East Troy Electric Railroad Museum

PCC Streetcars

The following essays were penned by the late Tom Matola in 1998 as the Museum was acquiring its first two PCC streetcars.  Tom passed away in March 1999, but his cars remain in the East Troy collection.  We are leaving his essays in here for the historic reference.   After them, we have begun a PCC gallery.

Here's Tom in the East Troy Depot with a few of his models.

The American PCC, and Cars 2185 and 2120 at the East Troy Railroad Museum by Tom Matola

In 1929 the Electric Railway President's Conference Committee was formed under the direction of Dr. Thomas Conway. 28 operating companies and 25 manufacturers participated in the ERPCC. Their goal was to develop a replacement for the 74,000 streetcars then in service in the United States, of which 40,000 were over 20 years old.

Field work was primarily carried out on the Brooklyn and Queens Transit Corp. using several of their cars as test beds. Truck development initially was done at Detroit Edison’s laboratories and the prototype set was fabricated and assembled there. Criteria for performance and passenger comfort were developed at the University of Michigan and Purdue University.

The first production car was, appropriately, Brooklyn 1001. When delivered in 1936, it featured many hand fabricated components and cost $15,000. This car was used as a sample and test bed for future production.

Actually, the second car completed, Pittsburgh 100, was the first car to enter revenue service so that Westinghouse could show off it's new drive in their home city. The last car built for North American service was San Francisco Muni 1040. This stripped down model, costing $37,751, was delivered in 1951.

5024 of these modern streetcars were built in the United States with production broken down as follows: Clark Equipment built one sample all aluminum car before they decided to concentrate on the production of B-2 trucks. Pullman-Standard Car Company, at their Osgood Bradley plant, constructed a total of 1057 cars. The remaining 3966 cars were built by St. Louis Car Company. Of the St. Louis cars, four were kits shipped to Europe and assembled by BN in Brussels. Two of these cars went to the Vicinal in Belgium (their local interurban network) with the others to the Den Haag city system in the Netherlands. An additional 594 bodies were shipped to Canadian Car & Foundry and assembled there to avoid the import duty. Not counted in the total were the 14 cars constructed for Philadelphia Suburban Transit with PCC bodies but conventional control and trucks. Likewise, San Francisco’s 5 Magic Carpet cars were not included for the same reason.

In addition, 2231 PCC Rapid Transit Cars were built. 770 of Chicago's fleet were constructed utilizing parts from retired streetcars. This was the source of trucks for 2120 and 2185. In the peak year of 1951, 4919 PCC streetcars were in operation in North America. An undetermined number of cars were built under license for overseas service by BN in the Netherlands and Tatra and Konstall behind the Iron Curtain. Sample cars were also constructed in Japan and Australia.

Prior to 1945 the PCC's were equipped with an air compressor to operate the brakes, doors, wipers and control components. After 1945 all-electric cars were placed in service. The new cars were 8" longer and featured a more sloping windshield to help reduce glare. In addition the rear door was moved back one window to improve passenger flow. The most notable feature, standee windows, was added (with the exception of Kansas City's order) to help passengers see their stop. Most cars were single-ended but San Francisco, Pacific Electric, Dallas and Illinois Terminal operated double ended units. Boston, Toronto, Shaker Heights, Illinois Terminal and Pacific Electric could operate their cars in trains. Los Angeles’ cars were wider, 108" instead of the standard 100", but rode on specially developed narrow-gauge trucks.

As systems were converted to bus operations, cars were sold to other U.S. systems. Others stayed in North America as they were sold to Toronto, Tampico and Mexico City. Pacific Electric cars wound up in Argentina. Los Angeles cars went to Chili, the Egyptian city of Cairo and a lone sample car to Seoul, Korea. Washington, D.C.'s cars wound up in Barcelona, Spain and Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, who spliced units to create the first articulated PCC's. Toronto sold cars to Alexandria, Egypt where they run under overhead supported by ex-Milwaukee line poles. The electrical gear from scrapped Kansas City cars were used in the construction of cars for Brussels and Den Haag. In addition, Den Haag used the trucks and electrical gear from Johnstown's 17 cars.

PCC's are still operating in regular service in the Newark Subway, on Toronto's Harbourfront line, Boston's Mattapan line, Pittsburgh's Drake line and in Fort Worth using highly modified bodies. Philadelphia has restored cars for their heritage operations in the Germantown area and downtown. San Francisco has an ex-St. Louis car, Muni double-ended "Torpedo", and car 1040 operating on the F-Market St. Festival line. In 1996, when the Embarcadero Line opens to Fisherman's Wharf, service will be provided with ex-SEPTA cars, like our own, painted in the livery of various cities that operated the cars.

