My mother (age 92) still remembers riding in all the way from Charleroi across several high bridges. I still remember the tracks in the streets of Charleroi.
I used to live in Castle Shannon from 1976-1978; I moved there specifically because it was on the streetcar line. Back in those days, you could get to Shannon on the 35, 36, 37 or 38A lines - and I rode all of them at one time or another, from Castle Shannon right to Downtown. Beat the heck out of sitting in traffic on 88 or 51 or through the tunnels. Brings back memories. There was one stupid head cop that used to direct traffic at Smithfield and Carson, who didn't give a hoot how bad he would back up traffic in the transit tunnel - and in those days busses used that as well as streetcars.
Going over the bridge that is above McKinley park (rt 51, by the Red, White and Blue store) in those streetcars I remember thinking that we where going to tip over. You're up so high. There wasn't much of an edge for the cars and the cars rocked something fierce.
Wow! I grew up in the Pittsburgh South Hills and spent a lot of time on PAT streetcars and buses. (I must say, three buses at Glenbury during the peroid in which this was shot, and not one being a Neoplan Pennliner, was very unusual!) Still it was great to see this again after all these years! Thanks for posting it!
Lived in Mt Lebanon from 1971-1975, as a young kid (born '62), and loved seeing the PAT trolleys. Used to be able to take them from "up-tahn" Lebo to "dahn-tahn" Pittsburgh to watch the Pirates with other young friends. I doubt many 10-12 year olds do those kinds of things anymore.
I must disagree with you TheSixtyschild. These are most definitely streetcars. These are PCC streetcars built for Pittsburgh Railways. The ran on streets and on private rights of way in Pittsburgh before being replaced by Light Rail vehicles. They do use an over head 600 volt power trolley wire which is not very visible in this video. The operation in this video show a very little bit of street operation at the beginning in Castle Shannon. The rest of the video was taken on the private right of way between South Hills and Castle Shannon. A few years before this video was made these cars ran on the streets of downtown Pittsburgh.
I second your statement, Kevin. We run PCC streetcars here in San Diego, and this video CLEARLY depicts a PCC streetcar. Everything in the field of view about the car, and the sound of the car itself says PCC. Note the telephone poles next to the car - they support the Overhead Catenery System that powers the car. If this were a "train" as you call it, TheSixtysChild, there would be engine noise.
I was the operator on that trip, Kevin. If you remember, I offered to let you stand in the front door. But you preferred the second door. I also told you that railfans ride free with me!
Its so nice to hear the wunderful "clack" of the main contactor. Its sounding equally like the main contactor of the checz Tatra T4D in Dresden, Germany or Leipzig, Germany and the sound of the traction motors sonding similar to the Tatra traction motors. What a surprice ... Tatra T1 to T4 is a development of the pcc technology. But I found the Tatras looks better. I give also a Video answer ...
I remember in the 70s when I was going to school and living in Orange County, California. When my car was wrecked and being a broke college student it took several months before I could bail it out, so I ended up having to take the bus most days to get to campus. Back then, maybe today too, that area wasn't bus transportation friendly, and getting a bus to go around it was time consuming. Nothing like Pittsburgh, where there was a choice between public modes. BRing this up because a friend of mine at school was from Pittsburgh and she always raved about the trolley and other service the people could use there. Seeing the films of these trolleys and my experience out west makes you envy the people in Pittsburgh for having such public transportation. Seems like you could almost get by there without a car, something that is almost impossible to do in SOCAL.
This reminds me to a certain degree of the old Johnsonville Railway in Wellington New Zealand. They used to have a fleet of art deco electric passenger trains running everyday services on that railway up until this year when the Greater Wellington Council sent the whole fleet to the breakers yard. It sed to be lovely hearing the whine of the DC traction Motors.
I see my comment from five years ago is still up here. I grew up in Pittsburgh. I saw the trolley tracks ripped up and/or paved over throughout my childhood. They should never have taken the streetcars away and replaced them with busses. That was a horribly bad blunder on the part of city officials across the country. It was all done in the interest of corporate greed. When my parents were young there were interurbans that ran from Charleroi, little Washington, etc. into Pittsburgh. My dad went to Robert Morris after he came home from WW2, he commuted from Monessen to Pittsburgh and home again everyday. Just try doing that now. You'd have to either take a MMVTA bus, or fight the traffic madness on 51. It's sad, sadness dipped in a well full of agony, as one of my old buddies used to say, mislabeled as "progress" when in actuality it was corporate fascism stomping on the American people. We wouldn't have used up half the oil we did if the streetcars were left as they were. And all the steam engines should've never been replaced with diesels either. Progress my ass!
