The PCC
With your indulgence, I'd like to stretch the definition of "car" in "Car Lust" just a bit. Make sure you have exact change for the farebox, because we're going for a ride on the world's greatest streetcar, the PCC,
The name "PCC" comes from the name of the organization that created the design, the Electric Railway Presidents Conference Committee, a trade association for streetcar operators. In 1929, with its members facing increased competition from those newfangled automobiles, the Committee embarked on the design of a state-of-the-art streetcar, in the hopes that a more modern and attractive vehicle would help retain riders while lowering operating costs.
The design was finalized by 1935. The base-model PCC was 46 feet long. Most were single-ended cars like the ones pictured above and to the right, with doors in the front-entrance center-exit configuration used today on transit buses. (Double-enders with doors at the ends on both sides were built for a few operators.) The PCC had streamlined Art Deco styling for that "trolley car of the future" vibe, but the beauty of the PCC was more than skin deep.
The PCC used the latest and greatest in streetcar technology. A rheostat-type system controlled the flow of power, resulting in smoother acceleration than the 14-step "notched" controllers on older trolleys. The electric traction motors were connected to the axles by hypoid gears for quieter operation. The wheels had their steel tires mounted on rubber "sandwiches," and the "trucks" (wheel assemblies) featured extensive use of rubber parts, all in the name of a smoother and quieter ride. The sophisticated brake system combined regenerative braking using the electric motors (like on the Prius), friction brakes acting on the wheels, and a magnetic parking brake.
The PCC was wicked fast for a streetcar, able to out-accelerate most contemporary (mid-1930s) automobiles and hit a top speed of 50 MPH--though it would be rare for any PCC to go that fast unless it was running on a "private right of way" (off-street trackage).
The designs and patents for the PCC were owned by the Transit Research Corporation, which licensed them to manufacturers. There were a number of refinements to the control and braking systems
over the course of production, and later PCCs received a mild restyling
which raked back the windshield to reduce glare and added a row of
small "standee windows" along the upper side.
About 4,500 PCCs were built by Pullman-Standard, the St. Louis Car Company, and Canadian Car & Foundry, for use in 33 cities in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The first production PCC entered service in Pittsburgh in 1936; the last was delivered to San Francisco in 1952.
The PCC thus became the standard streetcar of North America, and arguably of the world. Cars built in the U.S. were exported to Argentina, and secondhand PCCs ran in Egypt. Tens of thousands were built under license in several European countries, and thousands more unauthorized copies in Poland and the Soviet Union. European PCCs used the same basic mechanical and control systems as those built in the U.S. and Canada, but they tended to be narrower and smaller and very different in styling. Some, such as Madrid's, had a strong family resemblance to their North American cousins, while other European versions did not.
Most American streetcar systems had been converted to buses by the time I was born, but I did get a few opportunities to see and ride PCCs in my formative years. I remember one trip on the Shaker Heights Rapid to Cleveland Stadium for an Indians game when I was maybe two or three, but most of the PCCs I saw were in Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh was unusual in that its streetcar system--sometimes jokingly referred to as "America's Largest Trolley Museum"--survived into the 1960s mostly intact. The privately owned Pittsburgh Railway was acquired by the newly-formed Port Authority of Allegheny County in 1964. The Port Authority, in line with the latest "progressive" thinking among city planners, began abandoning "obsolete" streetcar lines in favor of "modern" buses, and concocted a grand scheme to build a flashy new automated monorail system called "Skybus."
It is widely believed that the abandonment of trolley lines in the 1940s and 1950s was the product of a vast conspiracy by General Motors to encourage sales of transit buses. Whether that's true or not--personally, I'm not convinced--there are rational reasons for preferring buses. Buses do not require the trolley's complex infrastructure of tracks and overhead wires, and they are far more flexible in operation--the trolley can only go where tracks and wires already exist, while the bus can turn down any street; if the route is blocked, the bus can go around the obstacle while the trolley has to wait for the track to be cleared. On the other hand, a PCC looks cooler and has more personality than a transit bus, and when you're a kid (or a kid at heart) that's what really counts.
