This streetcar is painted to honor Cincinnati, which ran PCC streetcars from 1939 to 1951. Cincinnati was exceptional in requiring two overhead wires for streetcars, one to supply electrical power, the other to provide a ground and complete the circuit.

Almost every other streetcar system uses one overhead wire, with the tracks providing the ground. (Trolley buses use two wires because they run on rubber tires, and have no tracks to use as ground.) So Cincy’s PCCs looked different than everyone else’s.

That extended to the paint scheme, an eye-popping canary yellow with three bold green stripes around the body. Only PCCs got this treatment in Cincinnati—older streetcars were painted a prosaic transit orange (some of these old trolleys actually outlasted the PCCs).

The financially ailing Cincinnati Street Railway Co. sold 52 PCCs—the newest just three years old—to Toronto before closing its last streetcar line in 1951. But as part of the current streetcar renaissance in America, Cincinnati is close to moving forward with a new streetcar line today.

Its vivid color makes No. 1057 one of the most photographed streetcars on the F-line.