By Chris La Pelusa
SUN CITY – “A Street Car Named Desire” has a whole different meaning for Sun City resident and history buff Fred Leznek.
“When I was a little boy … my mother would always take me on the streetcar to go downtown, and I was always infatuated with streetcars,” Leznek said, referring to the gone-by public transportation service also known as the trolley.
For 25 years, Sun City resident Fred Leznek has been building his collection of a popular American icon: the trolley. (Photo by Chris LaPelusa/Sun Day)
Where some people love trains, Leznek loves streetcars or trolleys, and he makes that distinction when talking about his extensive model streetcar collection that he keeps on personal display in his Sun City home.
Leznek has been building his model streetcar collection for 25 years and has models that go back to some of the original streetcar designs to Chicago’s popular Green Hornets.
(Photo by Chris LaPelusa/Sun Day)
“When the Chicago Transit Authority got rid of their streetcars, they took a bunch of the Green Hornets, brought them back to the factory, and they redesigned them into elevator cars,” Leznek said, sharing just a small bit of his extensive knowledge on streetcars and their history in the United States.
He continued, “A lot of these towns had trolley service. Aurora had a trolley service, Evanston had a trolley service. Unfortunately, the auto industry killed the trolley system in the United States. Trolleys were a good means of transportation in the cities and towns. They were [inexpensive], they were clean, no pollution from them at all.”
No pun intended, Leznek tracks down pieces for his collection through various means, either by attending train-and-trolley exhibits or visiting hobby shops, and he’s always in search of both another treasured addition to his collection and the little bit of American history that trolleys bring into his life.
“Every one of these trolleys represents a city where they ran,” Leznek said, “in the days of the trolleys.”
