Trolley drivers, riders say goodbye to an era on Drake line Monday, August 30, 1999 By Jan Ackerman, Post-Gazette Staff Writer David Wright took the long way to work last Friday so he could savor a nostalgic ride on the Drake trolley before it disappears from the South Hills forever. Jeremy Beannear, 8, watches the woods pass by while riding the 47D trolley. He's the son of trolley operator Shawn Beannear. (Martha Rial, Post-Gazette) Wright, 52, of South Fayette, is a trolley buff. Soon he will only be able to see Pittsburgh's old trolleys on display at local museums. "Before the South Hills Village line, we parked in the lot here [at the Drake Loop] and rode in. It was always crowded," said Wright, who usually commutes on the modern, more comfortable, 42S South Hills Village light-rail vehicles. There aren't any crowds on the 47D Drake trolleys, which have been in service on the 1.4-mile line since 1936. They will be going into permanent retirement Saturday, marking the end of an era. "I love these cars," said Port Authority driver Frank Satariano, who drove the 47D on Friday. "The new light-rail vehicles are computerized. They can almost drive themselves," Satariano said. He said driving the old trolleys is a real challenge. "These trolleys catch fire. The brakes go out. There's no computer to help you on these," Satariano said. The Port Authority said the trolleys, which were introduced in 1936, are falling apart, replacement parts are hard to find and fewer than 50 people ride them each day. When the Newark, N.J., City Subway is phased out sometime next year, the only trolleys of this type operating in the United States will be on San Francisco Municipal Railway's F-Line, which travels on Market Street, and Boston's Mattapan High-Speed Line. At 11 a.m. today , a celebration will be held at the Castle Shannon Light Rail Station to mark the end of service by the three remaining Drake streetcars. They are officially called the Presidents Conference Committee trolleys. This week, the public is invited to kick off a week of free rides on the 47D Drake route. The old cars, still as rickety as ever, will make their final scheduled ride Saturday night. After that, there's nothing but shuttle buses for the three dozen or so regular riders of the Drake. To fill the void, the Port Authority has set up a new minibus route, the 35A South Park, that will link South Hills Village to Century III Mall, making stops along the way at popular places such as the wave pool at South Park. For commuters who relied on the Drake trolley, there will be two transfer points to the main light rail system off the new bus route. It will link to the 42S light-rail line at South Hills Village and to the 42L light-rail line at Logan Road in Bethel Park, said Bob Grove, Port Authority spokesman. The trolleys will become museum pieces. One trolley already is enshrined at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center and another will be donated to South Hills Village. There always has been a certain charm to Pittsburgh's old streetcars, even though the car sometimes lurches, throwing its passengers forward. It also shakes from side to side, giving riders a squeamish feeling, like they just got off an amusement park ride. Though air conditioners were installed, they often didn't work too well. "They were terribly hot," said Greg Fink of Bethel Park as he rode the Drake on Friday. "In the good old days, if you sat near the wheel well, they would roast you." Though the trolleys never were as comfortable as the new, fully air-conditioned, light-rail vehicles with upholstered seats, the old trolleys were chock full of memories of a different era. Satariano said he used to ride the trolley from his home in Beechview to Downtown theaters such as the old Stanley. Sometimes after a long day in town, he would fall asleep on the streetcar and end up in Mt. Lebanon. He and his friends liked to "bomb" the trolley drivers with snow balls. "We used to torture these guys," said Satariano, who later got his payback when he was bombed while driving a trolley. While parked at the Drake Loop on Friday, Satariano fished around the empty streetcar looking for a keepsake. "I'd like to find an old transfer," he said, looking under one of the old leather seats. He didn't find one. While every other park-n-ride lot in the South Hills is usually full before 8 a.m., the Port Authority lot at the Drake Loop just off McMurray Road was almost empty Friday morning. So was the 47D, which picked up only about a half dozen riders as it rattled along the old railways from the Drake Loop on its 8:20 a.m. trip to Washington Junction in Bethel Park. That's where its passengers transferred to light-rail vehicles for the remainder of their trips into town. "That was a bigger crowd than usual, " Satariano said. On the next trip between the Drake loop and Washington Junction, Satariano only picked up one passenger. He said that's the way the route would be for most of the day, until the afternoon rush hour. Steve Swem, 54, an attorney who lives in the Brookside Farms section of Upper St. Clair, has been riding the Drake trolley since 1987 when it went to Pittsburgh instead of serving as a shuttle. Swem blamed the Port Authority for the decline in ridership of the Drake line. "First it went to town. Then it went to Castle Shannon. Now we get off at Washington Junction," said Swem. "It went from being one of the most dependable to the most undependable," he said. The three remaining streetcars are the last vestiges of the rolling stock that first appeared in Pittsburgh in 1936. They were among 666 streetcars built by the St. Louis Car Co. The first streetcar arrived in Pittsburgh on July 26, 1936. After providing demonstration rides all over town, it became permanently assigned to the 50 Carson Street route. The early cars had 220-horsepower motors, were 46 feet long and 8 feet, 4 inches wide. They weighed between 34,000 and 37,000 pounds. The Pittsburgh Railways Co. paid $28,000 for each of its first 100 cars. Each was painted red with a cream roof. Later, they were painted with cream V's and all-cream fronts. Still later, the trolleys were painted cream on the top and red on the bottom. They were delivered here over a 13-year period, ending in 1949. Local workers from Westinghouse supplied electrical equipment and braking systems for much of the fleet. Tom E. Parkinson, a transplanted Briton, was so fascinated by Pittsburgh's trolley system when he arrived here in 