This car is painted to remember Illinois Terminal Railroad, which once ran an extensive interurban passenger service.

One of its shortest routes—six miles from St. Louis, Missouri across the Mississippi River to Granite City, Illinois—was served by PCC streetcars from 1949 to 1958. Those eight PCCs had bodies identical to No. 1015 (except that the Illinois Terminal cars had no rear doors).

Patronage fell rapidly on the Granite City line despite the PCCs, and the route was abandoned in 1958. But on both the Illinois Terminal and Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company (Muni ‘Red Arrow’ car No. 1007), these big double-ended PCCs proved their capability in interurban service.

One wonders what might have been if Muni had made the commitment to upgrade the famed #40 interurban line to San Mateo with fast new cars like No. 1015, instead of abandoning the line in 1949. None of Muni’s ten new double-end PCCs were even tried on the 40-line in the brief period between the cars’ arrival in San Francisco and the line’s abandonment. Instead, No. 1015 ran on Muni’s J, K, L, M, and N lines until 1982, when it was retired and stored for a time, when it was restored to serve the new F-line starting in 1995.