Toronto PCC being rebuilt at McKinney Avenue

The McKinney Avenue Transit Authority has posted an update on its Facebook page with photos of its latest rebuild project, Toronto Transportation Commission 4614. This is a Toronto 4600, a car rebuilt by the TTC in the early 1990s and retired just a few years later. It's one of two identical cars (the other is 4613) acquired by MATA more than twenty years ago, in 1996, and stored since then. It's been an on-again, off-again subject of interest for rebuilding; a few years ago work started but was stopped, possibly in favor of an ex-Dallas double-end PCC which was scrapped last year. But now work has resumed in earnest and the scope is impressive. The car's interior has been stripped out and, more startlingly, a left-hand door has been cut in just behind the motorman's position (see above). This is almost exactly what Mexico City did to the PCC cars they bought secondhand from Detroit. It will be interesting to see 4614 when it emerges from the McKinney workshop.

Dallas/Boston PCC scrapped

I can't recall offhand the last time that a car on the PNAERC list went directly from "undergoing restoration" to "scrapped" but I suppose there's a first time for everything. It was brought to my attention that this summer the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority in Dallas scrapped the ex-Dallas double-ended PCC car that had arrived there only a year and a half earlier.

The car was built by Pullman-Standard as Dallas Railway & Terminal 612, becoming Boston MTA (and later MBTA) 3334 in 1959 when it was sold for use in Massachusetts. In 1991 it was acquired by Trolleyville and moved to Cleveland, where it was stored indoors for most of the time until the Trolleyville collection was liquidated in 2009. At that time it was acquired by MATA but, lacking storage space, it was moved to the Illinois Railway Museum and stored there. It was moved to Dallas in December 2015.

As recently as early 2017 the car was undergoing a major rebuilding with the goal of making it operational; it had been stripped down to the steel shell and the entire car had been sand-blasted. But it seems that the frame was more heavily deteriorated than expected and McKinney decided that it would be uneconomical to repair the car for operation. So in May or June it was cut up. It's worth remembering that MATA is not a museum; they're basically a tourist railroad with a franchise to provide a public transportation service. So their primary mission isn't to preserve or restore Dallas streetcars, it's to provide reliable service along their street railway route.

Car 612 was far from unique. A dozen other other members of this class exist in various museums, though none in operating condition and only a couple retained as accessioned collection pieces. But all of the other examples are located in the northeast - none in their original home in Texas.