[PRCo] Pittsburgh PCC in Cleveland

[Bob Rathke]

The article below from the Cleveland Plain Dealer last week mentions the 
Pittsburgh PCC there. The article included two photos but they weren't 
attached to the e-mail message I received.  I lived in Lakewood, but after 
Cleveland's trolley era.

Bob 9/5/07

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 Trolley inspection gives you a chance to travel back
to the past.

Friday, August 31, 2007
Sarah Crump
Plain Dealer Reporter

For 10 cents, Ron Jedlicka could buy the world outside
his Lakewood neighborhood - or at least a glimpse of
it.

 The Columbus trolley collector remembers paying a dime
when he was a kid to ride all over Cleveland on the
electric-powered cars.

 "I had so many adventures," said Jedlicka, 63, who
often hung out at the Madison Avenue and West 117th
Street streetcar "barn" not far from his childhood
home. "The trolley lines tied Cleveland together like
a shoelace," he said.

 Today, thanks to Jedlicka, Clevelanders can sit inside
a trolley just like the ones that once traversed the
city. He has loaned a similar car that once served
Pittsburgh riders for long-term display here.

 From about 1947 to about 1952, the city ran about 75
of the sleek PCCs, short for the Depression-era
Presidents' Conference Committee design that Jedlicka
rode. Their single headlights trimmed with snazzy Art
Deco-style wings, the steel trolleys threaded through
Cleveland and suburban streets via overhead electrical
cables. This fleet had replaced wooden trolleys. The
city sold its PCC cars to Toronto in 1952.

 This summer, private donors raised $3,000 to allow
Cuyahoga County Engineer Robert C. Klaiber Jr. to
bring the 58-seat streetcar by truck from Columbus to
Cleveland.

 The PCC will be open to the public for the first time
since its arrival from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday
during free, self-guided tours of the Detroit-Superior
(Veterans Memorial) Bridge and the former streetcar
route on its lower level. Jedlicka's streetcar stands
on 10 feet of track in the county engineer's parking
lot near the bridge's west end, at West 25th Street
and Detroit Avenue.

 Parking for the tours is free in the engineer's garage
near the bridge. Go to www.cuyctyengineers.org for
directions and photos of past tours. After Saturday,
groups of 15 or more can arrange to see the bridge or
the trolley's interior by calling the engineer's
office at 216-348-3835.

 Jedlicka, a retired state facility planner, also has
five wooden trolleys like the ones Clevelanders rode
in the early 1900s. He'd like to loan them for people
to see, if he could find a local exhibition spot.

 "I'd love to see them come home to Cleveland," he
said. "That's where they belong."

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To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
 scrump at plaind.com, 216-999-5478