Car 790 and Other Back Mountain Trolleys

My good friend Ray Mancke, founder of the Back Mountain Railroad Club who is featured in this month’s cover story, stopped by my studio one cold winter morning last year to chat. After some small talk about the Club and local history, Ray asked, “Would you be willing to paint a picture of a trolley to help raise some funds for the restoration of what we think is the last trolley in the entire Wilkes-Barre Railway System?” 

Loving history like I do, I hesitated for less than half a second before answering “Yes!” enthusiastically. Perhaps you can imagine my thrill when I discovered that this trolley was an “old friend,” the exact same trolley which had been embedded in a house overlooking Perrins Marsh near where I grew up in the Franklin Township section of the Back Mountain!

Car 790, was originally built in 1924. In the 1940s and 1950s, it carried passengers between Wilkes-Barre and Nanticoke. Unlike others in the Wilkes-Barre Railway System, Car 790 cheated the scrap metal industry by hiding Inside the Back Mountain as part of the home of Walter and Mary Krakowski! In 1951, Mary worked for Pomeroy’s and Walter was a coal miner who developed asthma. Looking for clean country air, they bought Car 790, had the 44 foot long trolley hauled out to Orange, and placed it on a concrete foundation and basement overlooking Perrins Marsh. Their $200 investment created a frugal as well as unique home as both ends of the trolley protruded beyond the home’s framework and became a local landmark!

“There's the trolley house,” we would point and exclaim in the 1950s and 60s whenever we drove by on Mill Road. It was a sense of pride to us locals, a true mark of ingenuity!  There it stayed, its walls, canvas roof and windows still intact, including the cloth destination signs at either end, all protected from the elements by a second roof. It was still there when Conrad Baut noticed it during a Back Mountain bike ride, and did a quick U-turn to make sure his eyes had not deceived him! By that time, Walter had passed and Mary lived there alone. It became Conrad’s dream to restore Car 790 and after Mary’s death, the family allowed a group of local traction buffs, who had organized as the nonprofit Anthracite Trolleys, Inc., to extricate Car 790 and transport it to Baut Studios in Swoyersville in 2018.

The first task in my trolley art journey was visiting Car 790 in its rehab facility. Stripped of its floor and other parts, it still looks like a jolly red and yellow trolley! The next step was choosing historic photos for reference. Ray Mancke, Peter Baut and I all agreed on a black-and-white photo with passengers waiting to board. Then came the drawing phase. 

After Car 790 was drawn on the watercolor paper and before I painted it,  I decided to study trolleys by painting several others which ran from InSide the Back Mountain to Wilkes-Barre’s Public Square. I entered the world of trolley history through Ray Mancke and historian and author, Harrison Wick. I learned that “trucks” are sets of wheel and axle assemblies underneath. I learned which direction the reversible trolleys were headed by the angle of the trolley pole on the roof. I learned the bars across the windows were to ensure people kept their arms inside when the windows were open. I learned most of the trolleys differed in details. I counted windows. I counted rivets!

In Dallas, both the train tracks and the trolley tracks ran where the roundabout and Route 415 are now located. The Post Office has replaced the Dallas train station. The Dallas trolley station stood across the highway at the corner of Main Street. Trolley service to Dallas ended April 30, 1939. The Back Mountain Railroad Club features an exceptional historic train layout depicting the trolley and train stations and tracks!

I also painted the Shavertown Trolley Station in 1938 before Route 309 existed. Travelers either drove on the north-south thoroughfares of Main Street or Pioneer Avenue, or rode the trolley whose tracks were located where Route 309 is now located. This painting depicts the intersection of today’s highway and East Center Street, looking north at the Burger King/Dr.Collini intersection. Several of the buildings remain today including the Snowdon Funeral Home behind the Fairlawn store.

In this month of Thanksgiving, I'm thankful to God for family, friends, the richness of local history and for knowledgeable, inspiring individuals like Ray Mancke, Peter Baut, and Harrison Wick. 

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This article originally appeared in the November 2025 publication of InSide the Back Mountain.