What’s wrong with taking a MMVTA bus? You act like MMVTA doesn’t do the exact same thing that the streetcars did back then and they actually do it better because they are ADA compliant, can go faster and can detour when need be for street closures. As far as the streetcars being replaced with buses, it was progress. Too many of you are stuck in the past and need to realize that the streetcars did their job for their time but it was time to move on and evolve, not to mention buses can service a lot more places a whole lot easier and with less work than a streetcar or a Light Rail system could with far less cost and I will use MMVTA as a example seeing as how I worked for them from 2014-2022, back in 2019 when MMVTA restructured all local service to better service the people of the Mon Valley and go to more places, all we had to do was add bus stop signs in the new areas we were serving, with a streetcar, it would have taken years to lay down track and run overhead wires.
Awesome vid. Looks like you are riding on #1745, which means you got one of the original 1940s streetcars, not one of the rebuilt ones. As for the Orion V comment, it could have been very late in 1990 - they started getting them then. A lot of times, the Port Authority would run these buses until they died, and so, there were a lot of the older 1960's buses still running.
The sound of this particular car is perhaps similar to T4D cars in Germany but those have double reduction, not hypoid gears. What you hear in this video is rather a noisy gear combined with motor sound.
This looks like a truly enjoyable ride. Motorman very smooth with the controls. Back in the 80’s took my family for a ride on this line. The motorman was a total jockey. On again off again with the controls. The ride was sickening. Got my family off the car. Waited for another to get back. Truly awful ride. Sad we had come a long way to ride.
Great video, brings back many memories. I worked at Bob Smith Ford in Castle Shannon and rode the cars to work from Library. What year was this made? My guess would be 1994 or 1995. The first siding inbound has been shortened but was later closed all together after the hillside slipped away. There is a GMC new look bus at the 5:00 mark.
It had to be around 90 or 91 there was a orion v bus in the video and that was a 91 orion bus i think around that time the Allentown line was still closed i seen at the end that he didn't use the tunnel at all
It was 91 maybe 92 because the first batch of Orion buses were began to arrive not to mention those where the 1st Ada made buses that came in the ADA Was signed in to law in 1991 so this was the beginning of the end of the old buses and pcc cars
Yes you are so rite I rode similar Muni pcc cars in San Fran. When Ina Navy they also had unar grn. Dub ways not Muni Bart sub way. Street car sub way.now lite rl. Wys. Boen. Like many other cities did. We ride these pcc cars in rwy.mues. no as old men an woman.
Damned ... cant post a link :-( ... looking for "T4D Leipzig selberfahren" to see the checz T4D in Leipzig, Germany. He sounding almost like a PCC streetcar ... but the cockpit was realy different to PCC. best regards to Pittsburgh from Dresden, Germany :-) The amazing: the warning bell was not so effective like the "clack" of the main contactor. The cardrivers was earlyer driven away, when they have listen the "clack" of the main contactor. They was knowing: the tram drives realy :-)
@@NicholasKuqali Not super close but not super far either. I just put a video up on my other channel "Sebi's Random Stuff" of the entire inbound trip on the Library Line, so you can watch the Overbrook section to compare.
They are referred to as trains if and when two or more streetcars are coupled together. The majority of streetcars were never operated in train service. Nevertheless, some were and still are.
MIKECNW Technically this line still lives on, however it has been completely rebuilt and uses newer light rail cars. The original unrebuilt line closed in 1993 due to deteriorating track and overheads, and the last PCC cars were retired in 1999. The line reopened after being entirely rebuilt in 2004.
Instead of having 22 street level stops, it has 8 high platform stations Stops converted to high platforms, north to south: Boggs Bon Air Denise South Bank (Shared with South Busway) McNeilly Killarney Memorial Hall Willow Former stops shared with South Busway, north to south: South Bank (Still Shared with Overbrook Branch) Central Inglewood Overbrook Glenbury Stops which no longer exist on either South Busway or Overbrook Branch, north to south: Morse Steps McKinley Park Arsonia Paris Spinning Wheels Cooley Linden Grove Poplar Park
matman no, it is a streetcar, just a special wayside line. F.e, here in Moscow where am I now most of tram lines are placed outside the roads, sometimes even in a park zones or backyards PCC (The tram car on this video) is powered via air wire, its invisible on video due to low quality.
