every city worthy of the name, not only had trolly cars, but at least one of its major parks or elsewhere had an amusement park, a little like themeparks now, only more local and less corporocratic. and every amusement park had at least some kind of a train ride. some of them pretty long, winding amoung hills and through tunnels and arround lakes full of ducks and fish. some even had different stations you could get on and off at. you know in my ideal ecotopian future that's what we'd have mostly for public transportation, but there really was a time, and when i was little was still sort of the tag end of it, when these things were, like i said, really in every town remotely worthy of being called a city. (a few survived longer then that, got rebuilt, are maintained by enthusiests, et c. portland oregon, last i checked still had its zooliner. which was/is really cool. and of course the dismal lands mostly have several of some kinds. old walt himself, this was one of the things he was interested in and motivated him, when his animation empire got to where he could afford it, to build that first disneyland in anahyme) =^^= .../\...
I spent my early years in Southern California. In 1955, when Disneyland opened, there was anther park operating. Knox Berry Farm, by the makers of Knox Berry jams and jellies. They had a great, full sized coal fired steam locomotive and several cars that circled the park. During your ride, the train the was stooped by robbers, is a blaze of gun fire they made off with the strong box. Pretty cool when you are 6 years old. I remember going there wearing my cowboy outfit, required dress until Daniel Boone set the standard to a coon skin hat, you could pull out your Roy Rogers cap gun and return fire at the bad guys. Ah, the 50's when politically correct hadn't been thought of yet.....
