Penn-Ohio Railfanning

Frank writes...

The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum and Winterfest were the main event of our trip this past weekend to Pittsburgh, of course, but that didn't mean there weren't side trips. For Richard and me, there were two.

Our first side trip, predictably enough, was simply a stopover in downtown Pittsburgh when we arrived in the area on Friday. We made a beeline to the Duquesne Incline, with its attractive 1880s Brill-built cars like the one visible at the bottom of the above photo.

At the top of Mount Washington is all the equipment that powers the incline, and you can walk into a mezzanine area and get a good look at it. Above is a general diagram.

Here are the main gear and cable drum. The motor is out of sight behind the drum; in the foreground is the backup motor, which is on rails so that it's normally backed away from the main gear.

The back wall has all sorts of tools and other stuff on display.

The view from the cars is hard to beat!

And here's the view from the bottom.

We also rode the Pittsburgh light rail system a bit, which was more enjoyable than I expected. There was a lot of street running, and of course the hilly terrain makes it pretty interesting compared with a lot of light rail lines.

On Sunday, after Winterfest, a bunch of us met back up in Cleveland. As much time as I've spent working on Shaker Heights 18, I'd never actually ridden the Shaker Heights line! The closest I got, and the only time I've ever ridden the Cleveland RTA, was in July 2003, when I rode CA&E 303 on the Waterfront line.

We met up at Green Road, at the end of the Shaker Boulevard line, where we boarded Breda LRV 824.

Here's the group: Richard, Brian, Steven, Zach, Will, and Jimmy. Greg joined us at Shaker Square.

Here we are at Shaker Square, where we got off and rode out to the end of the Van Aken line.

Our car is at Shaker Square as an inbound car comes off the Van Aken line.

Here's the builder's plate on car 836. We rode to the end of the Van Aken line, then back in all the way to Terminal Tower, where we had lunch. After that it was time for a trip on the old Cleveland Transit System line.

Here's Jimmy, Zach, Will, Richard, Steven, Brian, and Greg with Tokyu car 185 at the Cleveland Airport terminal.

The Tokyu cars are about the least interesting rapid transit cars I've ever ridden, both inside and out, but at least they have big windows and reasonably comfortable seats. We rode out to the airport and then from there all the way back to Windermere, though a few of the guys bailed at Terminal Tower because they needed to get back to their cars and hit the road.

Here we are at Windermere. A good time was had by all. I'll admit, I enjoyed riding the Shaker Heights line; that had to have been a kick to traverse on a five-car train of center-door cars.