Every time we went to Pittsburgh, it seemed, there would be more streets where the wires had been pulled down and the tracks sat forlornly, never to be used again. By 1970 or so, the only trolley routes left in service ran from downtown across the Smithfield Street Bridge and into the "South Hills." These lines tunneled through Mount Washington and ran mostly on private right of way from there on out, allowing for a faster trip than a bus could manage on the parallel city streets.
By this time, the Port Authority had sort of come to its senses. As the public became more sensitive to the issue of air quality (and with the steel mills the way they were in pre-EPA days, Pittsburgh's air quality needed all the help it could get!) electric streetcars were seen to be more eco-friendly than smelly diesel buses. When political support for the grandiose Skybus project collapsed, someone finally realized that instead of spending mind-bending sums of tax money to build a new electric transit system from scratch, it might make more sense to work with the one they already had. The surviving PCCs were spruced up and repainted. Most were given a variation of the "mod" scheme, with bright colors at either end of the car separated by a white band in the middle. Bold, yet not too overstated, the "mod" PCCs looked pretty good.
Other cars were painted in "billboard" advertising schemes: one as a loaf of bread, one as a giant candy bar, one as a Pittsburgh Steelers "Terrible Trolley," and one poor thing cursed with a demented zigzag rainbow that was supposed to induce you to watch public television. And then there was the ultimate custom paint job, the one that got written up in The New York Times, the legendary streetcar named "Desire"--"Mod Desire," that is:
I kinda liked it. What can I say? I was a kid, and it was the 1970s.
In one of that dreadful decade's more spectacular bad ideas, the Urban Mass Transit Administration commissioned Boeing-Vertol, which normally builds helicopters, to develop a replacement for the PCC, a "US Standard Light Rail Vehicle" employing the latest and greatest technology. Advanced new railroad cars built by a helicopter company--what could possibly go wrong?
A lot, actually. The first Boeing LRVs entered service in Boston in 1976, and, like many 1970s automobiles, almost immediately started breaking down. There were shorts in the electrical system and traction motors that wore out faster than they could be replaced and doors that failed to open or close properly. The cars derailed on curves they were allegedly designed to go around. At various times, more than half the LRVs on the Boston transit system were out of service. It got so bad that the transit agency stuffed the broken-down Boeings in an abandoned subway tunnel to hide the extent of the problem--a "CYA" move which only added to the agency's embarrassment when an enterprising newspaper reporter discovered the hidden horde of troubled trolleys and splashed the story on the front page.
Like many domestic autos of similar vintage, the Boeings were eventually replaced by more reliable Japanese imports. To keep things operating in the meantime, Boston refurbished some of its stored PCCs and put them back in service--the sturdy PCCs thus replacing the cars that were supposed to have replaced them.
Nothing quite that spectacular happened to the Pittsburgh trolleys. Beginning in the 1980s, the trolley lines were rebuilt into a modern "light rail" transportation system. The downtown street tracks were replaced by a subway, and the lines through the South Hills upgraded. The subway is now being extended under the Allegheny River to PNC Park, in what is hoped to be the first stage of a return of rail transportation to the north side of the city.
The last Pittsburgh PCCs ran in 1999; they've been replaced by modern "light rail vehicles" built by Siemens-Duewag which are faster, safer, more efficient, and just plain better by every objective measure than the PCCs.
They also have no soul and no personality.
If you want to ride a PCC, and I mean ride it on a real trip, not just take a joyride around a museum's demonstration track, there are still a few places you can do that. PCCs are in daily service on the Ashmont-Mattapan rapid transit line in Boston and on Philadelphia's Girard Avenue streetcar line. The Kenosha, Wisconsin downtown trolley uses five cars that originally ran in Toronto; each is painted for a different city which once ran PCCs.
The biggest and most interesting PCC fleet is owned by the San Francisco Municipal Railway, and used on the Market Street line. There are 27 PCC cars in service, each painted in a different scheme, and another 30 in storage or undergoing restoration. These trolleys are restored and maintained with the assistance of the Market Street Railway, a nonprofit organization which also helps with cable car preservation and runs the San Francisco Railway Museum.
