It was long ago, 1950, but the childhood memory is as bright as that trolley was in Denver.

“The big yellow cars, that’s what they were called,” John Haney says, thinking back on the ride. “That was their last year of operation in Denver.”

The trolleys of his native Colorado Springs had come to an end previously, in 1932. Haney was not yet born. And yet somehow those days are vivid in his mind — bright as that day on the big yellow car.

“I was pretty smitten,” Haney recalls.

So much so that trolleys would be a lifelong passion, particularly those that ran in his hometown.

Yes, he can easily imagine them thanks to more than four decades of picture-collecting and extensive research and writing.

Haney has revised the book he originally published alongside the late Morris Cafky in 1983, “Pikes Peak Trolleys: A History of the Colorado Springs Streetcar System.”

The new edition comes with even more photos — 180 showing streetcars atop the dirt streets of a hardly recognizable downtown Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs. The book includes more anecdotes as well, more about those days of transit for work, errands and sightseeing.

The trolley system was “more than an essential public utility or a fascinating means of local transportation,” Haney’s book reads. “It was an institution.”

An institution that helped establish a city emerging on the dusty frontier. Gen. William Jackson Palmer had established Colorado Springs in 1871. The years would see roads expand, often turning muddy under feet and hooves.

“Riding on something pulled by a horse at 5 mph was quite a step above, you might say,” Haney says.

Along came horse-pulled trolleys in 1887, soon to be replaced by electrified railways. This was in matching the technology that was breaking through on the other, much more developed side of the country.

Colorado Springs was developing without saloons, in the stately vision of Palmer. Neighboring Colorado City was the place for drinking. Getting people there and onward to Manitou Springs was the idea of businessmen and investors behind the early trolley system.

Then “the company suddenly found itself undergoing severe and persuasive arm-twisting by a dynamic German nobleman, Count James M. Pourtales,” reads “Pikes Peak Trolleys.”

On south a line went toward Cheyenne Mountain, to Pourtales’ casino in the area that would later be occupied by The Broadmoor. Over the years, lines would stretch in other directions from downtown — north to the Roswell neighborhood, southwest to Ivywild and east to the Union Printers Home.

“Once the streetcars were electrified, they preceded or accompanied developments as the city grew in all directions,” Haney says.

Expansions could be premature. An example was the line toward Austin Bluffs, where development was planned. “Most of the line, however, traversed empty grassland inhabited only by rabbits, which had neither script nor purse,” reads “Pikes Peak Trolleys.”

Other poor decisions and economic conditions pushed the system to the brink of disaster. Along came a savior — a man whose name became legend amid the Pikes Peak gold rush of the 1890s.

Why would Winfield Scott Stratton pour $2 million into the struggling trolley system? Because he could, Haney reckons. “And he was uncomfortable with his wealth,” the author notes, as was clear by the words the man once wrote: “Great wealth is not good for any man. It has not been good for me.”

Stratton was famously philanthropic, with an eye for people who sought amenities such as public transportation. The man heard from those in the Hillside neighborhood; the trolley extended there, as it did to Evergreen Cemetery. Streetcars would also run to the golf course that is now Patty Jewett and to the green space near North Cheyenne Cañon that Stratton donated to the public: Stratton Park.

Stratton saw more connections around Knob Hill before his death in 1902. But investments from his estate continued through the years, just as he instructed.

“Pikes Peak Trolleys” includes a picture from 1906, showing a tourist ride that thrived: “It grew to a 30-mile scenic trip which toured the city and suburbs … allowing riders to see Manitou Springs, Broadmoor, Stratton Park and various residential streets.” Other regular occasions took tourists from downtown in the middle of the night to Manitou, where they would board the cog railway to the top of Pikes Peak to catch the sunrise.

But automobiles would soon boom. The Great Depression would strip people of spare nickels and dimes for fares.

“Midsized cities like ours couldn’t sustain the streetcars,” Haney says.

He has kept their stories alive. Not just with the book, but also with the foundation he started in 1982 and the museum he helps run: The Pikes Peak Trolley Museum hides at the end of an industrial zone, in a historic train roundhouse keeping old streetcars.

“This is a great story,” Haney says before the car he knows as the Drunkards’ Special. It ran to Colorado City before Prohibition in 1916.

“This is my favorite,” Haney says, moving over to another that ran to Stratton Park.

An effort is afoot to restore that park. As ever, Haney wishes for an effort to return trolleys to the streets of his native city.

“It is time for a new feasibility study,” he writes at the end of the revised “Pikes Peak Trolleys,” alluding to the spread of apartments, restaurants and downtown venues like Weidner Field and Robson Arena.

It is time, Haney says, to consider how trolleys could serve a growing city in both practical and economic ways. Residents and tourists could benefit, he maintains.

As could anyone looking to make a memory, he says, as he flips the pages of his book to a picture from the 1890s.

On Manitou’s Ruxton Avenue, two boys are perched atop the back bumper of a trolley, their legs swinging and faces smiling. “If that isn’t fun, I don’t know what is,” Haney says.