Only five North American cities have kept their pre-war streetcar networks. Why was Pittsburgh one of them? We ask a city native, in this guest post.
The Roots
Pittsburgh is a city whose location is dictated by its position at the confluence of rivers. From the natives of the lands, to the French who showed up and built a fort, to the English who chased them out and started the city that became Pittsburgh, the settlement’s importance has always been related to the waters adjacent to it. Paths became roads, canals were dug, and soon railroads provided an outlet for the growing industry of the area. The burgeoning population of the time needed better options for getting around. Complicating mobility was the hilly and sometimes steep river valley geography.
Citizens Passenger Railway introduced horse cars to the city in 1859. Tracks ran along Penn Avenue from what’s now downtown Pittsburgh to 34th Street, ending before the climb away from the river valley. This line had a peculiarity which would be shared by every subsequent line in the area: it was built to a wide gauge commonly called Pennsylvania broad gauge. The rails featured an extra 6 inches of spacing, 5 feet 2.5 inches, to a stated purpose of keeping main line railroads off city streets.
The Pittsburgh, Allegheny and Manchester Passenger Railway was chartered next, extending to the Woods Run section of what then was still Allegheny City. The Pittsburgh and Birmingham Railway was another early line, extending to what later became the South Side.
Before long, there was interest in speeding up service. Because electrification technology hadn’t advanced to widespread deployment, several horsecar company operators converted their lines to underground cables, giving the city multiple cable car lines. The first, Pittsburgh Traction, opened via Fifth Avenue to East Liberty in 1888. In early 1889, Citizens Passenger Railway opened lines to East Liberty via Penn Avenue, with a branch along Butler St in Lawrenceville. The final cable car operator, Citizens Traction, completed its line to Oakland via the Hill District in early 1890.
Whilst most of Pittsburgh’s cable car lines were not on flat geography, gravity propulsion was not the prime propulsion as it is for San Francisco’s cable cars. The Pennsylvanian city’s cable cars were mostly powered by cable traction.
By then, electrification had become apparent in many cities as the answer to power public transport. However, initially there was no clear consensus on how to electrify. The Observatory Hill Passenger Railway in Allegheny, and the Pittsburgh, Knoxville and St Clair in Pittsburgh’s newly-annexed South Side, began construction about the same time, before any of the cable cars began operation. The latter’s steep climb to Knoxville, traversing a spindly private right of way trestle to ascend to the hillside from South 13th St with the aid of a rack railway, opened first.
The term ‘trolley’ predates the invention of the trolley pole. The earliest electric cars did not use a pole, but rather a system in which each car dragged behind it an overhead cable connected to a small cart that rode on a ‘track’ of overhead wires. From the side, the dragging lines made the car seem to be ‘trolling’ as in fishing. Later, when a pole was added, it came to be known as a trolley pole.
This used the Daft system, invented by Leo Daft, which had a small 4-wheel overhead pickup he called the “troller”, because it was towed behind the car like a fishing line. This is the most like the origin of the word “trolley” as the American term for tram. The system collected current from an overhead wire through wheels on a pole, with a dangling wire to feed an electric motor that pulled the car and a passenger trailer. On the rack section, a conduit with dual feeders was used in place of the overhead wire. Only six photos of this operation exist, as it was troublesome and did not last long, only until 1890. In the process, it took the adjacent Suburban Rapid Transit operation offline as well, as the systems shared a powerhouse.
Was the Bentley-Knight system similar to London’s conduit technology? ***
The following image shows the Bentley-Knight Centre Conduit System in operation on the Alleghany City Federal Street line in 1889.
Conduit systems were not practical in the parts of North America having regular snowfall, such as Pittsburgh, requiring additional labour to consistently clear the cavity during inclement weather. The Observatory Hill conduit trolley line used the Bentley-Knight conduit system for one mile of its four mile length from 1888. But it was problematic and the entire line was converted in 1891 to a conventional electric trolley using Sprague designed overhead trolley wire and poles. Other local Bentley-Knight side conduit lines were similarly changed over. Boston had also tested the Bentley-Knight underground power conduit on a short section of line, but it was quickly abandoned due to being failure prone, and due to safety concerns – it had electrocuted a team of horses in 1889.
