Customer Reviews

Pittsburgh Streamlined Trolleys (PA) (Images of Rail)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Excellent book for those who grew up in Pittsburgh riding trolleys.
Pictures are very good with maps etc.

I grew up in Pittsburgh - was born a bit too late to ride the interurbans but got to ride many of the lines in this book. As a teenager I got up at 5AM on Sundays and rode an an all-day pass for a couple of dollars. Lived there long enough to see the destruction of the trolley lines by PAT (Port Authroity Transit). Rode many a last-day-of-operation runs. Many succumbed to the need to re-pave existing streets but the infatuatiion with buses was just too great. Day of sorrow was when the trolleys could no longer take me from downtown to University of Pittsburgh.

Now for the review. The book has a wealth of pictures but they jump all over the place and are sort of grouped by time of abandonment rather than geographical area. Mr Springirth clearly started visiting Pittsburgh in the late 50's or early 60's so some Northside routes and virtually all West End routes are missing from the book as these routes were abandoned prior to his visits. Finally, the text is rather limited and would be better served by tables rather than run-on text of last date of service and last opeating car. The hand-drawn maps are good but if the map published about 1960 by the Western Pennsylvaina Trolley Museum (formerly Arden Trolley Museum) is still in print it's a full map on a single fold-out sheet.

Despite the shortcomings, reading this was an enjoyable trip down memory lane.

Good book on the subject with lots of black & white photos. If the book was in a larger format with some color photos, it would have been excellent.

The book is a very fine photo portfolio. PCC cars are probably the best trolleys ever built in the world. Unfortunately, PCC in Pittsburgh are gone, but many of them are still in revenue service on both sides of the Atlantic. Here in Rome we have one car (unfortunately out of service) waiting for restoration.

Because of the many hilly streets, bridges and tunnels, the Pittsburgh Streetcars traversed, no two lines of this large system were the same.