A Melancholy Day

As some of you know, my Dad had a mild heart attack recently, and the medication they put him on has left him anemic, short of breath, and in general, easily tired. With Mother's Day coming up, he has been sort of "out of it" - and I'm not sure just why.

Perhaps it's because of the recent loss of his "second" mother. I don't know, my Dad is about as close to the vest kind of person as they come.

He mentioned wanting to go to Scranton (the home of the TV show, Office) to see the old trolley and street cars there. The Electric City Trolley Museum is located next to Steamtown, a National Historic site preserving and explaining steam locomotives.

Regardless of the steam heritage, Scranton calls itself "the Electric City" since it was the first city in the USA to have an entire system of street cars operating entirely by electric.

I told my Dad I would be glad to join him in a trip to the museum and yesterday, the first of May, and the first day the museum's trolley car resumed excursions for the summer season, we went.

When we pulled into the parking lot, my Dad's tired eyes lit up.


The green trolley car to the left, with a destination sign in the upper-left window saying "Erie Avenue" was one of many similar ones that my Dad rode to High School and other places during the immediate post-WWII era. When he and my Mom moved into the Philadelphia suburbs (it was the country side back then), they saw the orange "freight" trolley regularly. The freight trolley was used by the Lehigh Valley Transit Company to bring milk and bread to the city and take mail and hardware out to the farmers.


Just a little further down the track was red, white and blue Car #206 (built by J.G. Brill Co. of Philadelphia in 1931) is one of the Philadelphia & Western’s (P&W)famed "Bullet" cars, named for their pointed streamlined ends.

Bullet car #206 continued to rocket along the P&W tracks under Red Arrow and later Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) management where it got its garish paint job.

My Dad nudge me in the side and said, "You and your older brother probably rode in that car." It seems that when my older brother was "fussy" as a toddler, my Mom would take him for a ride on the "P&W" from Norristown into Philadelphia and back - letting the gentle sway of the car and the rhythmic clackety-clack of the rail soothe my brother and ease him into a nap.

Apparently it worked, and my Mom did the same with me.


On a bright sunny day, the excursion trolley waits for some riders to board. Car #76 (built by J.G. Brill Co. in 1926) is a "Center Door" car originally built for the Philadelphia and West Chester Traction Co.


This trolley roamed the "Red Arrow Lines" system from 69th Street Terminal in Upper Darby (Philadelphia) to suburban terminals in West Chester, Ardmore, Norristown, Media and Sharon Hill.


My Dad found the exhibit of trolley wheels to be great interest. My dad pointed out that the "trolley" is actually the round wheel at the end of the pole - the word stems from the word "troller", the device that allows an electrical current to pass from an overhead wire to a streetcar. The trolley car is the vehicle. My dad's like that.

At any rate, he and his father made many of the trolley wheels used by Brill trolley cars, along with repair and replacement parts in the family's brass foundry. He pointed out a couple in the display case "he might of made."


My dad says he might of rode this trolley back in the day with his father. He sat on the wicker trolley seat a bit winded from the walk from the museum building to the trolley station grinning like a two year old.


The excursion trolley ride went along a couple tributaries of the Lackawanna, a stream that flows into the Susquehanna River in Wilkes-Barre. The trolley line was once called "The Laurel Run Line" as it went from Scranton to Laurel Run just east of Wilkes-Barre.


The pride of the museum is P&W trolley car #46 which was built by the St. Louis Car Co. in 1907. This trolley was found abandoned in a field being used as a storage shed. Now restored, it literally gleams from the loving attention it garners from the volunteers that work at the museum.

I put a poor quality, short video of the ride we took on the trolley (here). The first part was shot in the "Crown Avenue Tunnel" which was completed in 1905. This tunnel is one of the longest interurban trolley tunnels ever built at 4750 feet. The second part shows the seemingly ruralness of the ride through the valley. The last part shows the far end of the trolley ride - the car barn at the baseball stadium where the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, the AAA affiliate of the New York Yankees play.


For much of the ride back to the museum, I watched my Dad looking out the trolley car window and pondered. Was he lost in the many memories of trolley riding in his youth? Was he contemplating obsolescence, the passing of the trolley car and the no-longer used trolley wheels that he and his father made? Or was he just enjoying the passing scenery, happy to be able to take this ride?

I don't know. I do know one thing. He's my dad and I'm glad he felt good enough to go to the museum and spend the day with me.