So short lived was the Bentley-Knight conduit system in operation, in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and a few other cities, that there are no detailed images of its conduit workings. Hence comparison with the much longer lasting London County Council Tramways conduit, shewn below, is not possible:
The “trollers” were replaced by trolley poles, being much simpler. Further street railway electrification would use the Sprague trolley wire and pole system that is familiar around much of the world. By 1891, over 100 miles of electrified line in the region was in operation.
Rails Going Upwards As Well
Pittsburgh is much more hilly than most American cities, and thus inclined planes proliferated in the city during this period. Also called funiculars, they began with the Monongahela Incline in 1870, and eventually included 15 passenger inclines, a freight incline, and several coal inclines.
The Monongahela passenger and freight inclines were steepest in world when they were constructed and for some time after. The city had 24 incline railways, including some for coal movements. Many closed in the 1800s – only two passenger inclines remain in operation today.
Auspiciously, their original plans to install a cable line meant the Smithfield St Bridge would need to be widened. Even when it became apparent that electrification was the way forward, the bridge was still widened. Without this simple but significant investment, it’s doubtful Pittsburgh would today have rail transit.
Electric Street Railway Growth
This was the heyday of electric railway construction in the Pittsburgh area. Lines were built, sometimes competing with existing or proposed operations. Before long, consolidation began. By 1896, several large players had been leased or merged into Consolidated Traction. A major car house and shop was constructed in the far east end of the city, in Homewood, and the then-new central facility in the eastern part of Oakland became the Duquesne Gardens arena. Over the course of the next year the cable lines were all converted to electric operation.
Additional waves of consolidation occurred, until by the end of 1901 there were only the aforementioned Consolidated, United Traction, and Southern Traction companies. Southern changed its name to Pittsburgh Railways and soon leased the others, such that 1902 dawned as the first day of a new, single, citywide operator.
The central parts of the system were already well-developed. In some cases, duplication allowed trackage abandonment without contraction of services even in this early time. Nonetheless, some additional lines could still be added.
The South Hills city neighbourhoods and suburbs were beyond Mount Washington, meaning simple connections to the trolley network did not exist. The narrow gauge Pittsburgh and Castle Shannon Railroad (P&CS) provided service via the Saw Mill Run valley from the back of Mount Washington to Castle Shannon, but used two inclines to bring passengers to the top, and then down to a spot near the Smithfield St Bridge for a connection into the city. It was quicker than before, but was still a cumbersome option.
The newly founded Pittsburgh Railways Company began building the Mount Washington Trolley Tunnel to bypass the two inclines, beginning directly opposite the Smithfield St Bridge. The tunnel would connect to the new electric lines serving neighbourhoods nearby. The tunnel opened in late 1904, followed shortly by a new trolley line ascending West Liberty Ave and Brookline Blvd.
A 99 year lease of the P&CS was negotiated in early 1905, and over the intervening 5 years:
- the line was electrified,
- new electric lines were begun from the Castle Shannon end of the P&CS to the towns of Charleroi and Washington, and
- additional trolley lines to Dormont via West Liberty Avenue and to Castle Shannon via Beechview and a connection to the aforementioned Dormont line were all added.
Much of this construction operated on private right of way rather than street trackage, something which, aside from certain short segments of other lines, was previously rare. The notable exception was trackage from the West End to Carnegie, which included substantial off-street trackage, but used West Carson Street and the Point Bridge over the Monongahela River to enter downtown.
This was the heyday of trolley service in Pittsburgh. So busy was the system, a city Transit Commissioner role was created with goals including speeding up service. In 1917, a proposal was proffered for rapid transit joining the South Side, the downtown peninsula, and the North Side. It would connect East Liberty to downtown via Penn Avenue with a connection to the north portal of the trolley tunnel, and again to downtown via Fifth and Forbes Avenues with a connection to the central North Side, as the centre of the annexed city of Allegheny had become known. In 1925, this second line was the focus of a further proposal, “Report on A Recommended Subway in the First and Second Wards of Pittsburgh, or Proposed First Step in a Rapid Transit Program”. Unfortunately, nothing came of it.
Stagnation after Long Growth
In 1918, with escalating costs due to the war adding to the pressure of guaranteed lease payments to the original owners of the properties, the Pittsburgh Railways Company was forced into bankruptcy. Reorganisation ended in 1924, with the tangle of underlying companies only somewhat simplified.
