The red trolley on “Mister Rogers' Neighborhood” traveled 5,000 miles annually.
The beloved children’s television program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood used signals to tell its audience when to get ready to listen and learn. At the start of every episode, host Fred Rogers entered his TV home and sang “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” as he changed from a sport coat and loafers to his signature sweater and sneakers. Next, he typically introduced a topic — sometimes veering into sensitive subject matter like divorce or depression — before beckoning the anthropomorphic Trolley to transport viewers into the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. In a given year of the show, Trolley’s commutes covered 5,000 miles, according to PBS, more than the length of the world’s longest river, the 4,123-mile Nile.
Trolley’s precise origins are somewhat mysterious, but we do know the one-of-a-kind model was hand-built from wood by a Toronto man named Bill Ferguson in 1967, the year before Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood premiered. (Rogers likely met Ferguson when he was living in Toronto and taping Misterogers, which aired on CBC-TV from 1961 until 1964.) The TV host’s love for trolleys went all the way back to his own childhood; during one 1984 episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, he visited the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum and remembered accompanying his dad on long trolley trips. Young viewers often wrote to Rogers with questions about the show’s trolley, such as why there were no people aboard, to which the host responded that the lack of passengers encouraged kids at home to visualize themselves aboard. Today, Trolley is on permanent display at the Fred Rogers Center at Saint Vincent College in Rogers’ hometown of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Visitors to Latrobe will have no trouble spotting bumper stickers around town that read “My Other Car is a Trolley.”
In episode one of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, audiences meet the host’s friend and neighbor Mr. McFeely (David Newell), who regularly visits bearing shipments on behalf of his employer, the Speedy Delivery Messenger Service. Mr. McFeely became a fixture on the show, appearing in nearly half the episodes. The “McFeely” moniker came from Rogers’ own life — his full name was Fred McFeely Rogers, after his maternal grandfather, Fred Brooks McFeely. When it came to naming his human and puppet characters, Rogers enjoyed taking inspiration from the people in his offscreen world. For example, although his wife went by her middle name, Joanne, her actual first name was Sara; he christened the Neighborhood of Make-Believe’s matriarch Queen Sara Saturday. Another resident of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, Lady Elaine Fairchilde, was likely named after Rogers’ younger sister, Nancy Elaine Rogers Crozier, who answered to “Laney.” The unusual last name for the Neighborhood of Make-Believe’s telephone operator, Miss Paulificate (Audrey Roth), was no accident — Rogers had a friend in Canada with children named Paul, Iffy (shorthand for “Elizabeth”), and Cate. Rogers’ tradition of naming fictional friends after real individuals may date back to his most famous puppet, Daniel Tiger. Before he became a television personality himself, Rogers worked on a series called The Children’s Corner, which ran from 1954 to 1961. The show was broadcast from WQED Pittsburgh, and the night before its premiere, station manager Dorothy Daniel gifted Rogers with a tiger puppet. Naturally, the cuddly creature’s name doubled as a salute to her generosity.
