It’s been well over half a century since 69-year-old Anne Elise Morris of Wilkinsburg took a ride on a trolley. But Morris’ vivid memories make it seem like she rode the trolley just yesterday.

“Whenever we were going to Downtown Pittsburgh, we would dress up for that,” said Morris. “I wore my fanciest dresses. I wore my patent leather shoes. We always wore white gloves. It was a big deal.”

The trolleys were a big deal for decades, especially after they became powered by the springy rod-like device on top of the streetcar that carried electric current from an overhead wire to an electrically driven vehicle.

Suddenly people could be carried quickly from a rural field or small town 20 miles outside of Pittsburgh — transported, as if by magic, aboard that modern machine from that empty field to the big city — to a world of lights and ideas, live theater and movies and food they’d never tasted before. It connected them to everything … a Pirates game, a romance, off to work or off to war.

It has been more than a half century since trolleys were a common sight traversing the brick-lined streets of Pittsburgh, but many people miss them. While unlikely, some wonder if it would be possible to bring back the trolleys — for their aesthetic appeal as well as their eco-friendliness.

Memories of the Pittsburgh trolleys are especially strong at this time of year, as people recall coming Downtown to shop and enjoy the city during the holidays.

For Morris, taking the trolley meant going somewhere special.

“We were taking the trolley to go down to Forbes Field to watch the Pirates play, or to Downtown Pittsburgh. The trolley was a way to get to someplace special, but (the trolley) was special in itself,” said Morris.

But for others taking the trolley during decades like the 1950s, for example, hearing the trolley bells and the clickety-clack down the track was an everyday thing, a way to get to work or school.

Deborah Webb, a 74-year-old church lay leader who grew up in Homewood, remembers laughing and talking with friends going to and from Westinghouse High School.

“The trolley was one of the places where you could be alone with your friends, without (parents) around to say anything.”

The trolley transformed a region and its people. Many of today’s thriving suburban communities owe their existence to the trolley. And the trolley transported an industrial city into the modern age.

“Your life revolved around the streetcar. Pittsburgh’s a classic example of that,” said Scott Becker, executive director/CEO of The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in Washington, Pa. “You took the streetcar to work, you took the streetcar to school, to the movies, to go shopping.”

Slow early beginnings

In Pittsburgh the trolleys, also known as streetcars, got their start in 1859 when they were pulled by horses and went, very, very, slow.

Perhaps Orson Welles summed up the early days of streetcars best in his opening narration from the movie “The Magnificent Ambersons”:

“The only public conveyance was the streetcar. A lady could whistle to it from an upstairs window, and the car would halt at once, and wait for her, while she shut the window, put on her hat and coat … went downstairs … found an umbrella … told the ‘girl’ what to have for dinner … and came forth from the house.”

For many people in those days, walking was a faster way to get where they were going. And yet the streetcar still seemed like the way to go, according to Andy Masich, president and CEO of the Senator John Heinz History Center.

“You didn’t have to walk through muddy streets. You didn’t have to saddle your horse or get a ride from someone else,” said Masich. “So, it became truly public transportation.”

Electricity speeds things up

By the turn of the century, around 1900, electric streetcars replaced horse-drawn cars. It was the beginning of something that turned smaller towns into bigger hubs.

“The trolley was what enabled people to live more than walking distance from their job,” said Art Ellis, a 102-year-old retired Pittsburgh Railway/Port Authority worker. “That’s what grew the suburbs.”

The predominant streetcar operator in Western Pennsylvania in the early 1900s was the Pittsburgh Railways Company. At its peak in 1918, it operated 99 trolley routes using 2,000 trolley cars running over 600 miles of track. In 1925, there were over 370 million riders counted that year.

Masich said electricity was a game-changer for the trolley industry and the companies that supported it.

“Electricity was big. It was the utility companies that really pushed the streetcar business because they already had the rights of way and they had the utility polls that could then power the trolley cars,” he said. “Westinghouse, right here in Pittsburgh, with these traction motors, electrical motors that could drive wheels, that was a huge invention.”

That’s when the trolleys really sped up.

“The trolley doubled and tripled the speed of transportation,” said Ellis. “That was probably the biggest jump in speed, more so than jets replacing propeller planes.”

As trolleys sped up, so did Pittsburgh’s population growth.

“Pittsburgh’s population and the rise of the trolley happened at about the same time — 60,000 people in 1859, 1860, right before the Civil War. By 1920, there were nearly 600,000 people in Pittsburgh,” said Masich. “The trolley enabled them to expand their reach, their domain. And whole neighborhoods grew up as a result of the trolley lines and the 90 neighborhoods of Pittsburgh were connected by a trolley.”

Trolleys inspired Fred Rogers

As trolley lines expanded, people could go farther out from the city. Pittsburgh’s suburbs were now being connected by trolley lines — including Latrobe, home to future children’s television star and Pittsburgh icon Fred Rogers.

“I do know that the reason ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’ has a trolley in it is because of the trolleys in Latrobe,” said David Newell, who played Mr. McFeely on the show. “They didn’t have an extensive line to my knowledge, but they did have trolleys. And when Fred was creating the program, he was thinking of the neighborhood and the trolley was a big part of getting around the neighborhood.

“It was such a big part of his memory, too, because I think as a kid he did take trolleys around Latrobe. And that’s what trolleys did here in a larger area — connected Pittsburgh.”

Rolling melting pots

In the early days of the trolleys in Western Pennsylvania, many folks lived in neighborhoods where the people were just like them … Italian American neighborhoods, Irish American neighborhoods, African American neighborhoods, Polish American neighborhoods. Once you were on the trolley, you were with people who were like you, but also people who were different from you. That inspired the term rolling melting pots.

“Look at Pittsburgh and all the different ethnic neighborhoods that there are. Well, guess what, the streetcar connected all those neighborhoods,” said Becker. “We actually have in our archives old ads like the Slovak Savings Bank and it’s all in Slovakian. It’s not in English because you had different people speaking different languages or from different backgrounds.

“You had rich people, you had poor people. You had middle class. They’re all riding together on the same car. So, that’s why we call them rolling melting pots.”

End of the line for trolleys

Trolleys, and the people who rode them, were like a dream that evolved out of different real-life episodes, first pulled slowly by horses and then faster by electricity. Where a diverse group of people congregated, like in a church, because they all wanted the same thing, and they were all getting there together.

“It seemed like a different era then,” said Morris. “(On the trolley) nobody was ever angry or upset or talked down to anybody. It was like family.”

Unfortunately, the trolley’s heyday was relatively short. By the end of World War II, Americans wanted to travel on their own schedules. They wanted cars, and more people could afford them. Buses began replacing trolleys, though some trolley advocates said the cost of streetcars was lower than buses over time, after the capital costs of putting down tracks.

On Jan. 28, 1967 — the day after nine streetcar route abandonments in the East End — the so-called “Last Chance Trolley” pulled out of Wilkinsburg with a sign that read “Ride the Last Chance Trolley, end of an era.” As one observer recalled, “there was some sleet and it became very slippery. The bus replacements were sliding around while the streetcars had no problems.”

The trolleys did continue in some form. The last official trolley ran in the streets of the Golden Triangle on July 7, 1985. And while the light rail systems that evolved from the first-generation streetcar era can still be seen in the city today, they don’t evoke the same sentimental memories as those from the heyday of trolley cars in Pittsburgh.

“In some way, I hope we could bring (them) back,” said Newell. “The trolley is so much more romantic than a bus. It was fun.”

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)