Let's Work on a PCC

Following on the heels of the return of the Terrible Trolley, more PCC restoration news has come to light. It appears that working on restoring PCC cars is all the rage these days!

First up is DC Transit 1430, a wartime (prewar-style) car built in 1944 by St. Louis for the Washington, DC system. One of only five Washington PCC cars still in 1) the US, and 2) its original form, and the only member of its series extant, the car was retired in 1962 and made its way to the Rockhill Trolley Museum. It remained there, stored outdoors, until 1997, when it went back to home territory at the National Capital Trolley Museum. NCTM volunteers have now started working on the car, starting with cleaning up and repainting the interior, so its status has been changed to "undergoing restoration." Thanks to Wesley Paulson for the update on this car. The above photo is from here.

Next comes San Francisco Municipal Railway 1153, which was built by St. Louis in 1946 for the hometown streetcar system as St. Louis Public Service 1742. It went to Muni in 1957 and upon retirement in 1982 it was acquired by the Western Railway Museum. It has been stored at WRM ever since, mostly as a static display piece as far as I can tell, but that looks to be changing. As shown in the above photo (from here), car 1153 has been brought into the WRM shop for mechanical work. It is receiving a rebuilt MG set and possibly other work. Its status, too, has been updated to "undergoing restoration." There are 21 cars from this series on the PNAERC list, but most are in rough shape - I'd opine that car 1153 is in better shape than all but two or three of the others.

And finally we have this, which is just a thumbnail (I can't find the original image, posted earlier this week) purporting to show SEPTA 2336, one of the system's modernized "PCC III" cars. This car has been undergoing another overhaul for something like a year and a half, but the novel development is that it is supposedly being painted in "Gulf Oil" colors rather than in traditional PTC green and cream like the rest of the PCC III fleet. Time will tell whether it rolls out of the shop in this livery. Although the "Gulf Oil" livery is among the more distinctive applied to PCC cars, only one car has heretofore been repainted in these colors.

The Terrible Trolley Rides Again

Today in a dramatic ceremony the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum unveiled its latest restoration project: Port Authority Transit 1713, better known as the "Terrible Trolley." This car, a 1949-vintage PCC built for Pittsburgh Railways, was in 1980 painted in an elaborate livery honoring the Pittsburgh Steelers. The car was acquired by PTM two years ago and since then has undergone a speedy restoration to its 1980 appearance. The car is undoubtedly eye-catching, and as popular as the Steelers are in Pittsburgh, it's sure to raise awareness of the museum with a fan base that may not currently be very familiar with the museum.

As for car 1713, its condition has been updated to reflect that it is in operation at the museum. This means that of the eight 1700-series Pittsburgh cars on the PNAERC list, the only two that are restored and operating are both at PTM. (I should also mention that I recently removed several cars in this series from the list that were at Windber because they had clearly collapsed, making them effectively unsalvageable in my opinion and, therefore, no longer "preserved.") The photo above is from a Railpace post on Facebook.

And in unrelated news, Bill Wall sent along this link and alerted me to the fact that Branford has just celebrated the 125th birthday of its line! The line from Branford to East Haven via Short Beach opened on July 31st, 1900, and has been in operation continuously ever since, which is quite a distinction. Of course, the math  majors among our readership will realize that the trolley museum has operated the line for significantly longer now than did the Connecticut Company. The museum celebrated this anniversary with a ceremony at Sprague Station, in East Haven (photos and information here). Kudos to BERA on this milestone! The photo shown here is from that first link and here.