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.

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.

First rebuilt El Paso PCC outshopped

More news shows up on Facebook: the El Paso Streetcar page there posted a few photos late yesterday showing the first of the El Paso PCC cars to be outshopped by Brookville. It's not clear whether car 1506 is completed or whether it's in some nearly-complete stage of rebuilding, but it looks complete - and certainly looks very different. As shown above the car now has an enormous fairing stretching almost the entire length of the roof which presumably contains air-conditioning equipment and may also contain propulsion or control electronics, I don't know. It also sports a rear-mounted pantograph as well as a variety of new warning lights on the front and rear. That said, the car has kept its original number and is painted in one of El Paso's several PCC liveries, the same mint green with red trim livery worn by the El Paso tribute car in San Francisco.

At the moment I've changed car 1506's description from "prewar PCC" to "modified PCC" but it's still listed as being under restoration, since it's still at Brookville and it's not in operation yet. At the moment it still has its original electrical equipment shown in the listing though I'm pretty sure that's not accurate. I need to get information on what electrical and mechanical equipment is being fitted to these cars by Brookville. Car 1506 is also still noted as owned by Paso del Norte Streetcar Preservation Society, which for decades was the caretaker for the collection of El Paso PCC cars in storage in that city, but I'm not sure that's still accurate. Anyone know who technically owns these El Paso rebuilds and/or will be operating them?

El Paso PCC update

Today's update involves six of the surviving PCC cars listed under the Paso del Norte Streetcar Preservation Society. According to the Trolleyville Times at George Huckaby's trolleyville.com website, the list of cars being remanufactured at Brookville (a list I've been trying to hunt down for some months) is 1504, 1506, 1511, 1512, 1514, and 1515. All six have been on the PNAERC list for years, included among the cars stored derelict at the El Paso airport. I'm not certain what the timeline for completion of these cars is, but for the moment their location has been updated to Pennsylvania.

However that's not the end of the story, and at the moment I'm afraid I don't have the end of the story. I'd be very interested in more information on two fronts. First, are these cars still considered part of the PdNSPS collection? Since they're going to be part of a transit agency-run heritage line, I wonder. Second, I've read that they're going to be rebuilt with newer-style control (and possibly motors and brakes) in place of their original XD323 controllers and air-electric brakes. Any information on what exactly they're being rebuilt with would be very helpful.