Pittsburgh native here. These are PCC streetcars and they do run on an overhead power line which you can't see because of the low resolution of the video.
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Many great memories. Grew up in Castle Shannon 1960-1984.
A great place to live.
ITS VERY NICE TO HERE THE SOUND OF THE PCC MOVING .
My mother (age 92) still remembers riding in all the way from Charleroi across several high bridges. I still remember the tracks in the streets of Charleroi.
they were there!
I used to live in Castle Shannon from 1976-1978; I moved there specifically because it was on the streetcar line. Back in those days, you could get to Shannon on the 35, 36, 37 or 38A lines - and I rode all of them at one time or another, from Castle Shannon right to Downtown. Beat the heck out of sitting in traffic on 88 or 51 or through the tunnels. Brings back memories. There was one stupid head cop that used to direct traffic at Smithfield and Carson, who didn't give a hoot how bad he would back up traffic in the transit tunnel - and in those days busses used that as well as streetcars.
TheOld Crab Buses still use the transit tunnel today along with the modern light rail vehicles.
Going over the bridge that is above McKinley park (rt 51, by the Red, White and Blue store) in those streetcars I remember thinking that we where going to tip over. You're up so high. There wasn't much of an edge for the cars and the cars rocked something fierce.
I remember going to south Hills Village Mall on the trolley when I was in High school. Those were the good old days
Outstanding video. So sad to see these PCCs go. Thanks for sharing.
Very much enjoyed 'the ride' Kevin, thanks for posting! I lived in Library in '80 and remember taking the trolley a couple of times- good memories!
It’s comforting to know that McKinley park it’s directly under that bridge !
Wow! I grew up in the Pittsburgh South Hills and spent a lot of time on PAT streetcars and buses. (I must say, three buses at Glenbury during the peroid in which this was shot, and not one being a Neoplan Pennliner, was very unusual!) Still it was great to see this again after all these years! Thanks for posting it!
Lived in Mt Lebanon from 1971-1975, as a young kid (born '62), and loved seeing the PAT trolleys. Used to be able to take them from "up-tahn" Lebo to "dahn-tahn" Pittsburgh to watch the Pirates with other young friends. I doubt many 10-12 year olds do those kinds of things anymore.
I must disagree with you TheSixtyschild. These are most definitely streetcars. These are PCC streetcars built for Pittsburgh Railways. The ran on streets and on private rights of way in Pittsburgh before being replaced by Light Rail vehicles. They do use an over head 600 volt power trolley wire which is not very visible in this video. The operation in this video show a very little bit of street operation at the beginning in Castle Shannon. The rest of the video was taken on the private right of way between South Hills and Castle Shannon. A few years before this video was made these cars ran on the streets of downtown Pittsburgh.
I second your statement, Kevin. We run PCC streetcars here in San Diego, and this video CLEARLY depicts a PCC streetcar. Everything in the field of view about the car, and the sound of the car itself says PCC. Note the telephone poles next to the car - they support the Overhead Catenery System that powers the car. If this were a "train" as you call it, TheSixtysChild, there would be engine noise.
Kevin, when did you shoot this video?
@@sportbikepilot Definitely NOT a train. They are definitely PCC streetcars (trolleys). I'm from Pittsburgh and rode many, many PCC cars!
Vhf
I was the operator on that trip, Kevin. If you remember, I offered to let you stand in the front door. But you preferred the second door. I also told you that railfans ride free with me!
My old Route! Thank you!
What a wonderful sound they made. ♡
And the awesome ride they had. Way more fun than the modern "T" vehicles, as nice as they are. :)
Its so nice to hear the wunderful "clack" of the main contactor. Its sounding equally like the main contactor of the checz Tatra T4D in Dresden, Germany or Leipzig, Germany and the sound of the traction motors sonding similar to the Tatra traction motors. What a surprice ... Tatra T1 to T4 is a development of the pcc technology. But I found the Tatras looks better. I give also a Video answer ...
This video was a rare treat. Thank you for sharing.