I'll leave you with some film of PCCs in St. Louis, Missouri in January of 1964. While the cameraman was obviously concentrating on the trolleys, it's interesting to see the mix of old Detroit iron they shared the streets with. I noticed a "batwing" '59 Chevy at 0:30, a fastback Caddy "club sedan" at 1:00, and a gloriously garish '58 Buick at 2:10.
The drawings of SF Muni trolleys came from the Market Street Railway's site. The photos of Pittsburgh streetcars came from two websites that concentrate on Steel City trolley history, Pittsburgh Railways and Pittsburgh Transit History. The latter site is maintained by Shawn Bennear, who used to be a bus driver for the Port Authority, and his affection for buses and trolleys is the sort of thing we here at Car Lust can relate to.
--Cookie the Dog's Owner
Chris Hafner on February 10, 2010 at 12:41 PM
This is just so, so cool. Great write-up, Cookie.
JRPfeff on February 10, 2010 at 01:14 PM
Take off the rose colored glasses.
The truth is that street cars were despised and passengers could not wait for "trackless trolleys" and diesel buses to replace this 19th Century technology.
"As early as 1934, TM's managers were fielding citizens' requests to replace "the present cumbersome and noisy street cars" with trackless trolleys. As the requests piled up, the electric streetcar, long described as "the sturdy backbone of the transit system," became an endangered species , a situation with disastrous financial implications. Rail & Wire published an upper-case lament:
"The public, after being carried back and forth by electric railway cars for half a century, is turning its back on the street railway car and is demanding rubber-tired transportation equipment. Owners of property along the street railway lines join the car riders in demanding this replacement by rubber-tired service, LONG BEFORE THE USEFUL LIFE OF RAILS, TROLLEYS AND RAIL CARS HAS BEEN USED UP."
- Path of a Pioneer by John Gurda
That Car Guy on February 10, 2010 at 01:47 PM
I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same. PCCs were a good idea back in the day, and they're a great idea today. Remember the FLXable busses that kept breaking in half? I remember an article that said, "Who's going to FX the FLXables?" LOL.
I rode a few PCCs on my trip to San Francisco, and was truly amazed at how clean and cheap ($2) they were. I did not realize until I got back they they are so lovingly restored and cared for by mostly volunteers. They add a charm to that Victorian city that no modern designer seems to convey.
I hate to get behind any diesel-powered large vehicle. They stink, they smoke, and they make my eyes hurt. Oh, and they're noisy, too. San Francisco prides itself in being a "green" city, and the PCCs are just one example of their success.
Oh, and I'd rather have rose-colored glasses that diesel-stained ones any day. Nice post, Cookie!
Anthony Cagle on February 10, 2010 at 02:18 PM
What a kettle of worms this could turn into. . . .
Hal on February 10, 2010 at 09:27 PM
Nothing has surpassed it? I would argue that the Suburban, at 75 years old, more mile traveled, more people carried, more destinations reached, more boats towed, and more 24" spinner and ghetto blaster stereos would define "surpass".
Richard Fagin on February 11, 2010 at 07:58 AM
Of COURSE you guys think those antique POSs are cool. You didn't have to ride the Arborway line to Boston Latin School and back five days a week whatever the weather. After two years of that, I swore never to ride public transportation again. There's a special place in Hell for 21st century urban planners who want to stuff the American public in 19th century transportation, and it probably includes a trolley line with PCCs having windows that don't open.
GregS on February 11, 2010 at 08:12 AM
Until about ten years ago there were still some of these PCC streetcars in regular service here in Toronto, Canada. And even now, the TTC runs them on Sundays during the summer along the waterfront streetcar line, where there are lots of tourists.
Mgmax, le Corbeau on February 11, 2010 at 04:14 PM
25 cents gets you a great ride around the Kenosha lakefront. Well worth a trip for anyone in or visiting Chicago or Milwaukee-- check out the Civil War Museum, ride the trolley, swing by Tenuta's for Italian specialties mostly on the cheap.
