.  They could take something like this and put trolley wheels under it - - like the one directly in front of it.

We even saw some buses - -even one of the first articulated buses from Omaha which Rick got on and moved the route display to a lot of the old destinations, like the 24th and Lake which is in the heart of North Omaha:

This was a sweet trolley car with open ends on both ends.

A picture of me and Rick and the interior of the car-wood floors and ceilings, lots of light.

Back to AAPRCO conference at the Westin Hotel, drinks at Top of the East bar on the top floor, they had blueberry mohitos, and then to the banquet and dance to finish off the converence.  

Views from Top of the East:

At the banquet Rick and I sat with Charlie and Kathy Pults, Borden Black, Nelson McGahee, Kevin Moore, Mark & Debbie. We ordered lobster and it came in a small soup cup already out of the shell.

Kevin Moore and Mark Wolff.

Charlie & Kathy Pultz, Rick Stone.

Nelson McGahee, Charlie and Kathy Pults.

Mark Wolff, Borden Black, Debbie Wolff.

We had a great band to dance to, and a lot of the members were from the University of Maine. A lot of people did dance- we were some of the last to leave, and then went up for one more drink at the top before heading to bed.  It was a great convention.