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    Philadelphia Trolleys: From Survival to Revival
    Philadelphia Trolleys: From Survival to Revival
    Philadelphia Trolleys: From Survival to Revival
    Ebook117 pages22 minutes

    Philadelphia Trolleys: From Survival to Revival

    By Roger DuPuis II

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    About this ebook

    Using evocative photographs from private collections, Philadelphia Trolleys: From Survival to Revival carries readers on a nostalgic trip through nearly 50 years of transportation history, starting with the takeover of local transit service from the private sector by Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA). Sporting a rainbow of paint schemes in the 1970s, Philadelphia's fleet of streamlined 1940s trolley cars brought a welcome splash of color to gritty city streets. But more than a coat of paint was needed for America's largest surviving streetcar network, and SEPTA faced tough choices about how much to keep as aging vehicles and infrastructure desperately required renewal or replacement. Long-lived Presidents' Conference Committee (PCC) streamliners were retired, and SEPTA invested in Kawasaki light-rail vehicles, which are still serving Philadelphia commuters 35 years later. Many SEPTA PCC cars found new homes, from Maine to San Francisco--and, more recently, on SEPTA's own revived Girard Avenue line. The story comes full circle as SEPTA officials once again gear up to select a new generation of Philadelphia trolleys.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateJan 23, 2017
    ISBN9781439659311
    Philadelphia Trolleys: From Survival to Revival
    Author

    Roger DuPuis II

    Roger DuPuis II is a journalist who has worked as an editor and reporter at several newspapers in Pennsylvania.

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      Book preview

      Philadelphia Trolleys - Roger DuPuis II

      tous.

      INTRODUCTION

      Long after most North American cities consigned their trolleys to the scrap heap, streetcars still serve Philadelphia commuters on the largest surviving system of its kind in the United States. That system is only a fraction of the vast network that once existed, but still forms a significant component of the region’s public transit infrastructure.

      This book illustrates the history of Philadelphia’s trolley cars under Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) ownership since 1968, when that public sector entity purchased the privately owned Philadelphia Transportation Company. Because SEPTA is the key focus of this book, and because its acronym—pronounced, never spelled out— is a household word in the Philadelphia region, it will be referred to that way throughout the text.

      There’s another acronym readers will see consistently throughout: PCC. It refers to the Electric Railway Presidents’ Conference Committee, an industry group that banded together to create an ultramodern trolley as automobiles had begun biting into transit companies’ profits in the late 1920s. PCC cars have been a part of the Philadelphia transit scene since 1938, and their fortunes are another key theme in this book. Some basic roster information is contained at the end of chapter 1, but the main thing to know about PCC cars is that they came in two basic types. First came air cars, in which the brakes, doors and windshield wipers were pneumatically powered. Then came the post–World War II all-electric cars, which dispensed with air-controlled functions in favor of electricity. The body styling also differed between the two types, as the photographs illustrate.

      This book is about transportation technology, but it is also about how that technology evolved with the city it serves. This is not a definitive history, but hopefully it offers a vivid survey of how Philadelphia and its trolleys have changed over nearly half a century. A basic table listing the routes that existed during the period can be found at the end of chapter 1.

      While the city lines are our primary focus, one chapter is devoted to suburban trolley lines serving Media and Sharon Hill, which SEPTA acquired in 1970 under its takeover of the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company’s Red Arrow rail and bus network. The only notable omission here is SEPTA’s Norristown High Speed Line. Though some locals still call the Norristown cars trolleys, hearkening back to that line’s early-20th-century roots, the fully grade-separated, thirdrail-powered rapid-transit route is a very different animal than SEPTA’s city and suburban trolley car operations, which make substantial use of public streets, run at lower speeds, and take their power from overhead

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