Upon exiting bankruptcy, the company found a new challenge: automobiles were appearing in growing numbers, as were paved roads to serve them. To grow transit service without the expense of new rails, and to avoid franchise agreements with towns that forced the railway company to pave streets for their auto competition, the Pittsburgh Auto Transit Co was purchased and renamed the Pittsburgh Motor Coach Company in 1925. Three bus lines were part of the new company, while 21 more were added over the next seven years. None replaced trolleys until the 1932 conversion of the route to Mount Washington up the back from the West End.
The Depression
Through the 1920s the Pittsburgh Railways situation wasn’t quite dire. But seeing ridership increasingly desert for cars, the company was one of the leading proponents in the creation of the Electric Railways Presidents’ Conference Committee in 1929. Its quest was to develop a modern, attractive streetcar that could compete with the speed, styling, and comfort of automobiles.
As the Depression set in, however, tides began to turn harder against public transport. Independent bus operators, long limited by Pennsylvania’s Public Service Commission (PSC) to operating suburban transfer runs from outlying points only to the streetcar network, were allowed to extend a doors-closed service to downtown starting in 1931. The Railways Company protested but to no avail.
Meanwhile, the PCC streetcars (so-called for the Presidents’ Conference Committee) went through a rigorous six year development program which improved every aspect to create a truly state of the art vehicle. The PCC car was developed by the Presidents of many North American street railway companies as a response to increasingly ubiquitous automobiles – the streetcar had faster acceleration, was a standard design for North America, and was streamlined for a modern image. When a prototype design was ready in spring 1936, Pittsburgh ordered one for trial purposes. While Brooklyn 1001 was delivered first, PCC 100 from Saint Louis Car entered revenue service just weeks after its July 26, 1936 delivery, making it the first money-earning production PCC trolley. By this time Pittsburgh Railways already had 100 on order from Saint Louis Car, the 1000-series.
The trolley company proceeded to order 200 more over the next 15 months. Hometown favourite Westinghouse Electric supplied electrical gear for the most of these cars. Costs were approximately $16,000 per car.
The PCCs became more important as in August 1936, the PSC began allowing suburban bus operators to collect passengers on the segments of their routes that overlapped the trolley lines. The railway could never undercut the non-union bus operators on price, so they aimed to provide superior service. And in 1937, the Public Utilities Commission (PSC’s replacement) declined to let Pittsburgh Railways introduce a feeder bus service in territory already served by an independent operator (the borough of Ingram), claiming that transfers were not in the public interest.
Indeed, these were hard times, and again the company entered bankruptcy in 1938. Court-appointed trustees took over. A hundred more cars, the 1400 series (1300 was skipped) were ordered in May 1941 for about $17,000 each. But soon, war came again.
Trolley Life during Wartime
While there had been few abandonments, the long Oakmont to Wilkinsburg line was cut in 1938. Any additional cuts were postponed as the war arrived and commodities like gasoline and rubber were rationed. Mid-1942 brought an order for an additional hundred cars, but the Office of Defense Transportation concluded Pittsburgh could make do with less, and allowed an order of only 65 cars, at about $19,000 each. War Production Board restrictions also limited non-essential items like decorative trim on these cars. As the war continued, however, another order for 100 cars was made.
The 1600 series included the prototype all-electric postwar PCC car 1600 – all-electrics had electrically operated doors, which were more reliable that the air-electric cars’ pneumatically operated doors. The prototype had a roof monitor, smaller windows by the seats, and a row of small standee windows above. This series also included car 1630, which was a conventional air-electric car but with the same roof monitor and ventilation fans. Car 1630 later had its monitor roof removed, while car 1600 was an early retirement. (We’ll get to that!) These cars cost $20,000 each.
Postwar Era Contraction and Decline
In the immediate postwar period, Pittsburgh Railways still had high ridership, as production of the massive war machine was diverted back to civilian needs. But houses in the new suburbs were constructed beyond the end of the rail lines, new highways like the Penn-Lincoln Parkway were built, and new automobiles quickly made problems for the company. As they did in every other North American city, then the rest of the world.
The year 1947 saw what would be the final order of PCCs for the company, 100 cars of the 1700 series at just over $28,000 each. Interurban PCCs, numbered 1700 through 1724, had features to ease operation on the long lines to Charleroi and Washington: cow-catcher pilots, spare poles, and opening rear windows for ease in rewiring on high narrow trestles, among others.
