Like many Philadelphians, Don Mason has lovely memories of the old Route 23 trolley. Born in 1952 near the boundary of Mt. Airy and Germantown, his father for a time was an operator for the vintage green and cream trolley cars that would regularly run up and down Germantown Avenue. The trolley tracks by day were the fixation of childhood mischief for Mason and his friends– many a penny were flattened, as were a few other not-to-be-mentioned foreign objects. By high school, its significance became utilitarian, as Mason rode the 23 back-and-forth each day as part of his journey to Cardinal Dougherty High School. Yet, more than anything, it was a certain mystique of the trolley that Mason remembers: the rumbling and clattering cars going by day and night, sparking the imagination, sometimes quite literally.

“One of my very favorite things was, when I was in high school and would come out, it would still be kind of twilight outside,” Mason said. “In the winter when we’d have freezing rain, the wires would have ice on them. The trolley would come by and you’d get a free light show. These beautiful blue sparks would shoot off the wires. It was incredible how big the sparks were.”

It has now been more than three decades since SEPTA, in 1992, ended regular trolley service on the route 23 line and swapped in buses instead. Initial promises to eventually return the trolley cars have given way to silence and deep public skepticism that it will ever happen. In fact, in many places along the trolley line’s original 13.8-mile run from the top of Chestnut Hill to South Philadelphia, the rails have been removed or paved over, seemingly burying any chance of return.

Yet, for some hope still springs eternal, particularly in Northwest Philadelphia where the trolley’s rails and overhead wires have largely been maintained at taxpayer expense. A few times a year, Mason or another local will post on social media with a favorable reminiscence. Others will join in and wonder if it would ever be possible to see the 23 trolley run again. The notion also has support from potentially influential individuals like developer Ken Weinstein, previous owner of the Trolley Car Diner at the intersection of Germantown Avenue and Cresheim Valley Drive. “Trolleys bring a nostalgia to our community. Trolleys attract tourists and people that otherwise might not take public transportation. There is a big upside to putting the trolley back on the tracks,” said Weinstein.

Others think it might be time to give up the ghost. Nicole Brunet, policy director of the Bicycle Coalition of Philadelphia (BCP), says trolley rails can present a hazard to cyclists and even motorists. Most notably, a former employee of the coalition fell off her bike while crossing the tracks at 11th and Reed Streets in South Philadelphia in 2013, shattering her teeth, breaking her jaw, and requiring months of recovery on a liquid diet. The incident sparked some argument between the often allied communities of bicyclists and public transit enthusiasts. The City eventually paved over or removed trolley tracks from at least a dozen problematic intersections along the former 23 route.

However, along the northwest stretch of the line on Germantown Avenue–roughly 5.5 miles from Chestnut Hill to Broad Street–much of the trolley infrastructure remains in place. In fact, in the late 2000s, some 15 years after the last regular Route 23 trolley ran, infrastructure was even restored on one segment of the stretch during a PennDOT repaving project.

There are still no new indications SEPTA plans to ever restore trolley service to the route. In fact, available evidence is to the contrary. Brunet said the trolley lines still present a hazard: not only to bicyclists, but also pedestrians and motorists who would benefit from traffic calming measures. After a pair of pedestrian hit-and-run deaths on Germantown Avenue in the Germantown neighborhood in 2022, the BCP worked with SEPTA and nearby community groups to develop a safety plan. Yet, many traffic calming measures along the avenue were a no go due to the continued presence of the trolley tracks, Brunet said.

“The community was like, ‘Why can’t we get traffic calming? People are going way too fast,’” explained Brunet. “[SEPTA said] the only way it can add traffic calming is if it basically paves over the trolley tracks. Because you can’t add speed bumps where there are trolley tracks. You can’t do the corners. There’s a lot of things that are just impacted by trolley tracks.”

A Rolling Start, a Sudden Stop

Philadelphia saw the arrival of its first trolley in 1858, according to a history compiled by trolley enthusiast and former Hidden City contributor Mike Szilagyi. Running from Kensington to Southwark via 5th and 6th Streets, it was a very different beast than today’s trolley, relying on literal horsepower to run back and forth.

