A piece of Dayton history came home today as the Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority (RTA) unveiled the return of one of the agency’s original Christmas trolleys—#559 a 1948 Marmon-Herrington TC-48. Famous for its simulated fireplace, Santa seat, and reindeer mounted on the roof, the trolley rejoins RTA’s electric trolley fleet just in time for the holiday season.
The historic trolley ran along Dayton roadways as a special Christmas bus from 1977 until 1988, when it was retired to allow the agency to operate ADA-compliant vehicles. It was then donated to San Francisco Municipal Railway in California, to be a part of their historic vehicle fleet, where it was used as a holiday bus. RTA CEO Bob Ruzinsky felt it was time for #559 to come home, and worked with Daron Brown, RTA’s director of maintenance, and Pat O’Malley, RTA’s fleet manager, to make it happen.
The road back to Dayton wasn’t an easy one, Ruzinsky said, as getting the trolley shipped back to Dayton during a national truck driver shortage proved a challenge. While RTA was able to successfully have ownership of #559 transferred over, San Francisco did not have a process for delivering the vehicle more than 2,300 miles to Ohio. RTA utilized its relationship with Kiepe Electric, the maker of RTA’s NexGen electric trolley buses, to broker a deal to have the vehicle transported home. Kiepe managed a similar endeavor when it delivered RTA’s 45 NexGen trolleys from California to Georgia for production, and then to Dayton for final delivery.
“We are very thankful to San Francisco Municipal Railway and to Kiepe Electric for helping deliver this piece of history back to Dayton,” Ruzinsky said. “With our 50th anniversary celebration ahead in 2022, this felt like the right time to bring #559 back home”
The 1948 Marmon-Herrington TC-48 will be stored at RTA facilities during the year, but will make treks out onto Dayton roadways again for special runs during the holidays, Ruzinsky said.
The #559 trolley is part of a long-standing tradition in Dayton that was started in 1965 by W.W. (Bill) Owen, president of City Transit Company, the forerunner of the present-day RTA. The #559 trolley was painted and illustrated by Blommel Sign Co., and features a simulated fireplace, Santa seat, loudspeakers on the roof playing recorded music suitable to the season, and team of stuffed reindeer along with a non-smoking chimney mounted on the roof. The chimney is a nod to an infamous 1968 design, which had a chimney placed on the roof which included a hidden smudge pot to produce smoke. However, this design set the roof on fire, so that experiment was not repeated.
Since 1998, RTA’s holiday bus designs have utilized diesel vehicles rather than trolleys. “It will be fantastic to have an actual historic Christmas Trolley join our diesel holiday bus in the future” Ruzinsky said. “Think about it, this bus first hit the streets in 1948, 73 years ago”. Welcome home #559.
On Saturday, November 13, the Victoria Theatre stage will be graced by the presence of the national and international authors whose works are being recognized as advancing the cause of peace. The panel of winning authors will be moderated by Gilbert King, DLPP and Pulitzer winner for Devil in the Grove. Send questions for any of the authors to Sharon Rab 
A new Starbucks Café is coming to downtown Dayton and it will be located in the Benjamin & Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center, announced Dayton Live today. The popular coffee destination will be located in a part of the space formerly occupied by Citilites Restaurant & Bar in the Kettering Wintergarden of the Schuster Center. 
Hot off the presses – a thirty one page booklet that lists the restaurants, markets and food trucks by ethnicity, and geographic region in Montgomery County. The Guide was produced in hopes that it will serve as a resource to help you explore the many great independent ethnic eateries in the Miami Valley.
On the evening of Saturday, November 6, the Dayton Philharmonic travels back in time to when Dayton emerged as the “World Capital of Funk.” The R&B charts of these two decades topped out with more hits from Dayton artists than from almost any other American city. Often these hits leapt right off the R&B charts and straight up the pop charts! Celebrate this era of Dayton with us as symphony fuses with jazz, blues, and rock, and we relive the history of music in our funky town.
The University of Dayton Graul Chair’s second Dayton Funk Symposium will begin Wednesday, November 3, at the Neon Theatre with a 7 p.m. showing of the documentary “Summer of Soul” and will run through this Saturday, November 6, performance at the Schuster Center. For more information on the Dayton Funk Symposium, visit 
Detectives are in the process of reviewing old homicide and sexual assault case files in order to categorize them based upon available DNA evidence and other credible evidence. To assist with this task, Dayton police are partnering with the University of Dayton, which will provide student interns to help with cataloging of old case files. In addition to the three full-time cold case detectives, retired detectives will assist with re-examination of files in an effort to identify those with increased evidentiary value for higher solvability.
The Dayton Police Department will continue to utilize advancements in technology such as DNA, forensic genealogy, computer forensics, and more, to help solve these homicide and sexual assault cases.
Desserts: