Pittsburgh Light Rail
The Pittsburgh Light Rail is a light rail system in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and surrounding suburbs. It operates as a deep-level subway in Downtown Pittsburgh, but runs mostly at-grade in the suburbs south of the city. The system is largely linear in a north–south direction, with one terminus near Pittsburgh's central business district and two termini in the South Hills. The system is owned and operated by Pittsburgh Regional Transit.
The T is one of the surviving first-generation streetcar systems in North America, with the oldest portions of the network dating back to 1903 and the Pittsburgh Railways. It is also one of only three light rail systems in the United States that continues to use the broad Pennsylvania trolley gauge on its lines instead of the. In, the system had a ridership of.
History
Overview
In the early 1960s, Pittsburgh had the largest surviving streetcar system in the United States, with the privately owned Pittsburgh Railways Company operating more than 600 PCC cars on 41 routes. In 1964 the system was acquired by the Port Authority of Allegheny County, which rapidly converted most routes to buses. By the early 1970s, only a handful of streetcar routes remained, most of which used the Mount Washington Transit Tunnel just south of the Monongahela River to reach the South Hills area.At that time, Pittsburgh Regional Transit planners were determined to scrap the rail system entirely in favor of busways and an automated guideway transit system developed by Westinghouse Electric called Skybus. Community opposition rallied against the plan and in favor of retaining the electric rail trolley system and upgrading it into modern LRT. In the end, the LRT option was adopted for the South Hills suburbs, along with development of a busway system for the eastern and western suburbs.
Subway tunnels
The modern subway in downtown Pittsburgh between Steel Plaza and First Avenue stations uses the Pittsburgh & Steubenville Extension Railroad Tunnel, which began construction in 1863. Rail lines had been a staple of the city and region since the late 19th century, the idea of a downtown to Oakland or East Liberty subway had been considered since at least the 1910s. A public referendum was passed to fund such a subway with an initial investment of $6million on July 8, 1919, another $5.5million subway plan was finalized at City Hall in meetings on March 28, 1932, and the public/private Allegheny Conference presented detailed plans and funding for a subway system on June 4, 1947.Pittsburgh Railways
Pittsburgh Railways was one of the predecessors to Pittsburgh Regional Transit. It had 666 PCC cars, the third largest fleet in North America. It had 68 street car routes, of which only three are used by Pittsburgh Regional Transit as light rail routes. The oldest portions of these old Pittsburgh Railways routes now served by the Pittsburgh Light Rail system date to 1903–1909. With the PRT's Transit Development Plan, many route names will be changed to its original, such as the 41D Brookline becoming the 39 Brookline. Many of the streetcar routes have been remembered in the route names of many Pittsburgh Regional Transit buses.1895 to 1905 was a time of consolidation for the numerous street railways serving Pittsburgh. On July 24, 1895, the Consolidated Traction Company was chartered. The following year it acquired the Central Traction Company, Citizens Traction Company, Duquesne Traction Company and Pittsburgh Traction Company and converted them to electric operation. On July 27, 1896, the United Traction Company was chartered and absorbed the Second Avenue Traction Company, which had been running electric cars since 1890.
The Southern Traction Company acquired the lease of the West End Traction Company on October 1, 1900. Pittsburgh Railways was formed on January 1, 1902, when the Southern Traction Company acquired operating rights over the Consolidated Traction Company and United Traction Company. The new company operated 1,100 trolleys on of track, with 178.7million passengers and revenues of $6.7million on the year.
The lease-and-operate business model proved hard to support and the company declared bankruptcy twice, first in 1918 lasting for 6 years and then again in 1938, this time lasting until January 1, 1951.
On July 26, 1936, Pittsburgh Railways took delivery of PCC streetcar No.100 from the St. Louis Car Company. It was placed in revenue service in August 1936, the first revenue-earning PCC in the world.
Large-scale abandonments of lines began in the late 1950s, usually associated with highway or bridge work.
