County covering cost
A trolley ride provides a unique attraction to the Washington County Fair and other events, and it appears the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum will soon own the land under its track on what is known as the Arden Loop.
The museum association has been leasing a narrow tract beyond the fairgrounds in Chartiers Township, parallel to Arden Road and Creek, since 1977 as part of a 40-year lease with Geraldine Murphy that will expire next year.
A ride on the Arden Loop is a two-mile round trip from the McClane park-and-ride to the fair, and follows what was formerly the Arden Mines Railroad. Train track was abandoned when there was no more coal to mine in the 1920s, said Scott Becker, executive director of the trolley museum. Trees were growing where the rail line once existed, “so we literally had to start it from scratch,” Becker said.
The trolley museum would like to keep this spur, and the cost of removing track from the right of way would be prohibitive, said Scott Fergus, Washington County director of administration. Construction of the track by volunteers began in spring 1979, and it was this right of way that enabled trolley service to the fairgrounds. The Arden Loop was completed in 1995. Rounding it through the woodsy Arden Valley enables the trolley car to head back to the museum.
“To me, that’s the prettiest part of the line,” Becker said. “What we’re preserving there is a country trolley line. There were hundreds of miles of the trolley lines in Pennsylvania that were just like that.”
The county is using revenue from natural gas extraction beneath the fairgrounds in Chartiers Township for the $86,301 purchase price. The county commissioners approved the deal Thursday.
If the trolley museum should ever dissolve, the county would have the right of first refusal in any sale of the land.
The museum opened in 1954 with three trolleys. It now has almost 50 cars and attracts more than 30,000 visitors each year.