Category: History || By

Fifty years ago today, just a little after 2 a.m. Sept. 1, 1963, Pittsburgh Railways made its last streetcar run in McKeesport, when a streamlined "PCC" car running on Route 56 departed the city for Pittsburgh, followed by another trolley that had been chartered by the Pennsylvania Railway Museum Association.

Bus service along the same route --- using Dravosburg Hill, Mifflin Road and Pittsburgh's Second Avenue --- began later that day.

It ended a streetcar tradition that began in 1890, when the White Electric Traction Co. --- named for founders T.L. and James E. White --- was chartered to provide trolley service between McKeesport and Duquesne, using a bridge that was called (naturally) "White's Bridge."

White Electric Traction would be merged with other companies and eventually came under control of West Penn Power Co., which would continue to operate trolleys in McKeesport until 1937. (Service elsewhere in West Penn Power's territory, which largely consisted of Westmoreland and Fayette counties, remained until 1952.)

In fact, at one time, McKeesport had two competing trolley lines --- West Penn, which connected the city to Irwin, Greensburg and other points east, and Pittsburgh Railways, which connected McKeesport with Duquesne, Homestead and its namesake city.

Pittsburgh Railways' earliest predecessor in McKeesport was the Glenwood & Dravosburg Electric Railway Co., which began operations in 1893, and was merged into the larger company after a series of acquisitions and consolidations.

Across the United States, the fate of streetcar systems was sealed by the widespread availability of inexpensive cars such as the Ford Model T --- launched in 1908 --- as well as competitors such as 1915's Chevrolet "490" (the model number denoted the original retail price) and the 1928 Plymouth Model Q.

Trolley systems got two reprieves in the 1930s and '40s. The Great Depression made it hard for families to buy cars. World War II made it impossible, as carmakers converted to defense production. But when the war ended and the U.S. economy began to boom, the trolley's days were numbered --- and not in large numbers, either.

As we noted in 2010, although trolleys are now celebrated --- many cities have resurrected them either for mass transit purposes, or for tourism reasons --- they were not so fondly looked upon in the 1950s. Instead, they were seen as noisy, rusty anachronisms, whose movements and tracks blocked car and truck traffic.

. . .

The following was originally published at Tube City Almanac on June 17, 2010:

Though trolleys are now fondly remembered and even celebrated, in the 1950s they were seen as ugly, clanking dinosaurs and an obstacle to the city's progress.

In his carefully researched 1999 book McKeesport Trolleys: A Piece of the Past, historian Ron Beal argues that most residents of the city and nearby communities "liked the streetcars."

Perhaps, but it's also possible that time has erased from local memories the true condition of some of the trolleys that served McKeesport (and the rest of Allegheny County) in the 1950s and early '60s.

. . .

The trolleys running in daily service in the 1950s weren't the polished gems currently preserved at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in Washington County. Instead, they were working hard for a living. Some of them were rusty, dirty rattletraps, and poor maintenance meant they frequently broke down.

One rider of the 68 streetcar line that linked the city to Pittsburgh via Duquesne and Squirrel Hill called service "disgusting" and "abominable," and begged the state's Public Utility Commission to allow a competing bus line to run the same route.

No wonder the city's outspoken, proudly parochial mayor, Andrew "Greeky" Jakomas, rejoiced when Pittsburgh Railways announced in the summer of 1963 that it would discontinue all McKeesport-area trolley service.

. . .

Jakomas called the end of trolley service on Sept. 1 "a real shot in the arm" for the city.

"Greeky" and other local leaders, including the McKeesport Chamber of Commerce, were also fighting tooth-and-nail against the legislation that authorized creation of the Port Authority of Allegheny County.

People "want to drive their cars," said Jakomas, who gathered 15,000 signatures from the city and 23 neighboring boroughs and townships demanding a referendum on creation of Port Authority. "They don't want to ride public transit. Money, then, should be spent to build access routes to accommodate cars."

. . .

With a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and mounting evidence of global climate change caused by air pollution, that attitude now seems hopelessly naive. But it didn't seem so naive when the Shah was safely in power in Iran, and no one cared if a Chevrolet Bel Air only delivered 12 miles per gallon.

Frankly, if you had a choice in 1963 between driving a Chevy (from "Devie," naturally), or riding a trolley, the choice would have been clear. As early as 1951, one McKeesport rider compared the insides of local streetcars to "spittoons" --- and he was one of the people who liked riding the trolley!

To other people --- especially those trying to park on Downtown's narrow Fifth Avenue --- the streetcars were just a constant aggravation.

. . .

It's worth remembering that the trolley lines of the 1950s weren't like the current South Hills light-rail system. Much of the trolley track was in the same streets shared by cars, trucks and pedestrians, and was subject to the same traffic delays.