However, ridership quickly collapsed. The trustees in 1948 engaged the N.A. Lougee consultancy to see if it made sense to convert the streetcar network to diesel or electric buses. As early as 1940, the relatively new Public Utilities Commission (PUC) had made the case that buses were proliferating elsewhere; perhaps they should here, too. The 1949 report suggested retaining all but the most lightly-patronised routes as rail.
Still, changes happened quickly, and not always at the behest of the trolley company. The state in 1949 began planning replacements for the Point and Manchester Bridges at the confluence of the rivers. The new bridges would carry new freeways, and would allow space for a new park. A growing city renaissance was underway, funded by the Mellon family, and pushed by Democrat Mayor Lawrence. Old buildings were being replaced with new ones in an effort to rejuvenate downtown.
But with these changes came relocated and newly one way streets, and this would mean investment in rail facilities by a company whose fare returns were dwindling.
At last, in 1951, the second Pittsburgh Railways bankruptcy concluded. In 1946, a case was heard whereby Pittsburgh would have assumed the status of overseer of the reorganisation, as it was suggested that there was value in the operation of a single, integrated transit system. The case didn’t result in such integration, but the city’s solicitor Anne X Alpern would proceed over the intervening years to take every action to divest the city of its rail service. She did whatever she could to devalue the assets of the company to force insolvency, in the hopes that a trustee would be willing to axe the trolleys in favour of buses. Indeed, a 1953 fare increase offered another chance for her to to push the bus agenda.
But the highway building still brought issues. Abandonment of the rail lines along East Ohio Street to Etna and Millvale occurred in 1952, as the Pennsylvania Department of Highways began the first round of improvements that would turn the corridor into the limited access Pennsylvania Highway Route 28. It also brought the end of the long suburban line to Sewickley via McKees Rocks and Neville Island.
The following year saw Washington County taxes on the interurban lines to Washington and Charleroi become an issue, and as a result those lines were cut back to inside the Allegheny County line. A new loop was constructed on the Charleroi line at Library; the Washington line was cut back just shy of a high trestle to save maintenance costs and a new loop at Drake was constructed.
A different kind of issue cropped up in 1955: Homewood car barn, the system’s major shop facility, suffered a massive fire which destroyed 11 PCC cars, including the prototype 1600.
Harkening back to the 1946 bankruptcy case, 1956 brought Pennsylvania’s “Second Class County Port Authority Act”. This would eventually serve to allow consolidation of all transit service in the county under a single, public operator. Only in 1959 was the enabling legislation updated to allow it to serve this purpose.
The earlier Lougee study suggested converting weakly patronised lines to bus, so 1957 brought abandonment of near-North Side lines to Spring Hill, Spring Garden and Troy Hill. And 1958 saw the abandonment of the long line to McKeesport via Squirrel Hill and Homestead when Pittsburgh repaved Murray Ave. But the 1959 closing of the Point Bridge when the new Fort Pitt Bridge opened was felt more deeply. A cluster of West End lines, with considerably more private right of way, closed at the time. This severed rail service to Carnegie, McKees Rocks, Crafton, Ingram, and Elliott. A long private right of way had connected the West End valley to Crafton, and another ran from Crafton to Carnegie. While initially express buses via the Parkway could provide quicker service, the highway rapidly became congested and limited that advantage. Not until over 40 years later would this link truly be replaced.
Progress came slowly, but the Port Authority’s 1961 plan would consolidate the various private transit players into a single system. Trolleys were expected to be wound down as they depreciated, with the last removal coming in 1972. Rapid transit would replace the heavier lines. Commuter rail operations, already tenuous, were analysed as well. When in 1964 the Pennsylvania Railroad withdrew its commuter rail service, the county considered whether to offer a subsidy, but let opportunity slip past. However, this provided added impetus to move forward with improvements of transit service around Pittsburgh.
Coming of the Port Authority
Quickly the county, in the guise of the Port Authority, instituted procedures to condemn the Pittsburgh Railways Company. A court case from 1964 gave the county control of it, while allowing valuation to continue, and it would be years before the case concluded. It cost the county around $14 million, plus interest, to acquire the company.
