Kansas City PCC to Become Ice Cream Shop

Trolling the Internet for news on preserved electric cars, as I sometimes do, I came across this article from September about Kansas City Public Service 551, which from November 2006 until March 2016 was on display under its own pavilion next to Kansas City Union Station. Ironically enough, though, redevelopment of the Union Station area prompted by the new light rail line necessitated the car's removal and for a year and a half it was put into storage by the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority.

That seems to have come to an end and the car has been plinthed at the corner of 5th & Delaware in the River Market section of Kansas City, along the light rail line (as can be seen from the above photo) near the other end of the route from its former KCUS home. It sounds like the car is destined to become an ice cream shop, which is unfortunate. It had previously been restored to more-or-less in-service appearance inside and out, as I understood, though it may still suffer the significant frame and body rot that led the Western Railway Museum to deaccess it back in 2006. (This is the last of the Kansas City PCCs sold to Toronto; one other car that went from K.C. to Toronto to San Francisco, as did this one, was acquired around 1982 by the Illinois Railway Museum but scrapped soon afterwards because it was so badly rusted out from its years in Toronto that the step wells were falling off.) PCC cars turned into ice cream shops have also not fared well traditionally, with a couple in Canada and New York having been scrapped in recent years upon failure of the ice cream business, though to every rule there are exceptions.

Anyway, according to the article the ice cream stand is to be called "Trolley Tom" so that's what I'm listing as the car's new owner. That name will be updated as necessary if and when the business opens.