On its last trip from Catonsville Junction to Ellicott City in 1955, the No. 9 trolley was draped in black crepe paper, signifying riders' sense of mourning.
It was the trolley that, in 1899, provided rides for as many as 13,000 people a day, and for the next 56 years would transport people back and forth for work, school or leisure.
Bruce Taylor never rode that trolley line, but he remembers stories his father used to tell about it.
And while the final No. 9 ride took place 60 years ago this month, Taylor, along with the Ellicott City Business Administration, brought a similar trolley back to Ellicott City in 2003. That trolley has run on weekends and special occasions, enabling people to find parking farther away from Main Street before riding the trolley into historic Ellicott City.
"The goal was to help alleviate a parking problem when it was most severe on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and make it easier to access and use all the amenities in Ellicott City," said Taylor, CEO of Taylor Service Co. in Ellicott City.
When it first began running, the No. 9 trolley didn't exist to shuttle people from parking lots to Main Street. Rather, its focus was getting people from the Baltimore area into Ellicott City, said Shawn Gladden, executive director of the Howard County Historical Society.
"Prior to the trolleys, Howard County seemed like it was so far away for people, especially if you were from Baltimore," Gladden said.
"You didn't really see ordinary people making their way out, so with these trolleys, a lot more folks from different parts of the state were able to make it into Ellicott City for tourism," he said. "And, of course, when they come in, they spend money, so that helps the local economy."
The popularity of automobiles after World War II eventually led to the trolley's demise on June 19, 1955.
It was the last of more than 800 trolleys that once ran on Baltimore's street car system.
"The concept of needing a trolley is kind of obsolete once ordinary Americans could buy their own cars," Gladden said. "It was like, 'What's the need for the trolley service?' kind of thing."
Taylor said that from September 2007 through February 2008, his trolley ran regularly on the weekends. But the approximately $50,000-a-year operating cost became prohibitive, he said. Now, the trolley runs only on special occasions — such as during music festivals and Midnight Madness in Ellicott City.
Taylor said his "ultimate hope is that it will be popular enough that it will run basically every day as a reliable source of transportation for the community."
"This kind of transportation provides a service to the working people in the community and the visitors of the community alike for public transportation that's reliable, and by being free, is certainly affordable," he said.
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