While Pittsburgh Railways would be the first part of the Port Authority on March 1,1964, by the end of the month most of the private operators had also been purchased. Acquisitions stretched into 1965, and also included the remaining inclined plane (funicular) operators. The final incline to close, as practically the end of Pittsburgh Railways actions in 1964, was the Castle Shannon incline. This left only the Monongahela and Duquesne Inclines, which still operate today as part of the city’s transit network. Port Authority Connect cards are accepted as payment on both, but transfers to/from bus and streetcar lines are not accepted.
Having collected all the players, the Port Authority set about rationalising the system it had collected. This included choosing which trolleys would be needed for ongoing service. Rankin car house, long since unused for daily operations, became the home of a large number of cars rejected by the Port Authority. In general, the newest cars in good shape were kept, but it would be a few more years before further conversions to bus would allow fleet consolidation to a more limited variety of cars.
The Second Avenue lines served by the Glenwood car barn would be the next major group to be cut in 1964, with the decaying Hays Bridge causing abandonment in advance of its replacement by the Glenwood Bridge.
The few remaining lines through the North Side to West View and around to the Ohio Valley in Bellevue went in 1965, with the car barn in Ross being converted to service only buses, as it does to this day. However, the largest change to the system was the abandonment in 1967 of most of the rail system. All lines east of downtown which were not cut earlier were abandoned on January 27, leaving only lines which operated via the Smithfield St Bridge to Carrick via South 18th St, to the hilltop communities via New Arlington Avenue, and via the Transit Tunnel to the South Hills communities.
With access cut to Homewood car barn, the remaining operations were consolidated south of the river in the tight South Hills Junction facilities just past the tunnel. Quickly after the East End abandonments, the large car barn on Craft Avenue in Oakland was demolished and further additions were made to Magee-Women’s Hospital. The car barn’s land was too valuable to be condemned by the county, which no doubt made the decision to cut rail service to the east even easier.
All PCCs older than the 1600 series were removed from service.
One operation which would have lasting impact was the Pittsburgh and Birmingham Street Railway. Two lines starting at South 33rd St and going downtown were operated: one via the South 10th St Bridge, and the other via the Smithfield St Bridge.
Subsequent abandonments of the trackage through the South Side and up the hill to Carrick, as well as off into Beltzhoover away from the hilltop trackage retained as a tunnel bypass, brought the system to a configuration of 3 basic lines: Drake and Library via Overbrook, and Castle Shannon via Beechview. By the early 1970s, this, plus a few configurations of downtown surface loops, were all that was left.
Designing a System for Tomorrow
The 1960s brought an awareness to the Federal government that buses could not provide mass transit efficiently or cost effectively to the many large cities without a subway. As a result, President Kennedy initiated the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA), which funded a large portion of new subways for a number of still growing cities. This resulted in the Washington DC Metro system and the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) connecting San Francisco to its suburbs across the bay, as well as supporting existing subway systems.
A later UMTA initiative promoted the US Standard Light Rail Vehicle (SLRV) to replace older PCC streetcars in many cities and to lower the cost for cities to construct new light rail systems. Unfortunately, the SLRVs were designed and built by Boeing Vertol, as a defense contractor civilian conversion project after the Vietnam War. Boeing had no experience in designing or building public transport vehicles, so problems were continual. The SLRV was purchased by Boston and San Francisco to replace their streetcar fleets. However the US SLRV was unreliable and scrapping started only 11 years after being introduced into service. However, they were not completely replaced in both cities until 2007.
Pittsburgh Modernises its Transit Network
Recognizing that they were stewards of a system which had been subject to disinvestment in the face of regional growth and sprawl, the board of Pittsburgh’s new Port Authority undertook a rapid transit study. The options considered included bus, conventional rail, and rubber-tired metro style service. The last part consisted of the Westinghouse Transit Expressway proposal, known as Skybus. The report published in 1967 suggested creation of a 60 mile, 5 route system, with the first branch going east to Monroeville from downtown. Neither steel rails nor the transit expressway was endorsed over the other in the proposal.
The Port Authority incorporated the study into what it proposed in 1968 as the Early Action Plan. Two bus-only roadways (initially known as PATways, but eventually called busways) would be built, one east along the Pennsylvania Railroad mainline, and one south along Saw Mill Run, substantially paralleling the Overbrook trolley line.