Over the next 40 years, the mode of transportation would explode, with more than 66 trolley companies forming by 1895 to shuttle passengers across much of the city’s grid. Electrification leading to the demise of the horse-drawn trolley by 1897. The exact history of the part of the network that came to be Route 23 is a little fuzzy, but a WHYY article compiled in 2011 traces it to the establishment of a Germantown Avenue Line that by 1877 ran between what is now East Mt. Airy and 8th and Dauphin Streets.

A more definitive history compiled by SEPTA in 1974 completes the picture. By 1890, the Germantown Avenue line had been combined with 4th and 8th Street lines and renamed the “Pelham line.” It extended southward to 4th Street and Snyder Avenue. Further mergers in 1913, 1920, and 1926 saw the route reach its full length, from Chestnut Hill to 11th Street and Pattison Avenue, a 25.5-mile roundtrip length that SEPTA declared the “longest known trolley route in the world.”

Without an independent reference or further detail about how that superlative was determined, its authenticity is difficult to confirm. What is certain is that the Route 23 trolley, as SEPTA came to call it, for a time was both a commercial and cultural success. In 1983, trolleys citywide were generally on the ropes, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer article titled “Streetcars rolling toward a shaky future.” By that time, just seven surface streetcar lines were still operational, primarily in North Philadelphia. Much of their infrastructure was on its last legs.

“The physical plant is totally exhausted,” said John Tucker, then-SEPTA’s chief operations planner, in the 1983 article. “The track, the overhead wires, the substations, cables, cars, all must be renewed. It’s limping along on rubber bands and bubble gum.”

However, the same piece quoted officials as saying that of all the lines, Route 23 was “most likely to survive,” referencing its history, world-recording-holding length, and revenue generation. “It’s a rolling cash register,” the Inquirer quoted SEPTA’s transportation director.

Route 23 was also the stuff of romance. A feature that year in the Daily News entitled “Going all the Way on Rt. 23,” likened riding the line to a first date, where a passenger new to the city could learn all about its people and neighborhoods, starting in Chestnut Hill and then winding through the Northwest, into Nicetown, North Philadelphia, Center City, and onto South Philadelphia. “The 25-mile long No. 23, in a couple of years, may be endangered,” contributor Emma Edmunds wrote. “But for now you get a panorama. A rider can sample Philadelphia the way one tastes wine at a testing party–taking little sips that make you want more.”

Yet, before a decade was out, the line had indeed become endangered. Or quite possibly, extinct. “SEPTA pulls plug on trackless trolleys, to use buses,” blared a headline in the February 14, 1992 edition of the Daily News. Although that piece primarily focused on SEPTA’s decision to remove three trackless trolley routes from service in North and Northeast Philadelphia, it also quoted union officials saying that the agency planned to swap in buses for trolleys on Route 23 before the end of that month. Seven months later, another article in the Daily News noted SEPTA had indeed pulled the trolleys off the line, as well as Routes 15 and 56, for much of the year, citing “frequent breakdowns and high maintenance costs.” The agency stated it planned to restore service upon purchasing a new fleet of 80 light rail cars several years later.

Weinstein, a then-chief of staff for Happy Fernandez, a former city council member and transportation committee chair, said his recollection was that he and others were skeptical even then that the trolleys would return as SEPTA had claimed the operating deficits for running buses were lower than for trolleys.

Still, signs of hope flickered. In 1994, SEPTA offered a Center City antique trolley loop from Callowhill to Bainbridge Streets using old Route 23 lines on 11th and 12th Street to try and lure tourists. Similarly, SEPTA for a time maintained irregular, chartered trolley service on the 23 line in 1997. Advocates rode one to a City Hall meeting where they blasted the agency for failing to restore full service. Agency officials admitted no long-term capital funding had been set aside for the project, but said the line was included in the “long range capital program.” Years stretched into decades, and the ups and downs continued.

