A BRIEF STORY OF THE PCC STREETCAR

The PCC Streetcar evolved from a committee, the Electric Railway Presidents Conference Committee (ERPCC), which met in the summer of 1929 to design a streetcar to compete with rubber-tired vehicles. At that time, the Presidents of various leading street railway concerns saw the “handwriting-on-the-wall” and got together to use genuine American know-how to develop a suitable competing product. City transit companies from larger cities such as Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Montreal, Pittsburgh, Saint Louis and Toronto, along with those of smaller cities such as Birmingham, Fort Worth, Honolulu, Houston, Knoxville, Louisville, Memphis, New Orleans, Newark, Oakland, Omaha, Richmond (VA) and Washington, D.C. plus interurban companies such as the Cincinnati & Lake Erie, Pacific Electric and the Philadelphia & Western, all joined together to form the ERPCC.

Naturally, any plans that the ERPCC had were affected by the Depression, which began in the fall of 1929. So the first model of the resultant car, now called the PCC car, did not emerge until 1936, when the first 100 cars went to Brooklyn, New York. Within the next few years, cars would go to Baltimore, Chicago, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Toronto, and Cincinnati. Eventually most major U.S. cities acquired some of these cars. Eventually over 5000 PCC cars would be built in the United States and even more overseas. PCC cars produced would be of two generic types, the first known as the pre-war or air-electric PCC. These cars had a compressed air system that operated brakes, doors and windshield wipers.

Our model represents the post-war or all-electric PCC car, completely devoid of any compressed air system, produced from 1945 to 1952. Although the PCC car was billed as a standard single-ended 46’ long, 100” wide car, almost every property made changes that preclude one model from totally representing all the cars operated. There were eventually three different widths. Some cities, such as Chicago, had longer cars while Washington D.C. had shorter ones. There were differences in doors, door placement and roof lights. Two cities, Saint Louis and Kansas Car had car bodies unique to them. There were a few double-ended cars produced. While only two builders made PCC cars in the United states, Saint Louis Car Company and Pullman-Standard they are distinctly different from each other in appearance. More specifically, these cars are based on the 1948 series of PCC cars built by Saint Louis Car Company for the Philadelphia Transportation Company, which were extensively rebuilt during the early 1980s. Thirteen of these cars plus two of a previous order ended up being modified again and are used today in San Francisco.

Our model represents the post-war or all-electric PCC car, completely devoid of any compressed air system, produced from 1945 to 1952. Injection molded plastic body, window glass, operating roof pole, operating headlight, DCC Ready with 8 pin plug, accurate painting and decorating. Powered with proven Bowser can motor drive with flywheel.

$139.95   Due Jan  2011