The trolley line through Beechview and Dormont would be replaced by Westinghouse’s Transit Expressway, with driverless rubber tired vehicles running on a private fixed guideway. Finally, the trolley line to Library would be given a modest rehabilitation, and retained. This almost immediately became contentious, and in 1969 Westinghouse counter-proposed a more conventional wheel on rail system they called PAT-Metro, with a lower price tag. They lashed out in press releases at the heavy use of diesel buses in the Early Action Plan.
Things got sufficiently contentious that in 1972, 13 area mayors including the mayor of Pittsburgh, filed suit to get an injunction to stop implementation. The case was decided in 1973, but the initial goal had been for the system to be operational by then. By the time the Urban Mass Transportation Administration suspended the project in 1974, the former Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal rail tunnel had been renovated and land by South Hills Village had been acquired for shops.
An alternatives analysis was undertaken and in 1976, a new consensus was reached. The existing rail lines would be preserved and linked into a new downtown subway, with substantial improvement of the Beechview/Dormont line including a new tunnel under Washington Road in Mount Lebanon, and double track all the way to Castle Shannon. The tunnel bypass route via New Arlington and Warrington Avenues between Carson St and South Hills Junction via Allentown would also be retained.
Building the Busway System
Contracts were let for the South Busway in 1977. This impacted the rail system as it required the transit tunnel tracks be paved for buses. It also required a new trestle over Route 51 and Saw Mill Run at Palm Garden to connect to the busway along the south side of the creek valley: the Overbrook trolley line hugged the north bank for the first several miles south of the transit tunnel. In the process, the area around the barn and shop at South Hills Junction was also substantially reconfigured.
While plans for the Beechview/South Hills Village line that replaced the Transit Expressway proposal called for double-ended light rail vehicles, the system would continue to be PCC operated in the interim, as well as on the Drake and Library via Overbrook lines, so loops were retained in the redesign.
Uncertain Times
Set against this, Pittsburgh experienced massive shocks as the steel industry contracted. Not limited to the remaining mills, downtown employment changed as U.S. Steel and LTV laid off white collar workers as well as blue.
Still, 1983 saw the opening of the East Busway along trackage that belonged to Conrail between downtown and Wilkinsburg, with a provision for a connection to the in-progress downtown subway. It also included the brief resurgence of commuter rail east of the city, a special train called the Parkway Limited intended to offer relief during the massive, two-year reconstruction of the Penn-Lincoln Parkway east between Oakland and Churchill. The service was poorly patronised, and did not last the duration of the project.
On April 15, 1984, the new and redesigned light rail line to South Hills Village opened. Initially, it was LRV-operated only as far as Castle Shannon. The balance of the system was PCC-operated, as the downtown trackage was not suitable for the 55 Siemens-Duewag LRVs then being delivered. Then, July 3, 1985, Pittsburgh’s new subway debuted, with pantograph-equipped PCCs stopping at the low platform half of the three underground stations (Steel Plaza, Wood St, and Gateway Center). The new U3 (later redesigned Siemens SD400 after Siemens acquired Duewag) LRVs still were not traveling to downtown pending the completion of the rebuilding of the Beechview/Dormont/Mount Lebanon line. The subway stations featured high platforms for the LRVs, though a unique feature of Pittsburgh’s LRVs is a single-stream front door next to the operator station at each end of the car with steps, for older, low platform stops. The cars to Library, Drake, and South Hills Village also all stopped at Station Square, a new station just east of the north portal of the transit tunnel. The tracks to the Smithfield St Bridge were severed, and no longer would rail service run on the eastern span of the bridge or indeed on the surface of any downtown street.
The subway also featured a spur from Steel Plaza – the station under the USX Tower – to what was called Penn Park: a surface stop and loop directly adjacent the East Busway stop at the Pennsylvania Railroad station, now the Amtrak service stop for the city.
And just shy of Station Square, a second branch off the recycled ex-PRR Panhandle railroad bridge connected to the tunnel bypass trackage on New Arlington Ave (now just Arlington Ave). For all of nine days, the Station Square stop permitted a connection to the single remaining commuter train on the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, but on July 12, the final run of the train to College, PA (Beaver Falls) was made.
The full system didn’t last long: in 1986, the Arlington Ave trackage closed for rebuilding. It had been single track with passing sidings, but was rebuilt over the next several years as double track the from the end of the Panhandle Bridge ramp to the Warrington Ave intersection.
