page_title: Old Pueblo Trolley
section_title: The heritage streetcar line
hierarchical_section_title: Old Pueblo Trolley / History / The heritage streetcar line
caption_attribution_description: Two vintage streetcars on Tucson's Old Pueblo Trolley line: Ex-Kyoto, Japan, car 869 (built in 1953) and ex-Brussels, Belgium, car 1511 (built in 1936). Car 869 has a Christmas wreath around its headlight.
context_page_description: Old Pueblo Trolley is a non-profit, educational corporation based in Tucson, in the U.S. state of Arizona, that is dedicated to the preservation of Arizona's mass transit history. The name also commonly refers to the heritage streetcar line which OPT began operating in 1993, on which service is currently indefinitely suspended. OPT consists of three divisions that each fill a specific role in preserving the state's mass transit history. The divisions are the Street Railway Division, Motor Bus Division and the Museum Division.
  Old Pueblo Trolley's streetcar line opened in 1993. The trolley last ran on October 31, 2011, when service was suspended for construction of the Sun Link modern-streetcar system.
  Operating on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Old Pueblo Trolley ran on just over a mile of single-track line recovered from Tucson's original street railway. From its south terminus at 5th Avenue and Broadway Boulevard the trolley ran north on 4th Avenue before heading east on University Boulevard to its terminus at Tyndall Street, just west of the University of Arizona Main Gate.
context_section_description: Revival of the line began as the dream of Ruth Cross, director for the University of Arizona's Centennial Celebration in 1983, to see the historic streetcars returned to the Old Pueblo for the University's centennial. A 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, Old Pueblo Trolley (OPT), was formed to raise funds and coordinate planning with the city and business community, and volunteers also donated time to move the idea forward.  
  The Old Pueblo Trolley heritage streetcar line was inaugurated on April 17, 1993.  Two trolley cars were available for service when the line opened, and were operated in the inaugural runs:  Car 10, a 1918-built Birney-type car that was ex-Pacific Electric Railway 332 and was under lease to OPT from the Orange Empire Railway Museum since 1985, and car 255, ex-Osaka, Japan (Hankai Electric Tramway), which was built in 1953.  Car 255 had been in service in Osaka until June 1992. The Birney car used a trolley pole, while the Japanese car used a pantograph, as it had on its home system. Before entering service, Birney car 10 was repainted from PE colors into the old livery of the former Tucson streetcar system, whose fleet had included an ex-Douglas, Arizona, Birney car of the same type, which was in service until the abandonment of the old Tucson system in 1930. Car 10's lease had started in 1985, but restoring it to operating condition took time and money, and only in 1991 did the car operate in Tucson for the first time under its own power.  Before the start of public service in 1993, the Birney car operated occasionally for special events, for members of the OPT group.
  The line that opened as a heritage streetcar in 1993 used a combination of old, abandoned, paved-over track along University Avenue that was uncovered and rehabilitated, and new track along 8th Avenue and along 4th Avenue. Most of the line is two-way single-track, but it includes some double-track.  Workers from Tucson Electric Power installed the overhead trolley wire, in some cases as volunteers.
caption: Japanese car and Belgian car on the heritage line in 2003
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