Passenger Trains > More PCC's for San Francisco Muni

After a delay of about a year San Francisco Municipal Railway has finalized the purchase of eleven(down from fifteen) PCC's from New Jersey Transit. The rebuilding of the cars will be contracted out to Brookville Equipment Co. of Brookville, PA(yes, the company that has built industrial locomotives for decades). Brookville recently completed a PCC upgrade contract for SEPTA. Like the rest of the historic fleet the cars will be painted in liveries representing several North American transit systems that ran PCC's. They'll be numbered 1070-1080 and the first should arrive this summer. Check out the link for more details on the rebuilding with illustrations of the proposed paint schemes for five of the cars:
http://www.streetcar.org/news/2004/modified/index.html

The new cars are needed for the F-line where capacity loads are common even during off-peaks. Considered an historic streetcar line, the tourists are now outnumberd by regular Muni riders and reinforcements are badly needed. Photo below shows a member of the current fleet, Muni #1063(St. Louis Car 1948), painted in the colors of the Baltimore Transit Co. Seen on Market eastbound approaching Steuart.

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Muni #1057, painted for the Cincinnati Street Ry. Co., hangs a left onto the Embarcadero just prior to the Ferry Terminal stop.

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Muni #1807 is part of a fleet of eleven trams acquired from Milan that were built to a Peter Witt design in Italy in 1928. Seen eastbound at Market and Montgomery. Do any of these survive in service in Milano?

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Large numbers of them were still running in Milan in 2001, the last time that I was there.

With any luck (which is sometimes in short supply in MuniLand) the rebuilt NJ car will arrive in time for the 10th Anniversary of the "F" line. That will be in September. Muni will probably bring out Line Car 0304, parts of which are now 100 years old, and almost surely Muni 1, from 1912.

They still seem to be running. Try:

http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/it/trams/Milano/Peter_Witt/pix.html

That photo of the "Cincinnati" PCC brings me simultaneous emotions of both joy and despair. Certainly happy to see it running, but why in SF, while Cincy is a transportation hell-hole? Keep 'em runnin' out there. More power to you from back in Stone-Age Ohio..............

The 13 from NJT are originally Minneapolis cars, right?

Ted in Davis

Good news, indeed! Thanks for the Cincinnati car shot, too. As another poster mentioned, Cincinnati is in the stone-age about a lot of things, but the transit system is one of the best-run in the country in spite of recent funding issues and interference from Cincinnati city council (keystone cops - 2005).

The truth is, though, I sure would like to see high-quality shots of the Louisville Railway car if you have some. You can email them to me or post them here for everyone to enjoy if you prefer.

I'll be in the bay area for the first time this coming April for the Motor Bus Society Spring meeting, and I hope to see and photograph it then, of course.

Off-topic but true: The last good mayor in Cincinnati was Jerry Springer.

da timecruncher
--from the dispatch desk at the Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky. Alas, Green Line never ran PCCs...

Cruncher, I was referring to the god-awful "freeway system" in and around the Queeen City with my "hell-hole" remark. Glad to see there is another "bus person" on this board. Am already looking forward to the next Flxible homecoming in 2006 over in Loudonville. Love those Clippers, esp. the few that are still propelled by that Buick ohv straight-8 in the tail. Great ole machines. Used to ride them in the '40's and '50's on the ABC Coach Lines in Indiana. Take a Clipper from Muncie to Richmond, and change there to an Ohio Bus Lines coach for Cincy, which still had trackless trolleys. All this was before "progress" dismembered Cincinnati.

shed47 Wrote:
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> The rebuilding of the cars will be
> contracted out to Brookville Equipment Co. of
> Brookville, PA(yes, the company that has built
> industrial locomotives for decades). Brookville
> recently completed a PCC upgrade contract for
> SEPTA.

Two of the SEPTA Brookville rebuilds were used for the twelfth annual pre-Super Bowl trolley charter on Saturday. They were briefly adorned with Eagles banners.

photo at 63rd & Malvern Loop, where the Eagles stuff was added during a 45 minute layover (mid trip break).

http://www.transitspot.com/gallery/SEPTA/05_02_05_096

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Nice photos indeed!

I'll say this for SEPTA: The rebuilds don't look bad, even with the a/c modules on the roof. At least they kept the roll signs instead of converting to those awful electronic things.

da timecruncher

PS -- I hear that Homer Simpson is a closet 'Bengals fan. D'oh!

If MUNI wasn't having so damned many collisions with the PCC's from 1995, they might not need all the new ones!

I hadn't heard about the F line anniversary, but it will be neat to see car 0304 again. Some years ago Muni took part in a Transit Day thing and drove an old White coach to it. I used to ride those buses across town on the 10 Monterey line to high school. Maybe it will show up this year.