Electric City Trolley Museum

The Electric City Trolley Museum is housed in a corner of the Steamtown complex and preserves a collection of restored streetcars from the systems that once crisscrossed northeastern Pennsylvania. The exhibits are good but the highlight is the working trolley ride — a vintage electric car runs on a short stretch of original track to PNC Field and back, a round trip of around 30 minutes.

The trolley runs weekends April through November. Tickets are inexpensive and can be combined with Steamtown entry. Old timers who grew up riding the original Scranton system sometimes ride along — get talking to them and you will learn things the exhibits do not say.

things to do museum historic
A story
Scranton called itself the Electric City because in 1886 it became the first place in the United States to operate a citywide electric streetcar system. The technology spread across the country within a decade and effectively ended the era of horse-drawn urban transport.

Other places in Things to Do