But unlike a car or bus, which could be diverted around an accident or a stopped vehicle, a trolley had to go where the tracks were laid. When a streetcar motorman was clanging his bell in front of Balsamo's or Green's or The Famous, it could only mean one thing --- someone had parked too far away from the curb, and the trolley couldn't squeeze past.

On the opposite side of Allegheny County, the burgess of McKees Rocks in 1958 begged Pittsburgh Railways to replace its streetcars with buses, calling trolleys "a public nuisance, old, dirty, slow-moving, antiquated traffic-blockers."

. . .

The problem was that Pittsburgh Railways --- which operated more than 200 buses --- didn't have the money to buy any more, or to maintain its more than 600 trolleys properly. The private, for-profit company went into a death-spiral after World War II.

Despite fare hikes that made Pittsburgh's streetcars among the most expensive to ride in the United States, the system was reportedly losing $3 million to $5 million in some years between 1950 and 1960.

And Pittsburgh's trolley system certainly wasn't suffering alone, according to a 1952 survey by United Press reporters.

"The automobile and suburban living have put most of the nation's municipal transportation systems in the red," UP said. "Whether publicly or privately owned, bus, streetcar, trackless trolley and subway lines in most major cities are losing money."

. . .

In Pittsburgh, those losses translated into maintenance and service cutbacks. Streetcars were run less frequently. They were cleaned less thoroughly. They broke down more often.

"Pittsburgh Railways has been through three bankruptcies," the Post-Gazette noted in 1954. "It is steadily losing patronage and revenue, with the result that its service is deteriorating. In view of that situation, it could hardly be expected to raise capital sufficient to modernize its facilities and improve its service."

By 1963, a consultant hired by Allegheny County reported Pittsburgh Railways was more riders per year at a rate faster than all 30 of the county's privately owned bus companies combined --- 15 times faster, in fact.

"There is every evidence that this defection of passengers ... largely the result of deterioration of service both in quality and quantity, will continue," the consultant told county officials.

. . .

Naturally, complaints poured in throughout the 1950s and '60s. One rider in West Mifflin told the Pittsburgh Press in 1950 that service on the 68 trolley line, connecting McKeesport with Pittsburgh via Homestead and Squirrel Hill, was "inadequate" and "disgusting."

Another, in Lincoln Place, told the Post-Gazette in 1960 that a ride from her home to the Syria Mosque in Oakland took two hours due to trolleys that arrived late or never showed up.

Pittsburgh Railways' service in the Mon-Yough area was "abominable," she said.

Jakomas would eventually make elimination of trolley service in McKeesport almost a one-man crusade, and at the time, only train buffs were truly unhappy.

. . .

In the early part of the 20th century, trolleys had served virtually every neighborhood of the city, running along Jenny Lind Street, Walnut Street and Versailles Avenue, up into Highland Grove and even (for a few years) into Port Vue.

But in 1937, those local trolleys --- mainly run by the West Penn Power Co. --- were dropped due to lack of riders and replaced by privately operated buses. Pittsburgh Railways continued to operate a trolley up Evans Avenue until 1953, when that line, too, was replaced by buses.

That left only three trolley lines running in McKeesport: The 56 line, which connected to Pittsburgh via Second Avenue in Hazelwood; the 68 line; and the 98 line to Glassport. The 68 line disappeared in 1958 when Route 837 was widened and Kennywood Boulevard was constructed, so then there were two.

. . .

To Jakomas, that was two trolley lines too many. In 1960, the city had unveiled plans for a 10-year, $17 million urban renewal program stretching along Fifth Avenue. It included the elimination of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad tracks that cut through the heart of Downtown, and a proposal to create a pedestrian-only shopping mall along part of the street.

But the mall couldn't happen if the streetcars were still banging and clanging through the heart of the city. So Jakomas was delighted when Pittsburgh Railways announced plans to convert the 56 trolley line to buses. (The 98 line to Glassport had been wiped out by a tornado on Aug. 3, and wouldn't return.)

"This will give us a chance to work on the Downtown area," he told the Post-Gazette. "It will help us to dress it up, to add additional on-street parking."

. . .

The pedestrian-only mall on Fifth Avenue turned out to be a disaster. So did the enclosed shopping mall that became the horrible Midtown Plaza.

It's tempting to say that removing the trolleys also was a disaster. The buses that were substituted now seem just as dirty and smelly as the trolleys of 1960, and they can clog traffic, too.

In addition, many cities that retained or reinstalled streetcars have found them effective at clearing congestion and improving property values, and even attracting tourists.

. . .

But it would have been a lot to ask McKeesport officials --- even if they had been visionaries --- to try to save streetcar service. Across the country, the tide of public opinion had firmly shifted against trolleys.

Plus, the elimination of the 56 streetcar had less to do with "Greeky" Jakomas' objections and more to do with the replacement of the Glenwood Bridge.

The new structure was scheduled for completion in 1966, and the cloverleaf interchange on the Hays side of the Monongahela River wasn't designed to accommodate trolley tracks.