New Streetcar Rolling Stock
The now nearly 40 year old PCCs were starting to become an issue. Around 1980, Pittsburgh began a program to rebuild PCCs in-house. The 4000-series cars were given electrical, mechanical, and body rebuilds using 1700-series cars as donors.
The first car went into service in 1981, and by the time the program was halted in 1987 due to escalating costs, a dozen cars had been completed. But the use of old cars continued, and when loss of dynamic brakes due to a frayed wiring harness caused a runaway of car 1727 in the tunnel on October 27, 1987, it pointed to a more serious issue. All unrebuilt cars were retired by summer 1988, and the four in best shape received electrical and mechanical upgrades. The 4000s would provide all PCC service from this point forward.
The end of April 1989 would also bring the closure of the last commuter train in the city. CSX was operating the train out of the Baltimore and Ohio station at the foot of Grant St, stopping in Braddock, McKeesport, Port Vue, and Versailles. The subsidies per passenger were high due to the dwindling ridership, and the train was replaced with 3 express bus routes. Today, this spot hosts the First Avenue stop of the subway, though it is above ground just south of the subway’s south portal. At the time, though, no direct connection between the subway and the railroad existed.
The system continued substantially unchanged until 1993. Services were the LRV-operated line from downtown to South Hills Village via Beechview, and PCC-operated lines via Overbrook to each of Library, Drake, and South Hills Village. This all changed when the aging wooden trestles on the Overbrook line were found to have safety issues. The Drake line was converted to a PCC-operated shuttle between Washington Junction (where it met the Library line) and Drake; the Library line received a quick upgrade whereby track centres were widened (except on bridges), and became LRV-operated. PCCs continued operating until September 4, 1999, when the portion of the Drake line past the junction with the South Hills Village line closed.
The next fleet of Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) LRVs also have the three high floor, double width doors per side, and one low-level single width door opposite the operator’s cabin at either end. As with the SD400s, fares are collected at some major stations at most peak periods, with on-board fare payment otherwise.
Change and Renewal
In September 2000 the West Busway opened. The project was originally planned to feature a new entry to downtown with a connection to a converted Wabash Tunnel, but instead it ended on West Carson St, and the Wabash Tunnel opened as a changeable-direction, one way vehicle tunnel, thus ending any potential of it to provide extra capacity for rail transit to the south.
On June 2, 2004, more than 10 years after it closed and after four years of construction, the Overbrook line reopened. The line was relocated in several places, including a new junction and flyover bridge south of South Hills Junction, and separation from South Busway buses further south along the line.
Modern Developments
The subway was constructed with provisions to allow the Penn Park station to be connected to the lower deck of the Fort Wayne railroad bridge, an easement owned by PennDOT. However, Norfolk Southern Railroad, the current owner of the bridge, pushed back on this idea. Instead, an underwater extension from the Gateway Center subway was proposed and adopted.
Skeletal remnants of the comprehensive, citywide streetcar system of 60 years before:
The North Shore Extension opened March 25, 2012, adding service to the North Side subway station by PNC Park (major league baseball stadium), as well as a new elevated Allegheny station directly adjacent to Heinz Field (major league American football stadium), bringing the system to its current form. Currently, the Allentown line does not see regular service, the Penn Park spur has been out of service for nearly 20 years, and the Library line is being considered for closure in the current transit planning underway.
Bus rapid transit is also planned for the downtown to Oakland corridor, which in the 1917 and 1925 plans was proposed as a subway, so extension east is unlikely under present circumstances.
Why we got here and what we lost
The survival of rail service in Pittsburgh stems from several pivotal decisions. While the South Hills corridors do not have heavy ridership demand which would warrant construction of rail today, the corridors survive thanks to the transit tunnel and private entrance into downtown on reserved trackage over the Smithfield St Bridge. Private rights of way connected to it and running nearly the entire course of the surviving connected line; the surprising longevity of the PCC cars. In addition, the failure of the adopted Transit Expressway plan to be workable in a reasonable time.
Were it not for this unique set of circumstances, which combined to give Pittsburgh a pre-metro system which with the addition of only a downtown subway could become a semi-metro, Pittsburgh’s streetcars would not still be running today.
Author Daria Phoebe Brashear continues to be a software developer and lives with her wife, housemates and two cats in a streetcar suburb of Providence, Rhode Island, where among her other hobbies and pursuits she spends time pushing state officials to solidify and improve the available transit options despite it being the only city she’s ever lived in without local rail transit.