Final rebuilt El Paso PCC delivered

The last of the El Paso prewar PCC cars to be rebuilt by Brookville, car 1511, was delivered back to its home city on Wednesday the 19th according to the El Paso Times website. It's the second car to be painted in National City Lines "fruit salad" livery of yellow, green, and white and the sixth car overall to be remanufactured for service on the city's new heritage line. That means that half of the surviving El Paso PCC cars are back in service in the city, with three of the remaining cars in storage for possible eventual rebuilding. The three renegades include a fired-damaged car currently for sale in California, a car eking out an existence as a shop in El Paso, and a car sent back east to represent a long-gone series of Baltimore cars.

El Paso heritage operation opens

From our friend Bruce Wells, of the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, comes a write-up and photos showing opening day for the El Paso heritage streetcar line operated by Sun Metro. There were at least three or four PCC cars in operation on opening day and they're the same cars, albeit heavily rebuilt, that ran the (previous) last streetcar operation in the city back in 1974. A total of six ex-El Paso (originally San Diego) prewar PCC cars are being rebuilt by Brookville and to my knowledge only one car has yet to return home from Pennsylvania. An additional three cars are stored at a Sun Metro facility adjacent to the El Paso airport, where all nine cars spent years stored derelict near the end of a runway.

Previously I'd been switching ownership for these cars from Paso del Norte Streetcar Preservation Society - to which they'd been loaned by the city of El Paso since the 1980s - over to Sun Metro as each car returned from rebuild, but it seems clear that PNSPS is pretty much out of the PCC game so I've switched ownership for all nine cars to Sun Metro. That leaves one car owned by PNSPS: El Paso 90, a 1913 Stone & Webster car that at last report was largely a shell. That was a few years back and its current condition and whereabouts are unknown.

Fifth rebuilt El Paso PCC completed

The fifth of the six El Paso prewar PCC cars being remanufactured by Brookville for use on the yet-to-open heritage streetcar line in El Paso is now en route home from Pennsylvania. Car 1515, built in 1937 as San Diego Electric Railway 524, has been in Brookville since 2016 and leaves with all-new trucks, motors, control, and brakes, plus air-conditioning and a pantograph. The six El Paso rebuilds wear three historically accurate liveries, two cars per livery, from their home city. Car 1515 is the first to wear the third of those liveries: classic National City Lines "fruit salad" colors of yellow, green, and white. The only car yet to be completed, car 1511, will also wear these colors. Meanwhile the earlier cars to be completed have been operating on test trips in El Paso prior to the start of service.

Another rebuilt El Paso PCC en route

According to a post today on the El Paso Streetcar Facebook page (no log-in required), the fourth El Paso PCC car to be rebuilt by Brookville is en route back home and should arrive within the next day or two. This arrival is car 1514, like the other El Paso PCC cars a 1937 St. Louis product originally built for the San Diego Electric Railway and bought by El Paso in 1950. Its owner has been changed to Sun Metro, which will operate the yet-to-open heritage streetcar line in El Paso, and no-longer-correct information on the car's trucks, motors, control, weight, and height have been removed. I'm still looking for any information on what equipment these Brookville rebuilds do have but I believe it's the same equipment being fitted to PCC cars being rebuilt for Muni.

Car 1514 also has a slightly interesting history. A published roster I initially used to record which SDER cars became which El Paso cars stated that 1514 was ex-SDER 523 while sister El Paso car 1513, which is not among the cars being rebuilt by Brookville and is currently stored semi-derelict at the El Paso airport, was ex-SDER 520. However a few years back Karl Johnson sent me some photos of the El Paso cars which showed pretty conclusively that car 1513 was actually ex-SDER 523. That being the case, I'm guessing that car 1514 may have been ex-520 and that the two cars' numbers were simply transposed, but I don't know for certain.

Third El Paso PCC rebuild returns to Texas

Silk Road Transport has posted on their Facebook page, which unfortunately is not accessible if you don't have a Facebook account, a photo of the third El Paso PCC en route back home. This one is car 1504, which like previously-completed rebuilds 1506 and 1512 was part of an early order of PCC cars built for San Diego and was later sold to El Paso. It's also had its original early GE-built PCC equipment removed (and possibly scrapped, though I hope that's not the case) and replaced with new European-built all-electric equipment generally similar to Westinghouse PCC equipment.

Car 1504 has also been painted in a different livery than the first two rebuilds; while they were painted in mint green with a red belt rail (example here), this latest car is painted in a slightly older livery of mint green with a dark green belt rail (example here). It will be interesting to see if any cars end up in either National City Lines "fruit salad" or the later green/red/yellow/white color schemes that were also used in El Paso. Regardless, car 1504 has now been moved over to Sun Metro as its owner and its condition has been changed to "operated often" in anticipation of testing and later revenue service.

Second rebuilt PCC returns to El Paso

The second El Paso PCC to see its rebuilding completed by Brookville has returned to Texas. This car is 1512, which started its life in 1937 as San Diego 513 and went to El Paso in 1950. Like the other five cars being rebuilt, it's no longer a GE air-electric; it's now an all-electric and has been fitted with the same Westinghouse-esque control equipment that Brookville is fitting to cars it rebuilds for Muni. And like the first car to be delivered from Brookville, 1506, it is in traditional El Paso mint green. Its status has been updated in the PNAERC roster and ownership has been transferred to Sun Metro, which will be operating the new heritage car line.

First PCC returns to El Paso

An online article published yesterday states that the first of the prewar PCC cars remanufactured for the El Paso Streetcar project by Brookville is now en route back to its home in Texas. Car 1506 is the first car to return, attired in mint green and white livery. It has been heavily rebuilt so all of the mechanical components of the car have been blanked out in the PNAERC database until correct information can be found; the car's original equipment has been noted in the remarks section. Question: anyone know what the equipment being fitted to these cars is called?

UPDATE: Thanks to Peter Ehrlich, who has pointed out that the cars retain their original Clark B2 trucks - albeit rebuilt for all-electric braking. It's still not certain what motors or control the rebuilt cars have.

The car's ownership has also been changed to Sun Metro, the transit provider in El Paso, with this change backdated to 2015. That's when the car really left Paso del Norte Streetcar Preservation Society's site and went to Brookville for rebuilding. As the other five PCC cars return to El Paso they will also be switched over to Sun Metro ownership. I've set the car's status to "operated occasionally" which is admittedly getting a little ahead of myself, but should be true soon enough.