I remember in the 70s when I was going to school and living in Orange County, California. When my car was wrecked and being a broke college student it took several months before I could bail it out, so I ended up having to take the bus most days to get to campus. Back then, maybe today too, that area wasn't bus transportation friendly, and getting a bus to go around it was time consuming. Nothing like Pittsburgh, where there was a choice between public modes. BRing this up because a friend of mine at school was from Pittsburgh and she always raved about the trolley and other service the people could use there. Seeing the films of these trolleys and my experience out west makes you envy the people in Pittsburgh for having such public transportation. Seems like you could almost get by there without a car, something that is almost impossible to do in SOCAL.
Nothing compares to riding those street cars coming home from a great day of shopping in Dahntahn at Kaufman’s, Gimbels, and Hornes!! 💕
This reminds me to a certain degree of the old Johnsonville Railway in Wellington New Zealand. They used to have a fleet of art deco electric passenger trains running everyday services on that railway up until this year when the Greater Wellington Council sent the whole fleet to the breakers yard. It sed to be lovely hearing the whine of the DC traction Motors.
That is super cool. I lived in CHCH for a summer but didn't know any of NZ besides Auckland used passenger rail due to the earthquakes.
I see my comment from five years ago is still up here. I grew up in Pittsburgh. I saw the trolley tracks ripped up and/or paved over throughout my childhood. They should never have taken the streetcars away and replaced them with busses. That was a horribly bad blunder on the part of city officials across the country. It was all done in the interest of corporate greed. When my parents were young there were interurbans that ran from Charleroi, little Washington, etc. into Pittsburgh. My dad went to Robert Morris after he came home from WW2, he commuted from Monessen to Pittsburgh and home again everyday. Just try doing that now. You'd have to either take a MMVTA bus, or fight the traffic madness on 51. It's sad, sadness dipped in a well full of agony, as one of my old buddies used to say, mislabeled as "progress" when in actuality it was corporate fascism stomping on the American people. We wouldn't have used up half the oil we did if the streetcars were left as they were. And all the steam engines should've never been replaced with diesels either. Progress my ass!
Nobody predicted the fuel hike, either. Otherwise we'd still have trams. 🚊
What’s wrong with taking a MMVTA bus? You act like MMVTA doesn’t do the exact same thing that the streetcars did back then and they actually do it better because they are ADA compliant, can go faster and can detour when need be for street closures.
As far as the streetcars being replaced with buses, it was progress. Too many of you are stuck in the past and need to realize that the streetcars did their job for their time but it was time to move on and evolve, not to mention buses can service a lot more places a whole lot easier and with less work than a streetcar or a Light Rail system could with far less cost and I will use MMVTA as a example seeing as how I worked for them from 2014-2022, back in 2019 when MMVTA restructured all local service to better service the people of the Mon Valley and go to more places, all we had to do was add bus stop signs in the new areas we were serving, with a streetcar, it would have taken years to lay down track and run overhead wires.
Thanks. Rode those in St. Louis as a kid, but we didn't have routes as scenic as that.
LOVE THE STREET CARS......
Awesome vid. Looks like you are riding on #1745, which means you got one of the original 1940s streetcars, not one of the rebuilt ones. As for the Orion V comment, it could have been very late in 1990 - they started getting them then. A lot of times, the Port Authority would run these buses until they died, and so, there were a lot of the older 1960's buses still running.
Wow, thanks. This is amazing.
LOL those buses.. I remember all 3 of them. I remember when the middle one was NEW.
yep rode this line 100's of times.
this awesome. thanks for posting
I thought all the street cars in Pittsburgh were gone?
All the PCC Streetcars were retired in 1999.
The remaining lines are now served by light rail vehicles.
The sound of this particular car is perhaps similar to T4D cars in Germany but those have double reduction, not hypoid gears. What you hear in this video is rather a noisy gear combined with motor sound.
TatraT2681 o
This looks like a truly enjoyable ride. Motorman very smooth with the controls. Back in the 80’s took my family for a ride on this line. The motorman was a total jockey. On again off again with the controls. The ride was sickening. Got my family off the car. Waited for another to get back. Truly awful ride. Sad we had come a long way to ride.
Nice 👏👍😎
Great video, brings back many memories. I worked at Bob Smith Ford in Castle Shannon and rode the cars to work from Library. What year was this made? My guess would be 1994 or 1995. The first siding inbound has been shortened but was later closed all together after the hillside slipped away. There is a GMC new look bus at the 5:00 mark.