Patrick Carroll on February 11, 2010 at 04:25 PM
I lived in Pittsburgh for a while in the late 1980s, in Mt St. Clair. I used to take the bus to the train, and thence into Pittsburgh. There were two train lines I could use. One had the older trains, while the other had much more modern ones. Just looking at the pictures is bringing on the nostalgia. Thanks.
Burt Taylor on February 11, 2010 at 05:20 PM
Fort Collins CO is still operating an old Birney street car on Mountain street during the summer months.
Al Caredio on February 11, 2010 at 05:50 PM
I too have heard about this GM conspiracy to replace street cars with busses in LA. The story that is most plausible is that the city leaders at the time in the LA wanted to break out of the hub and spoke pattern of the small cities here. People would not move too far from a trolly car station. The introduction of the Pasadena freeway broke that mold, and freeways proved to be the answer. The red car lines went into decline. It was decided to buy busses for public transportation because the routes could be flexible. It seems that part of the deal was that the cities would buy the busses from GM, but Gm had to buy the Red car company, which GM didn't want. But the deal was good enough, and after a few years GM was able to scrape the money losing trolley cars.
Mark, Baltimore on February 11, 2010 at 08:45 PM
The ride is smother, cleaner and those cars could load and unload faster. Just look at the size of the doors.
What 70 year old bus is still running today?
Streetcars work great in some areas, not well in others.
Future lines need careful planning to make it work.
Most people I have spoke with over the last 40 years DIDN'T want buses. It was a plot by National City Lines (GM) to replace the cars with Buses to sour the ride and INCREASE car sales.
A link to a 55 minute video of a 16 year research project on GM's role to forceably kill the trolley is below.
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2486235784907931000
LupusSolus on February 11, 2010 at 11:29 PM
The Skybus may be a people mover but it is NOT a monorail ... http://www.monorails.org/tMspages/WhatIs.html
Next, General Motors and the Demise of Streetcars ... Myth ... http://www.lava.net/cslater/TQOrigin.pdf
Jack Okie on February 12, 2010 at 06:59 AM
It's back to the future here in Oklahoma City. We have put a lot of effort and money into securing downtown, and it's paid off. Business, residential and entertainment are all thriving downtown. A couple of months ago we voted to extend a penny of our sales tax to continue supporting downtown as well as other parts of the city. We have opted for a rail streetcar system just for downtown that will use our beautiful Frisco train station. I don't think the specific streetcars have been selected yet. They will look cool sliding past the new 50 story Devon Energy building currently going up.
BTW, OKC's metro 2009 unemployment rate was 6.4% (OKC itself was 6.0%). Last quarter new construction actually went up 1%. Our ratio of private to public employment is healthy. Our regional banks avoided the sub-prime, TARP mess and have plenty of money to lend. I say all of this to provide some context for skeptics like JRPfeff.
CJinSD on February 12, 2010 at 10:38 AM
If things were really wonderful you wouldn't need to raise taxes Jack. You haven't even picked a model of streetcar yet, let alone seen what they'll do to your city. Your post displays a lack of comprehension of how logical arguments are structured.
Chris Hafner on February 12, 2010 at 11:06 AM
CJinSD: "Your post displays a lack of comprehension of how logical arguments are structured."
Was that really necessary? He's just talking about how Oklahoma City is thriving, they're opting for a streetcar, and he's excited about it. If there's a big argument here, I'm not seeing it.
Now, if he wants to talk about Oklahoma City's new NBA team, I'd be up for a bit of a rumble. :-)
Jack Okie on February 12, 2010 at 11:19 AM
CJinSD:
Thank you for your snark. I will use your comment to understand "how logical arguments are structured".
"...you wouldn't need to raise taxes..."
When taxes are EXTENDED they remain the same.
So far the decisions made for downtown have succeeded; unlike many cities our downtown is flourishing and continuing to improve. More families are opting to live downtown in the townhouses, lofts and apartments that are new or rehabilitated. Office and retail occupancy is growing, not declining like many inner cities. Convention bookings are up, leading to increased hotel occupancy and tax revenue. Green space is being improved or opened up throughout downtown, with two new parks and a nice boulevard that will replace the current I-40 corridor (I-40 is being pushed further south away from downtown). The streetcars are intended to work with other improvements to allow people to move around downtown without needing a car.
