Are you related to an H5 or something? The amount of vitriol about not saving one of these is not normal.
"future generations" will find a way to cope with the gap in artifacts.
Not per se, but literally everything about them really speaks to me: the interior color scheme is so beautiful and uplifting, the sounds of the door chimes, HVAC, choppers, and traction motors all combined together absolutely perfectly, and the traction motors sounded absolutely incredible and otherworldly, like something straight out of sci-fi / Star Trek. And of course the same people who pretend to not have the slightest clue what I'm talking about are also the ones who love to foam over the sound of the Fishbowls' 6V71N or the sound of the T1s
. As for those who think the Hawkers were "just another subway car" and that "there was nothing unique with it", or worse, those who outright hate it and everything it stands for, well, that says something about them, I'll just leave it there.
This right here is why I feel no sympathy for your position, and why I expect you are having a difficult time finding anyone else who does, either.
So because you didn't get what you want, now no one, from now on through to the end of time, shouldn't get what they want, either?
Then you're asking way too much of me if you expect me to just roll over, take one for the team and concede to the stance of "sucks for you that you didn't get what you want, as long as everyone else does" and not feel a certain type of way. Ever occur to you that maybe you got that backwards and it's precisely because I hardly see anyone showing any sympathy for the Hawker cause that I therefore feel those who aren't pro-Hawker are in no position to feel entitled to get theirs either? Because the way you're saying it certainly makes it sound like "everyone else from now until the end of time" are somehow more entitled to it than me. The sheer hypocrisy of some people never tiring of pointing out "life is full of not getting what you want, it's time you learned that by now, life isn't fair, suck it up" and then getting so butthurt by the idea that they shouldn't get what they want either. They really can't take being on the receiving end of what they're dishing out, eh?
What I want is that my favorite vehicle(s) be allowed to exist, and continue existing, but since I'm obviously not allowed to have that, then I want something else to make up for it: having at least some vehicles I dislike meet the same end (especially when they're considered objectively "better" than, and/or replaced, my favorite vehicles). No, I can't have that either, because any vehicle I dislike is someone else's favorite vehicle, and if I have my way there, they won't have theirs? Well, I'd be a lot more sympathetic to that if I got what I wanted with my favorite vehicles to begin with, otherwise I'm not sympathetic in the slightest. And I never even said "no one from now until the end of time should get what they want", at the end of the day I don't really care if they save a Flexity, Orion VII, Nova, SRT or even the future T1 replacements for that matter, but I am 1000% against anyone saving any of the Hawker replacements (T1s or TRs) unless someone (anyone) saves a Hawker first, and there's nothing you or anyone else can say that will make me change my mind, that's the hill I'll die on.
TLDR: If others have no sympathy for someone who didn't get what they want, then no they shouldn't get what they want either. Least of all if "what they want" is for the Hawkers to forever remain the only cars that got the short end of the stick.
These are thoughts you should keep inside your head, instead of broadcasting them online in search of sympathy.
You know what other thoughts people should keep inside their head? Those who say "good riddance" about the Hawkers and love to bitch about how they were all so bad in so many ways. That tells me all I care to know about them, and that they don't deserve to get what they want anyway (they already got what they wanted in terms of having the Hawkers gone
), since the anti-Hawker community obviously love getting off to exacerbating the misery of the pro-Hawker people.
Imagine if the human race had applied this kind of self-interested thinking to righting any kind of historical ill. Humanity would've perished hundreds of years ago.
As if everyone else, who got their way, saying "fuck you, I got mine" to someone who didn't (instead of sympathizing) is any
less self-interested?
Those are the thoughts they should keep inside their head!
FTFY: Imagine "righting" a historical ill in a way that benefits everyone
except the very group(s) of people who actually were wronged, and on top of that, the group(s) who benefit the most are the same ones who actually wronged others. Because that's the more accurate analogy of what you're advocating for.
There's a controversial saying "one person dying is a tragedy, a million people dying is a statistic", and while I certainly don't endorse it nor want to make light of it, the same analogy can and does apply to vehicles (i.e. non-living objects) in this case: one highly unique model of vehicle (such as an H5 or H1–4) going extinct forever is a huge disappointment, but if almost all vehicle models ever built go extinct forever, then it's not nearly as disappointing no matter which side you're on (yes, even if you're on the pro-Hawker side like me), because whichever side you take, the same fate would await both your favorite and least favorite vehicles.
As I have told you before on numerous occasions, if you want to actually do something constructive to help the Hawker cause, start taking action. And by taking action I don't mean sending emails to politicians suggesting they save it, but canvassing people with like minded interests about buying 5707, and storing it, and pooling your money together for such a cause, when and if Picture Vehicles choose to dispose of it. And establish a relationship with them, so that if and when they decide they no longer need 5707, they think of you instead of the scrap man.
Do something about it, or stop complaining.
So I hear your suggestion, and I did reach out to Picture Vehicles since then (this past August), starting off with a "thank you once again for letting me see it in 2022", and inquiring how much it would cost to buy it, get it transported, and store it (and where might be a good place to store it) IF they ever decide to let go of it. If it's not an obscenely huge amount, I would even be willing to buy it from them and then pay them monthly to keep it stored on their property where it is now, if & when they're done with it (that would actually be the simplest solution as far as storing it goes, and yes I did suggest that idea to them). I still remember seeing a headline years ago "Montreal selling old metro cars for $750", so if the cost for 5707 would be somewhere in the same ballpark then I can do that. Of course, if they intend to keep it permanently with no chance of that ever changing, there would be no issue requiring urgent action on my part.
Unfortunately, they never got back to me, so I'm afraid there's not much more I can do at this point, if at all. Moreover, apparently (according to a reddit post, so take it with a grain of salt) it became a victim of another break-in/vandalism recently (not the one time in early 2023), which is bad enough in itself, but the timing (soon after I sent my inquiry to Picture Vehicles) makes it even worse. I sure hope they won't end up disposing of it because of that.
And if sending emails to politicians is not an acceptable course of action in your book, what business do politicians have to be announcing and celebrating SRT preservation themselves? When I first voiced my grievance on cptdb a decade ago only to get the same kind of snarky dismissive responses, I was told (besides "do it yourself") to "lobby your politicians to provide funding to the museum". So I thought I might as well do that (lobby politicians to save a Hawker while they're at it saving the SRT).
As for canvassing people with like-minded interests and pooling our money together for the 5707 cause, would you care to join me on that as one of those like-minded people, and perhaps help find a few more people (serious question)? Oh wait, if you've already moved to CZ/SK, I guess you couldn't even if you wanted to (which I get the sense you don't)...
Why are you guys making these assertions like they are anything but opinions?
There are as many opinions about any given vehicle as there are people who have ever had anything to do with them. Asserting as though it were a fact from a textbook that they are the greatest things in the world or the most boring things in the world is pretty inane.
Then assertions like:
– "the Gs & Ms are far more historically important than the Hawkers"
– "the T1s & TRs are objectively far superior to the Hawkers in every way"
and, wait for it:
– "the H6s were all bad with no redeeming qualities"
are ALSO nothing but opinions (and ones that personally mean nothing to me, because when combined together they're all an indictment against the Hawkers' existence itself).