In 2003, the last chartered trolley rolled down Route 23, but, three years later, SEPTA restored the Route 15 trolley on Girard Avenue, a line it has since remained committed to. In 2008, PennDOT performed a $17 million reconstruction of Germantown Avenue in Mt. Airy and elected to include the reinstallation of new Route 23 trolley tracks and overhead lines. A spokesperson recently told Hidden City that the decision was primarily at the behest of local residents and that the trolley portion of the project cost about $170,000. The agency has not made a decision either way whether it will repeat the favor in the future. A Philadelphia City Planning Commission document from 2008 claimed that SEPTA remained “committed to restoring the Route 23 trolley” and had set aside $390 million for Route 23 and 56 trolleys in the 2013-2020 capital program. A Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission study the following year similarly said SEPTA was committed to restoring some form of fixed-rail transport on Route 23 by 2022.

However, hope dimmed in the years after. In 2015, SEPTA told The Chestnut Hill Local it planned to further study the issue and make a determination sometime around 2026. By 2022, Jen Dougherty, agency manager of long-range planning, noted during a virtual meeting that SEPTA had shifted its focus to modernizing the trolley lines servicing West Philadelphia and had no formal plans for Route 23. In more recent court testimony, SEPTA track department director Philip Metzger reiterated that the agency has “no plans to reinstate trolley service” on the line.

SEPTA’s communications team did not respond to a list of questions for this article. Matthew Cassidy, communications manager for the Philadelphia Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems (OTIS) signaled the unlikely return of the 23, pointing to the city’s current CONNECT transportation plan. “[The] transit plan calls for improvements in trolleys and for investments in regional rail. It does not recommend bringing back the Route 23 trolley,” Cassidy stated. “The transit plan focuses on improving frequency on regional rail, which our research concludes would provide better service to Northwest Philadelphia than restoration of the Route 23 trolley.”

One Road, Two Paths

Like other trolley aficionados, Weinstein thinks the mode of transit still has merit, even on Germantown Avenue. There’s the touristy allure of an old-timey trolley rolling down the historic corridor, drawing people to visit and shop in the Northwest neighborhoods. There are also environmental benefits to be had by the electrified ride of the trolley. Weinstein thinks that one of the most common criticisms of the trolley–its inability to navigate around obstructions like double-parked cars, causing delays and bunch ups–could actually be viewed as an antidote to present concerns over road safety. “We’re trying to slow traffic down now because we see the benefit of that,” Weinstein said. “You could do what we’re about to do in Mt. Airy and do pedestrian crossings and traffic bumpouts. But you could also run trolleys, which would slow down traffic.”

For all these reasons, Weinstein is on board with one day returning the Route 23 to full, daily service of some form of light rail transportation. He is also a realist and said his understanding is that while much of the street-level infrastructure remains in Northwest Philadelphia, the restoration of equipment to power the line would require a major, expensive capital investment that is exceedingly unlikely with SEPTA facing a potentially existential fiscal cliff next year. “We’re not going to see trolley cars anytime soon,” Weinstein says.

Brunet noted that her recollection is that SEPTA also said during the 2022 Germantown meeting that it would have to replace rails in that neighborhood for the 23 trolley to run there again, another unlikely capital investment for the cash-strapped agency. SEPTA previously told Hidden City that restoring Route 23 trolley service would also require creating new wheel-chair accessible stations at considerable expense, estimating total needed investment to restore the line at $100 million as of 2015.

Paving also costs money. In recent court testimony, the agency said it costs about $1 million to pave over a mile of trolley tracks. As a policy matter, Brunet would like to see bike lane infrastructure separating from in-use trolley routes wherever possible–an improvement slated for an upcoming project on Woodland Avenue–and for the City to make hard decisions to pave over those that haven’t seen a trolley car in decades.

“We like public transit. It’s part of a historical makeup of Germantown Avenue,” Brunet explained. “[But] this is just another example of our aging infrastructure. We should be paving over them consistently if they’re not in use.”

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