CARS 2120 & 2185 on the East Troy Electric Railroad

Both of these cars were built by St. Louis Car Company in 1948 for the Philadelphia Transportation Company. The 2100's were identical to the 2700 series built in 1947 with the exception that they were designed as pure one-man cars. In 1968 a public agency , Southeast Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA), took over all local transit and commuter operations in the metro Philadelphia area. After several experimental paint schemes were tried, a livery of blue, orange, and white was decided on. This was referred to as the Gulf Oil era. In 1980 the best of the 2700’s, by now converted to one-man operation, and the 2100 series went through a general overhaul program to extend their useful life. At that time they were repainted in the white with blue and red striped scheme emulating their Kawasaki light rail cousins and the motor bus fleet.

The two cars are 46’ 5" long, 8’ 5" wide, and weigh in at 19 tons. Compare this to the L-8 and L-9 TM locomotives which weigh 50 tons, a North Shore interurban at 52 tons, the Ravenswood (CSS&SB 25) at 76 tons, or a Milwaukee 500 series car at 29 tons. A lightweight 800 or 900 Milwaukee car was only 17 tons but it's structural integrity and performance was much less than a PCC.

Car 2120 has Westinghouse control and was powered by four WE 1432J motors. 2185 is a General Electric car propelled by four GE 1220 motors. Since the cars originally were designed to operate on Philadelphia’s 5’ 2½" track gauge, they could not be used on the East Troy line. Upon their delivery to East Troy during the week of Thanksgiving 1994, the cars were retrucked using surplus standard gauge trucks from retired Chicago Transit Authority 6000 series rapid transit cars. These cars themselves were constructed from components from retired PCC streetcars. The cars are now powered by WE 1432 motors rated at 55hp and 300 volts. By using 300 volt motors, the ERPCC was able to save 275 pounds per motor or 1100 pounds per car.

Due to the single end nature of the two cars we plan to install backup poles with someone in the rear to guide the motorman. Future plans call for the installation of a backup controller, a turn around loop near the Elegant Farmer and a wye at Trent Junction.

It is planned to leave 2185 in it's SEPTA scheme. The 2120 will likely be painted in the Chicago Transit Authority’s scheme of Mercury Green, Croyden Cream and Swamp Holly Orange. Some purists may cringe at this, but after all, one of San Francisco’s cars is painted in the Chicago Mint Green and White scheme and SEPTA has painted one of their cars in the Red Arrow Lines scheme.

Tom Matola
1998

Update Spring 2000

Since Tom wrote the above articles, things have progressed with the East Troy PCC streetcar fleet.  4617, a Toronto Transit Commission car was purchased by Tom and brought to East Troy, whereupon it was also retrucked with ex-CTA equipment to allow operation on the ETER.  Unfortunately, Tom later passed away just as his car was becoming operational.  He willed both the 2185 and 4617 to Friends, however, and work continued on both. 

As alluded to by Tom, all three PCC's were outfitted with front poles for bidirectional operation on the East Troy line.  Plans for tail-end control stations proved to be unworkable for the time being, although the conversion is still seen as a good way to make the cars more useable in regular service.  Some thought was also given to turning one of the cars around (all three were truck-delivered facing the same direction, east) and marrying a pair back-to-back.  This also remains in the distant planning stage.

4617 was particularly recalcitrant, with an undetected open in a resistance set creating problems with operation, and then later, motor-generator difficulties slowed its clearance for operation.  As of June 2000, it is stored semi-operational while car restoration efforts are diverted to 2120. There's a page devoted to 4617 elsewhere in the site.

Sister 2120, owned originally by Paul Averdung and then acquired by Friends in 1999 is seeing restoration continue in the 2000 season.  Plans to paint it in a Chicago scheme are still in place.

Here, volunteer Rudy Puerzer remounts a seat frame in 2120 in preparation for reinstallation of the seating in car during March 2000.  Completion of window installation, painting, and motor-generator work remain before the car will be used in passenger service.

During testing in May, 2000, the motor-generator set, which also contains the squirrel-cage blowers that provide cooling and heating, ingested a small rock that ripped 21 vanes from the forward squirrel cage, requiring a $100 rebuild and rebalance.  A truly exotic problem.