There is also an am general bus in there too along with a orion v
I believe that I took this in 1989.
It had to be around 90 or 91 there was a orion v bus in the video and that was a 91 orion bus i think around that time the Allentown line was still closed i seen at the end that he didn't use the tunnel at all
It was 91 maybe 92 because the first batch of Orion buses were began to arrive not to mention those where the 1st Ada made buses that came in the ADA Was signed in to law in 1991 so this was the beginning of the end of the old buses and pcc cars
Yes you are so rite I rode similar Muni pcc cars in San Fran. When Ina Navy they also had unar grn. Dub ways not Muni Bart sub way. Street car sub way.now lite rl. Wys. Boen. Like many other cities did. We ride these pcc cars in rwy.mues. no as old men an woman.
Und. Grn sub wys. Matching alga f up remak.
Hard to believe but it's all double track now
That old-ass fare box... Noisy as all hell.
Damned ... cant post a link :-( ... looking for "T4D Leipzig selberfahren" to see the checz T4D in Leipzig, Germany. He sounding almost like a PCC streetcar ... but the cockpit was realy different to PCC.
best regards to Pittsburgh from Dresden, Germany :-)
The amazing: the warning bell was not so effective like the "clack" of the main contactor. The cardrivers was earlyer driven away, when they have listen the "clack" of the main contactor. They was knowing: the tram drives realy :-)
Anyone know What year this was? I’m thinking this was made around 1990?
Back in the day when the operator wasn't shelled inside a security fortress
Was this originally shot in 16mm film?
No. I used a video camera.
@@hoteldennis When was it shot?
These are streetcars.The first PCC streetcars were built in 1936
Why did they run this in 2010?
sonic23233 What are you talking about?
Where is that bridge at 10:45?
Long gone now. Replaced by a modern bridge for the current Blue/Silver lines between the Bon Air and Boggs stops.
Sebi's Random Tech interesting. Must have been very near the bridge that went over Warrington Ave from the “old” south hills junction platform, right?
@@NicholasKuqali Not super close but not super far either. I just put a video up on my other channel "Sebi's Random Stuff" of the entire inbound trip on the Library Line, so you can watch the Overbrook section to compare.
It goes across McKinley park by bon air /beltzhoover and rt 51
I was gonna ask you when this was, anat.
Would you all consider Trolleycars or Streetcars to be trains?
They are referred to as trains if and when two or more streetcars are coupled together. The majority of streetcars were never operated in train service. Nevertheless, some were and still are.
why was it closed?
MIKECNW Technically this line still lives on, however it has been completely rebuilt and uses newer light rail cars. The original unrebuilt line closed in 1993 due to deteriorating track and overheads, and the last PCC cars were retired in 1999. The line reopened after being entirely rebuilt in 2004.
What a great video. Is this line still in existence?
It's still there, although it's been double tracked and modified for light rail vehicles. It carries the Blue line of the Pittsburgh 'T"
Instead of having 22 street level stops, it has 8 high platform stations
Stops converted to high platforms, north to south:
Boggs
Bon Air
Denise
South Bank (Shared with South Busway)
McNeilly
Killarney
Memorial Hall
Willow
Former stops shared with South Busway, north to south:
South Bank (Still Shared with Overbrook Branch)
Central
Inglewood
Overbrook
Glenbury
Stops which no longer exist on either South Busway or Overbrook Branch, north to south:
Morse Steps
McKinley Park
Arsonia
Paris
Spinning Wheels
Cooley
Linden Grove
Poplar
Park
You should've asked if you could just set the camera up front there...
Those are trains. Streetcars run on the street with over head power lines.
matman no, it is a streetcar, just a special wayside line. F.e, here in Moscow where am I now most of tram lines are placed outside the roads, sometimes even in a park zones or backyards
PCC (The tram car on this video) is powered via air wire, its invisible on video due to low quality.
+matman The word us Pennsylvania-ites use for these vehicles is "trolleys". You even saw a sign during the video saying, "Trolley Signal Only".
Pittsburgh native here. These are PCC streetcars and they do run on an overhead power line which you can't see because of the low resolution of the video.
In Pittsburgh we called them streetcars. Maybe you're from Philly?
what year was this because the pcc at the end didn't use the transit tunnel instead they went over the Allentown line