It's a synergetic situation. My point about our unemployment rate was to show that we have a good balance between productivity and taxes. BTW, that penny that got EXTENDED was previously dedicated to capital improvements for our public schools. Every elementary school in the system was addressed; temporary classrooms have been torn down and replaced with permanent expansions (architecturally consistent with the original buildings), and the schools are all air conditioned. (Unrelated to this specific project, but illustrative of our attitudes here, many of our schools, including the high school from which I graduated, are now charter schools.) The overall project was coordinated by a group of citizens appointed by the mayor, but each school's project was handled by a team consisting of the school's teachers, parents and neighborhood residents. Selection of the streetcars will be done in the same manner.
I prefer low taxes, but one can't accomplish anything with zero taxes. Sometimes taxes really are an investment.
Jack Okie on February 12, 2010 at 11:23 AM
I might add that our business climate and overall low tax burden continue to draw people from less hospitable areas, particularly the left coast.
Chris Hafner on February 12, 2010 at 11:24 AM
Please feel free to debate as long as you keep it civil and on-topic.
Just to draw the lines here, arguments about streetcars and their impact, ridership their history, whether they're good, bad, or indifferent, are on-topic and within bounds. Arguments about taxation and education are off-topic and out of bounds. We are *not* going to have a taxation or large vs. small government argument here. It has nothing to do with the post and has absolutely no upside.
Chris Hafner on February 12, 2010 at 11:25 AM
Jack Okie: "I might add that our business climate and overall low tax burden continue to draw people from less hospitable areas, particularly the left coast."
Treating that as a Sonics-related slap at me and not a serious tax-related comment - which would be out of bounds - I'll admit that it was well-done. Sigh.
Jack Okie on February 12, 2010 at 11:32 AM
Chris Hafner:
Thanks for your support. As far as the Thunder is concerned, I'm still trying to come to terms with it, being as how the O.U. Sooners have been our professional team for so long.
And yes, I am excited about the streetcars. We still had streetcars here when I was a kid, and I've always liked them. I haven't been to New Orleans since Katrina, but I always rode the St. Charles line when I was visiting.
Chris Hafner on February 12, 2010 at 11:37 AM
You're welcome, Jack, but really I'm just trying to set the ground rules so things don't get way off track.
(see? streetcar-related!)
Cookie the Dog's Owner on February 12, 2010 at 11:44 AM
I was a bus rider for two years--I lived right on the bus route, I had a job with steady hours which did not ever require me to travel off-site during the workday, a monthly transit pass was way cheaper than monthly parking. It was wonderfully convenient.
That said, in full awareness of the relative economics of bus and trolley, and with all due respect to those who have "bus lust," transit buses have no soul. Trolleys (mostly) are cooler, they have soul and personality. If mass transit were a workable option for me (my present job requires me to go off-site enough that it really isn't) I'd much sooner ride a PCC than a bus.
That's not a rational viewpoint, it's probably so rose-colored it would make a florist recoil in disgust--but this isn't an urban planning policy-wonk forum. If you'll notice, the tagline at the top of the page says "Interesting cars meet *irrational* emotion."
Jack Okie on February 12, 2010 at 12:13 PM
Hey, Chris, didn't see your comment about staying on topic until after my last post - need to refresh more often.
In the spirit of staying on-track (I can get with the program), the main point I was trying to make was that I found it interesting that our city planners, with all the emphasis on upgrading downtown, chose streetcars (with actual tracks) as a major element. Such a retro choice at first seemed counter-intuitive. The article and comments have been great - now I'm motivated to dig deeper into the research our planners did, and to see whats available in streetcars these days.
And any shot at the Sonics was inadvertant. I'm going to have to get up to speed on the NBA.
Chris Hafner on February 12, 2010 at 12:15 PM
No worries, Jack - the Sonics/Thunder thing is kind of an inside joke with me and Big Chris, both of us are (were?) big Sonics fans and so left-coasters leaving for a better business climate in OKC strikes a little close to home. Entertainingly close to home but a bit personally painful as well.
Now who's off topic? :-)