1962 that he spent every Sunday for four months exploring all 330 miles of available track. "The [Presidents Conference Committee] cars were designed as a streetcar to compete with the automobile; on right of way, nosing and vibrating at their balancing speed of 42 or 47 mph, they often seem to be very much like a fish out of water. A PCC car and the Pittsburgh street scene, with the frequent picturesque backdrop of a hillside covered with trees and houses, perfectly complemented each other," Parkinson wrote in an article entitled "The Street Railways of Pittsburgh, 1859 to 1967." Pittsburgh's trolley history Monday, August 30, 1999 Compiled by Johnna A. Pro, Post-Gazette Staff Writer Pittsburgh's trolley history dates to the late 19th century when the state Legislature passed a law allowing "motor power companies" to operate passenger railways by cable, electrical or other means. Since then, the city has been at the forefront of trolley transportation. JUNE 1887. Pittsburgh Traction Co. constructs a cable beginning at the foot of Fifth Avenue and running east on Shady, Penn and Highland avenues. The distance is 5.5 miles and it opens for passengers on Sept. 12, 1889. Cable lines are operated until 1897. THE LATE 1890s. The first electric line is constructed from South 13th and Carson streets to Knoxville Borough. That is followed by development of successful and consistent electric trolley service on the North Side and the South Side. In the ensuing years, competing lines are built by 190 trolley operators in the city. The wooden trolley cars have four wheels. "It was really a hodgepodge," says Scott Becker, executive director of the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in Washington, near the Meadowlands. JAN. 1, 1902. Pittsburgh Railways Co. is formed as a result of several companies consolidating their operations. There are 1,100 trolleys in operation in the city and the turn-of-the-century car has eight-wheels, high steps and narrow doors making traveling slow and cumbersome, particularly for women whose clothes don't allow them to negotiate the cars easily. Pittsburgh Railways has 400 miles of single track; carries 178.7 million passengers a year and has revenues of $6.7 million. 1912. Pittsburgh's trolley system is big and P.N. Jones, head of Pittsburgh Railways, heads the effort to produce a standard car. The city tries out double-decker cars -- about a dozen were built between 1912 and 1924 -- but they never really catch on here. 1915. Pittsburgh Railways decides that the new, low-floor trolley with its sloping floor is going to be its standard car. The company builds 1,000 of them between 1915 and 1927. The steel cars run on 600 volts of direct current and feature rattan seats, beautiful woodwork, windows that open and shaded light bulbs. The trolleys are painted orange but their color fades to yellow, prompting most people to call them yellow trolleys. They are used in Pittsburgh until the mid-1950s, when many trolleys are phased out in favor of buses. In the ensuing years, Pittsburgh Railways experimented readily with a variety of cars, testing aluminum, fiddling with control systems and trying a variety of options with wheels. 1926. Pittsburgh Railways operates 590 miles of single track; carries 396,679,675 passengers a year and has revenue of $21.7 million. 1928. Pittsburgh Railways begins producing high speed trolleys for its lines that run to Washington, Pa., and Charleroi. The company makes 15 cars that are painted red and feature bucket seats. Portions of the Charleroi line remain in service today as the Port Authority's Library Light Rail Transit line. A portion of the Washington line survived as the Drake line, service that will end Saturday. THE 1930s. Pittsburgh, like the country, is in the depths of the Depression. Pittsburgh Railway is losing ridership, but the company does not lose its tradition of supporting innovation. The company is enthusiastic about the ideas for a new car being developed at the request of the American Electric Railway Association Advisory Council. The plan for the car's development is overseen by the Electric Railway Presidents Conference Committee, which turns to Westinghouse for help designing the car. JULY 26, 1936. The first Presidential Conference Committee car -- #100 -- goes into service in the city. Pittsburgh Railways, trying to lure Depression-weary riders back to the trolleys, promotes the car in newspaper advertisements and on sandwich boards and with demonstration rides. It becomes the first PCC car to carry passengers for a fare on Sept. 26, 1936, when it covered the 50 Carson Street Route. Over the next 12 years, Pittsburgh Railways orders 666 of the cars -- at $28,000 a piece -- from the St. Louis Car Co. to replace the oldest trolleys in the fleet, the high-floor trolleys and the yellow trolleys. The PCCs were painted red and cream. SUMMER, 1953. Trolley service, which had boomed during the World War II and Korean War years, is scaled back to the border of Allegheny County. MARCH 1964. Allegheny County's Port Authority Transit is formed to unify public transit services. Despite the declining trolley use, the Port Authority inherits 283 PCC trolley cars and 219 buses. 1964 to 1967. Many rail routes are converted to bus routes. 1968. The Port Authority is operating just 58 miles of track. 1972. The 95 remaining PCC cars servicing the South Hills get new paint jobs, including one that gets a psychedelic look. 1981. The Port Authority decides to try to refurbish 45 PCC trolleys. The $763,000 cost is prohibitive and only 12 are done before the program is abandoned in 1987. July 3, 1985. Trolley street operations in the city cease when the Downtown subway is opened. AUG. 1, 1988. 36 PCC cars are removed from operation because of deteriorated electrical wires. Twenty seven of those are retired and used to supply parts for the ones that remained in operation. Only three remain today. They are numbers 4004, 4408 and 4009. Each has traveled about 2 million miles. For a complete history of the trolleys and their service to Pittsburgh, visit the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum at the Meadowlands. The number to call for information is-877-PA-Trolley or 724-228-9256. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sources: Scott Becker, executive director, the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum; Port Authority; "Pittsburgh of Today, Its Resources and People," by Frank C. Harper, copyright 1931.