Trolley cars and all they represent live on at museum
In the summer of 1970, my father and I took a Sunday drive along Falls Road and encountered a fledging enterprise known as the Baltimore Streetcar Museum. A group of streetcar enthusiasts had made good on their determination to preserve and run some of Baltimore's revered transit vehicles of the previous 100 years. That day, we watched in amazement as aged streetcars appeared. And each year, these volunteers at the museum extended the overhead wires and the rails a little more along Falls Road into the Jones Falls Valley.
A week ago, in the same spot, I considered 39 years of volunteer labor. Wow! A fleet of gorgeously restored streetcars moved along the line. I watched as bicyclists and walkers broke into broad smiles when one of these venerable trolleys drove by. As if it didn't have enough cars from Baltimore, the museum has also taken in orphans from Philadelphia, including a fantastic green snow-sweeping car.
I thought to myself: These streetcars, resplendent in new paint jobs, never looked this good when you were standing in the rain and waiting for the next trolley to take you downtown.
I tend to think of streetcars as being quintessential urban machines, once running on Baltimore's busiest streets. The museum sits in a quiet little preserved depression along the Jones Falls, which is only a short walk from Penn Station and Charles Street. Its property was once the Baltimore home of another relic, the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad. The spot is not as bustling as the city street corners those trolleys served. It has the look of a place that time sidestepped.
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