Saturday, September 17, 2022

Philadelphia PCC-II Overhaul Program

A recent post on a PCC group on Facebook, made by a SEPTA employee, brought readers up to date on the overhaul program currently underway at SEPTA. That agency has a fleet of 18 "PCC-II" streetcars - Philadelphia PCC cars that were torn down to their frames and rebuilt by Brookville around 2004-2005, complete with new (though "PCC-inspired") control and motors as well as sealed windows and A/C. After about 15 years the cars were all pulled from service and they're now going through an in-house overhaul. This job, unlike the last one, is generally sympathetic, and they're emerging more-or-less indistinguishable from how they went in.

Of the cars in the fleet (list here - note that this is not an all-inclusive list of cars on PNAERC owned by SEPTA), four have already been overhauled and outshopped: 2332 (outshopped June 2021), 2328 (outshopped August 2021), 2337 (outshopped June 2022), and 2322 (outshopped within the last few weeks). Four more are currently in the shop being overhauled: 2324, 2326, 2327, and 2333. The remaining 10 cars are still waiting their turn. Cars undergoing overhaul have been noted as "undergoing restoration;" cars that haven't yet gone into the shop are "stored operable;" and cars that have been overhauled are described as "operated often." This may be a bit aspirational for the moment, but sooner or later it's bound to come true.

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