A southbound Siemens trolley and a northbound CAF trolley cross Castle Shannon Boulevard in the middle of Castle Shannon.
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Trolleys Passing in Castle Shannon
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Streetcar Stopping at Hampshire, Beechview
An inbound Siemens SD-400 trolley stops at the Hampshire stop in Beechview. This is another streetcar picture for Red Line riders to enjoy while we wait for the repairs to the Saw Mill Run viaduct. And, by the way, Las Palmas across the street is an excellent place to find Latin American specialties as well as general American supermarket groceries.
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Silver Line Trolley in Castle Shannon
The only active street trackage left in the Pittsburgh streetcar system is on Broadway in Beechview, and on Warrington and Arlington Avenues when the cars are detoured over the top of the hill instead of through the Transit Tunnel. But there are several sections of what we might call semi-street trackage, where the trolleys run in a separate right-of-way either beside or in the middle of the street. Willow Avenue in Castle Shannon is one of them: half the street is reserved for trolleys. Here a Silver Line car crosses Castle Shannon Boulevard.
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Broadway and Beechview Avenue, Beechview
Beechview is something unique in Pittsburgh and very rare in the United States: an early-twentieth-century streetcar suburb where the streetcars still run down the main street as they did when the neighborhood was first laid out. The central business district has had its ups and downs; right now it is a good place to find interesting little ethnic restaurants and groceries. Most of the neighborhood is laid out as a grid in spite of the precipitous hills, but Broadway, the street with the car line, follows the top of the ridge. Beechview Avenue (below) continues the straight line of the business district as Broadway curves off toward the Fallowfield streetcar viaduct and abruptly ends at Fallowfield Avenue, leaving the streetcars to continue on their own right-of-way.
Following the ancient tradition that the street with the tracks belongs to the streetcar company, the Port Authority is responsible for maintaining Broadway.
Streetcar service in Beechview is interrupted right now because the Saw Mill Run viaduct has been closed for emergency repairs. The Red Line will roll up Broadway again as soon as the bridge reopens.
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Red Line Car Crossing Alton Avenue, Beechview
This picture was taken a little more than a week ago. Beechview now finds itself suddenly without streetcar service. Some shifting was detected in the Saw Mill Run rail and busway viaduct, and Pittsburghers are in a mood to take defects in bridges very seriously. Until the bridge can be repaired, rail service on the Red Line runs only between Overbrook Junction and Potomac, with shuttle buses covering the rest of the route.
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Silver Line Car at Logan Road
Trolley geeks should stay tuned for a few more pictures in the next few days. This is an inbound CAF trolley approaching the Logan Road stop on the Silver Line in Bethel Park.
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Streetcar Coming Up Broadway
An outbound Red Line car on Broadway in Beechview passes Hampshire Avenue.
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Red Line Car Stopping at Hampshire
A friend from Beechview was complaining that no one believes streetcars still run in Pittsburgh. Pittsburghers from between the rivers know there’s a subway, but they seem entirely unaware that the subway fans out into various lines that meander through the city neighborhoods south of the Monongahela and far out into the South Hills. The next time you run into a doubter, you may offer this photographic proof that streetcars (as people in Beechview still call them) still run on the street in Pittsburgh. This is a Red Line car stopping at the outbound Hampshire stop in Beechview, and then continuing around the bend past the Beechview Community Center.
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Mount Lebanon Station
A southbound Red Line car leaves the Mount Lebanon subway station, as seen from the Alfred Street crossing.
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Crossing the Monongahela in a Trolley
From Station Square across the river into the subway tunnel. You can also download a full-resolution version from the Wikimedia Commons file page.
