[PRCo] Penna. Trolley Museum Link to Post Gazette

[Fred Schneider]

Reproduced is a complete article from yesterday's Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette.
              Old trolleys get new home

              30 cars, stories go on display

              Sunday, May 15, 2005

              By David Templeton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

              After 51 years, The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in
Chartiers finally
              looks like a museum.

              Museum officials and volunteers have opened a $2 million
Trolley
              Display Building that presents 30 trolley cars in two
spacious corridors,
              with display stanchions providing histories of each car.

              Before the display building opened May 6, the museum, just
off North
              Main Street in Arden, had a limited number of trolleys on
display in a
              cramped 9,000-square-foot trolley barn. A large number of
trolleys had
              to be placed in storage.

              "This is a considerably better viewing experience," museum
Executive
              Director Scott Becker said. "This is three times the size
of our original
              display building.

              "Two-thirds of the museum is in this building."

              The fee to tour the museum and old trolley barn is $6 for
adults, $5 for
              seniors and $4 for children 3 to 15. An additional fee of
$2 for adults
              and $1 for children now will be charged to tour the new
display
              building.

              The tour will take 21/2 hours and include archival
displays, a video, a
              tour of the old barn and a trolley ride before the grand
finale, a tour
              through the new 28,000-square-foot Trolley Display
Building.

              Besides impressing visitors, it will preserve trolleys.

              The building has no windows, so paint jobs are safe.
Humidity is
              controlled to prevent condensation, which causes rusting.
The building
              is equipped with a sprinkler system inside, with hydrants
outside the
              building. It also is insulated.

              "The cars will not get any worse than they are now,"
Becker said.
              "These cars are being preserved."

              But the most immediate advantage is the expansive view of
the trolley
              cars with display stanchions providing entertaining
stories of each car
              and how each made its way to the museum.

              Inside the front door, visitors are welcomed by the
museum's oldest
              car, a car drawn by horses and mules that operated into
the 20th
              century. It stands side by side with the newest, a 1988
trolley that was
              one of the last the Port Authority of Allegheny County
built. "It looks like
              the day it was new," Becker said.

              Three trolleys were converted into homes, but not mobile
homes. An
              interurban West Penn trolley car that traveled among
Uniontown,
              Connellsville and Greensburg become a home in Jeanette in
1952, "an
              early version of a single wide," Becker said, jokingly.
"It was a home
              longer than it was a trolley car."

              One retired trolley became the Dew Drop Inn in Ellwood
City, which
              straddles the border of Beaver and Lawrence counties. It
still has the
              bar and a door leading to the men's room.

              Trolley conditions range from fully restored to motley.
"When we get
              them, they're not always pretty," Becker said.

              There are three snow sweepers, including one from Beaver
County.
              One has had its brush recaned with bamboo. Another is a
large freight
              trolley. A milk trolley holds the record for remaining in
service for 81
              years, but not all hauling milk. "They got their money out
of this one,"
              Becker said.

              The heaviest is a 54-ton trolley locomotive. The museum
also features
              an electric car built in 1890 and rebuilt in 1897, making
it perhaps the
              oldest electric car in existence in the United States.

              A picnic car from Rio de Janeiro, built in 1911, came to
America on a
              coffee freighter.

              Some of the museum's trolley cars have grand tales of
survival. A
              Jersey Shore and Antes Fort car built in 1906 and a sister
car were
              retired in 1925 and transformed into a house, chained side
by side to
              a tree beside a creek.

              There they remained until Hurricane Agnes' flood waters
swept them
              two miles downstream in June 1972. One came to rest beside
a
              railroad bridge.

              While the property owner was preparing to destroy it, a
trolley
              enthusiast saw it while canoeing and made quick
arrangements to
              salvage it. It arrived at the museum in 1999 with many of
its ornate
              windows intact. "By rights, this has no business
existing," Becker said.

              The stanchions, he said, turn the museum into the trolley
version of the
              television show, "This Old House."

              "Those stanchions are what makes this a museum," Becker
said.
              "There are 30 different stories in this building."


              (David Templeton can be reached at
              dtempleton at post-gazette.com or 724-746-8652.)