Father Pitt

Tag: Streetcars

  • Thea, Esther, and Ruth in Dormont

    Thea apartments
    Thea

    We have seen Ruth before, but here are all three of the ladies on Broadway in Dormont. They form a group, with Ruth facing the other two across the street. Ruth and Thea are identical; Esther is different, but matching in scale, colors, and materials.

    For some reason giving small apartment buildings women’s names was popular in Dormont. If old Pa Pitt had been naming these, he would have kept to a consistent Old Testament theme. Perhaps Ruth, Esther, and Hulda?

    Esther
    Esther with a trolley
    Convenient to transit.
    Entrance to the Esther
    Ruth
    Ruth, inscription

    The pictures of Ruth were taken in November of 2022. Obviously, the only way to get the sun on all three buildings is to come at two different times.

  • Trolleys at Fallowfield Station

    Two 4300-series CAF cars pass at Fallowfield station in Beechview.

  • Streetcar on Broadway, Beechview

    Red Line car on Broadway in Beechview

  • Trolleys in Gateway Station

    A two-car Blue Line train comes in from Wood Street and heads out under the Allegheny to North Side; a Silver Line car departs for Wood Street. You can see the video at full resolution on its Wikimedia Commons hosting page.

    The video is obviously hand-held. There are some very sophisticated video-stabilizing algorithms in our video-editing software, but the parade of identical square windows in a moving trolley makes them panic and jiggle the picture all over the screen, so we give you the video without stabilization.

  • First Avenue Station

    From First Avenue

    Above, the First Avenue subway station (which is an elevated station, but it’s on the part of the line we call the “subway”) from First Avenue. Below, a CAF 4300-series Blue Line car comes in from the Panhandle Bridge.

    Panhandle Bridge
    Blue Line car stops
    Trolley

  • In a Streetcar

    Pittsburgh trolley

    The interior of a 4200-series Siemens car. These were the “LRVs” (for “light-rail vehicles,” which is better than “trolleys” or “streetcars” because it has three more syllables) that were ordered in the 1980s when the subway was built, and then refurbished to match the new 4300-series cars from CAF.

    In the subway

  • Gateway Station

    Entrance to Gateway Station
    Another view

    Architect Rob Pfaffman gave us just about the most whimsical subway entrance old Pa Pitt has ever seen, and he has been places and seen things. The whole station is unique, above and below the ground. There are no right angles, or at least very few. Yet from a practical point of view, nothing is confusing, and the station works very well for its intended purpose, which is to get us into a trolley quickly.

    Silver Line car at Gateway Station

  • At the End of the Rainbow

    In Beechview, you always find a streetcar at the end of the rainbow.

  • Wood Street Subway Station

    Trolley coming in
    Discharging passengers
    4200 series trolley
    Doors closing
    Wood Street subway station

  • Fallowfield Station and Viaduct, Beechview

    Fallowfield Station

    The Fallowfield station on the Red Line in Beechview is a kind of parasite on the Fallowfield viaduct. The Fallowfield Avenue end is at street level; the other end of the station is about five storeys above street level. Stations on the Red Line are currently getting a little bit of renovation.

    Fallowfield viaduct

    The Fallowfield viaduct is one of three major viaducts, along with a bridge and a tunnel, that are necessary to bring the streetcars from downtown into central Beechview.

    Walkway

    The viaduct is as important to pedestrians as it is to streetcars—so important, in fact, that, when the walkway was closed for repairs for a while a few years ago, the Port Authority gave free rides between Fallowfield and Westfield at the other end of the viaduct.

    Other side of the viaduct

    Outbound streetcars approach the viaduct from a curve.