Back on the Track
Upez, Richard
Back on the Track RICHARD LIPEZ A group of commuters near Pittsburgh have invented an amazing device that, if used nationally, could revolutionize travel and solve the fuel crisis. They call their...
...The others thought at first that Ed Smack had a screw loose somewhere, but the more they thought about it the more sense it made...
...CHA-cha cha-cha...
...Great Scott, of course," Torvaldt Mulligan said on the way home that day...
...I've got goose bumps," said Torvaldt Mulligan...
...Advanced technology and good old American know-how will have done it again...
...But, in the end, it's the only answer...
...What happened in Pittsburgh is a genuine American "can-do" story...
...We'll just put steel-flanged wheels on the Buicks instead of rubber tires...
...That's crazy, but it's crazy-brilliant," said Al Dobie...
...That would save a lot of gas...
...The huge new Buicks were 103 feet long and twelve feet high and held sixty passengers...
...We're riding on a cha-cha-Buick-train...
...There's got to be a better way," the commuters said to each other, almost in unison...
...The thing could be called an omnibus, after the Latin omnis, for 'all.' Or, you could call it a 'bus,' for short...
...The next morning Ed Smack had the answer...
...Gee whiz," Torvaldt said to the others one day...
...It's more like chuffa-chuffa, if you ask me," said Ed Smack...
...What we have to do," he explained, "is have a special road just for our trains, and a special place for them to park...
...Because of the oil shortage, the front Buick, or "engine," was powered by coal-fired steam, and everybody thought the thing made an agreeable sound...
...We're using six engines to drive these six giant Buicks...
...The group took their idea of a "bus" to General Motors, which built six prototypes based on the design of the 1958 Buick...
...This is a historical moment," said Al Dobie, a little misty-eyed...
...How about this...
...They call their invention a "choo-choo train," and this is the way it came about...
...cHA-cha cha-cha...
...It was an instant success...
...This pooling of resources certainly saves a lot of money and fuel," Ed Smack said to his fellow-commuters one day...
...Let's call it a choo-choo train...
...I guess we have to call it something," Francine said...
...I realize that the idea is daring, radical, and probably ahead of its time...
...And they were soon rolling into Pittsburgh from Mizzletown every morning loaded with happy commuters...
...There has to be...
...Wow...
...The "train" was hard to maneuver on curves, however, and when the string of giant Buicks arrived in Pittsburgh there was no place to park such a massive conveyance...
...And if this radical idea for saving fuel catches on, the country will definitely be ready for the Twenty-first Century...
...Buick pulled all the others...
...There are lots of car pools coming in from Mizzletown every day...
...I keep hearing 'cHOO-choo-choo-choo, choo-choo-choo-choo,'" said Al Dobie...
...It would be much more efficient than the way we're doing it now...
...Just a week later the "Special Road for the Steel-Wheeled Buick" (or, sreft-swub, as it quickly became known) was put to use...
...Why don't we call this thing a woo-woo train...
...But there must be an even more efficient way of doing it...
...There it w! The special road for the Buick bus-trains already exists —that weird old abandoned road over there with the wooden ties and steel rails...
...Hey, I've come up with something," Francine Olivetti said after a moment's thought...
...I like the sound of the whistle," Torvaldt Mulligan put in...
...The next day the commuters chained the "buses" together one behind the other, and the front Richard Lipez is a columnist for the Amherst Record in Massachusetts...
...A stroke of genius," said Ed Smack...
...What if, instead of sixty commuters riding in fifteen cars, somebody built a great big car that held sixty people...
...The engineer keeps singing 'I've been working on the sreft-swub,' which doesn't sound quite right...
...Ed, Al, Torvaldt, and Francine rode together in "bus" number three...
...said Francine...
...Ed Smack, Al Dobie, Torvaldt Mulligan, and Francine Olivetti of Mizzletown, Pennsylvania, took President Nixon's advice and formed a car pool to get to work in Pittsburgh every day...
...What if we chained all the 'buses' together in a sort of 'train' and let the front Buick pull the others...
...That's what we're riding on," Francine mused one day...
...The four commuters agreed on this terminology for the carriages and their engine, and decided to call the entire operation the "Pennsylvania Railroad...
...This 'bus' idea is pretty good, but there must be an even better way...
Vol. 38 • February 1974 • No. 2
