A few CVRR pictures and some other related pictures....

[Rufus T. Firefly]

What was toll charged for here?

Access and use, maintenance - think of this as a forerunner of the PA TP which passes through PA not all that far away.....i.e., the usual extortion rackets.

[rogruth]

I understand the toll charge but never understood why it became permanent. Toll money is probably uised for other purposes.
Kentucky has actually removed the toll on turnpikes when the bonds were paid.
The Pennsylvania Turnpike has had a toll for @ 80 years now.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Toll money is probably uised for other purposes.

Maintenance never really ends and expansion seems endless, so as long as it really goes to the designated purposes......

[Mitch]

Pa. still has tolls so they can award the repair contracts so the contractors can bribe the Scranton and Philly legislators to award more contracts so the contractors can bribe the legislators, so..... Wait a minute. Did I repeat myself?

[robert.]

I have a friend that is an ex head of the pa turnpike. For several years it turned a profit and has surplus monies. So much so that tolls did not need to increase. So the governor jumped in and grabbed up the surplus for elected official's pensions. My friend squealed in front of any reporter that would listen. 2 weeks later he was fired. Poor guy forgot he was a political appointee. Appointed by the other side that was no longer in charge

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Pa. still has tolls so they can award the repair contracts so the contractors can bribe the Scranton and Philly legislators to award more contracts so the contractors can bribe the legislators, so..... Wait a minute. Did I repeat myself?

Nope. That's called normal business as usual in PA. Bud Sr. built a lot of highways that connected nowhere to nowhere and brought home the bacon for many years.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

[MurphOnMillerAve]

..looks like it must have been a fun-place during and after a good rain.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

..looks like it must have been a fun-place during and after a good rain.

Think about snow and some serious cold...... The good old days living in that house were hard.

[Mitch]

Think about snow and some serious cold...... The good old days living in that house were hard.

That's the way it was back then, and they wouldn't have known anything better. Most likely fired with coal, they would have come home to warm, dry heat and most probably would have been happy to have it.

I still have the memories of pullin' a chair up close to the coal stove, thawin' out frozen feet, and absorbing the warmth that shook the "willies" (chills), right out of ya! Loved it then; still do at my sons' camp, though it's not a coal stove, but a woodburner.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Think about snow and some serious cold...... The good old days living in that house were hard.

That's the way it was back then, and they wouldn't have known anything better. Most likely fired with coal, they would have come home to warm, dry heat and most probably would have been happy to have it.

I still have the memories of pullin' a chair up close to the coal stove, thawin' out frozen feet, and absorbing the warmth that shook the "willies" (chills), right out of ya! Loved it then; still do at my sons' camp, though it's not a coal stove, but a woodburner.

I have a vague memory of being very young and witnessing coal being delivered to the basement level on the outside of the house to a rectangular opening, which seemed like a cellar window in its placement and dimensions, but with an iron door that swung upwards, outside the cellar, through which coal was delivered by a coal merchant, from his truck. The coal landed in a pile in our basement and had to be shoveled a short distance to the waiting furnace, which had a waist-high black iron door that admitted the coal into the innards of the furnace. This bulbous furnace, standing like the mechanical fat lady stationed at the entrance to the "Laugh in the Dark" ride in nearby Kennywood Amusement Park, or like an octopus, dominated the basement, being at its center, with large "arms" of ducts that reached in numerous directions, upward toward the underside of the first floor, at various points. I think, a door beneath that coal-door was used for removing ashes, shoveled out and up a chute to the outside. That was in the 40's and didn't seem to last long in our house (the one seen here with the roofed porch, built by my father's own hands) until it was replaced, some years later, by a gas-fueled furnace, which stood like a big metal shipping crate in the basement, rectangular and straight-sided, neat and compact, requiring no shovels or trap-dooors.

Good, ol' Pennsylvania red brick made the house a rock, and it still stands that way to this day.
Murph

[robert.]

See if you can pick the right hydrant.
http://www.firehydrant.org/pictures/hyd ... story.html

[rogruth]

Murph,

You have the description of the furnace just right.
In our case the coal was dumped on the sidewalk in front of the house.
My grandfather had a cart that just fit between the house next door and ours.
He loaded the cart and puhed it up a ramp and shoveled it through a window
into the coal bin in the basement next to the furnace. I don't remember how
long a truck-load of coal lasted. There were a lot of nuances to having a
good fire in the furnace.
After my grandfather died a gas furnace was put in. It was almost as big
as the coal furnace. I was long gone from that house by then. It seemed
to me when I visited that gas was a lot less trouble but coal was warmer
and cozier.

[Tom Dempsey]

Tommy, did you remember to refill the automatic stoker? Tommy, did you remember to clean out the clinkers? Hurray for the 21st century!!

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Tommy, did you remember to refill the automatic stoker? Tommy, did you remember to clean out the clinkers? Hurray for the 21st century!!

Yes, indeed! And for me, one of the biggest advances in convenience was the invention of air-conditioning for buildings and vehicles. I remember hot summer nights, before AC, when you tossed and turned, searching for a dry and cool spot on the sheets. We kids even tried sleeping in the backyard sometimes to find some movement in the air.