1960s and Skybus 1970s
In the 1960s a automated guideway transit system was planned fanning out to the north, south, east, southeast and west, including connections to both the Pittsburgh International Airport and the Allegheny County Airport, Monroeville Mall and adjacent to Kennywood Amusement Park. The modern subway and light rail system can be traced to the abandonment of the proposed "Skybus" system in the mid-1970s, and the subsequent $265million federal grant on May 7, 1979, for construction of a downtown subway and modernization of suburban light rail.Modern system
Downtown subway and Beechview Line (Stage I)
PRT, working with community representatives and government officials, undertook a detailed study on the future of the South Hills trolley lines, resolving to transform these valuable, high-density transit corridors into a modern LRT system. The resulting StageI LRT plan achieved a comprehensive reconstruction and upgrading of the "main line" between downtown and the suburbs of Bethel Park and Upper St. Clair via Mt. Lebanon and Beechview—basically following the Skybus alignment. The crowning achievement was to be a downtown subway, eliminating the trolleys' slow, street-running loop through Pittsburgh's Golden Triangle.On December 10, 1980, after receiving federal funding, Pittsburgh Regional Transit began construction on Stage One of its first "modern" light rail/subway service, the "T", which used a former Pittsburgh Railways trolley route to connect Downtown Pittsburgh to the South Hills. Stage One began with two construction projects, the downtown subway and the former trolley route from the newly constructed South Hills Village Station and Light Rail Maintenance Center to Castle Shannon, both ends working toward the middle section of the route.
The first trolley cars on the modernized trackage began operation from South Hills Village to Castle Shannon on April 15, 1984. The downtown subway opened on July 3, 1985, initially with fare-free "demonstration" service running only as far as the then-new Station Square station for the first few days. The last day of streetcar service running on streets in downtown and across the historic Smithfield Street Bridge was July 6, 1985, with the subway opening for full service on July 7.
The last leg of the modern suburban "Beechview" line was approved for funding May 8, 1985, with $20million in federal grants, and PRT completed the modern system on May 22, 1987, at a total cost of $522million. The suburban lines in the South Hills were former streetcar lines that had been rehabilitated to accommodate light rail vehicles. The Beechview line was reconstructed and routed from the South Hills Junction through the Mount Washington Transit Tunnel, emerging at a newly constructed station at Station Square before crossing the Monongahela River on the Panhandle Bridge, which then led into a newly built downtown subway with four stations, which incorporated the nineteenth-century Pittsburgh & Steubenville Extension Railroad Tunnel. The downtown subway had four stations: Steel Plaza, Wood Street, Gateway Center, and Penn Station. The original subway branched north of Steel Plaza, with one branch heading west to Wood Street and one branch heading east to Penn Station.
A suburban trolley line with conventional jointed rail, aging electrical overhead and single-track segments was reborn as a wholly double track light rail line with continuous welded rail and modern catenary. Upon completion of the subway, all former streetcar lines were removed from the surface streets of Downtown Pittsburgh.
Overbrook Line reconstruction (Stage II)
The line from South Hills Junction to Castle Shannon via Overbrook was first constructed by the Pittsburgh and Castle Shannon Railroad between 1872 and 1874. In 1905, Pittsburgh Railways leased the route, and between 1909 and 1910, converted it to dual gauge, retaining the existing narrow gauge for the coal-hauling trains and adding the broad for passenger service using streetcars. While the line was electrified with overhead power, the coal trains continued to use existing steam locomotives.While the Beechview line was rebuilt during the 1980s, the Overbrook line remained largely unchanged and continued to be operated using PCC cars. The reconstruction of this line would be part of the Stage II project, to be performed at a future date pending additional funding. However, the condition of the track and infrastructure of the Overbrook line continued to deteriorate and in 1993, Pittsburgh Regional Transit determined the line to be unsuitable for safe operation in its current state and suspended service on the line. The line remained dormant until 1999, when the PRT broke ground on the Overbrook Line reconstruction project.
The rebuilt Overbrook line was essentially an entirely new line built along the original line's right of way. As had been done with the Beechview line prior, the rebuilt line was completely double-tracked with continuously welded rail, pandrol clip fixation, upgraded catenary and signaling, and other improvements. The rebuilt line included eight accessible stations with high-level platforms; unlike the Beechview line, no street-level stops were retained. The Overbrook line reopened in June 2004. Coinciding with the opening, Pittsburgh Regional Transit purchased 28 additional light rail cars to support the line and increase overall system capacity. At this time, the 55 existing cars were completely rehabilitated as well. In addition, as part of the Stage II project, upgrades to the traction power network, Operations Control Center, and signals and communications had been implemented.