The last of 16 streamlined PCC streetcars completely rebuilt for Muni by Brookville Equipment Company was delivered to its owner today.
Car 1007 was built for Muni by St. Louis Car Company in 1948 and ran daily until it was retired in 1982. Our nonprofit successfully lobbied for it and the other surviving cars in the original class of ten cars to be preserved by Muni when it scrapped or sold many of its other 100+ PCCs. Our advocacy was spurred by the fact that these PCCs, known informally as “torpedoes”, have a higher passenger capacity than their slightly smaller siblings, and that they are double-ended, making them more flexible in operation, allowing for example the opening of the E-Embarcadero line, whose southern terminal at the Caltrain Depot can only be used by double-ended cars.
Car 1007 was one of three “torpedoes” (along with 1010 and 1015) restored as part of the original 1995 F-line fleet. It was originally painted in a livery meant to echo the then-new silver and red Breda LRVs. This livery, insisted upon by a Muni manager, was very unpopular and was soon painted over with a tribute livery to Philadelphia’s suburban “Red Arrow Lines”. That job represented a simplified version of the original “as-delivered” Red Arrow livery. For this renovation, Market Street Railway reached out to the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, which owns beautifully restored Red Arrow Car 14. MSR Member Jack Demnyan, active in the Pennsylvania museum, served as a great liaison. Muni’s project manager Joseph Flores and PCC maintenance supervisor Kevin Sheridan were meticulous in working with Brookville’s team to get the details as close as possible to the original Red Arrow cars.
Car 1007 was on its way to San Francisco last month when it sustained slight cosmetic damage at a truck stop in Nebraska. It went back to Brookville for body work, and made it out this time without incident.
The delivery of Car 1007 completes the set of seven restored “torpedoes”. (The other four, Cars 1006, 1008, 1009, and 1011, were fully restored in 2010-11.) All seven torpedos have glass-enclosed cabs for the operators. These were installed to secure whichever of the two cabs in a car wasn’t in use, but with minor modifications can be effective protective barriers against the virus for operators. Market Street Railway is actively advocating with SFMTA leadership to put these cars in service soon, a subject we’ll discuss in a separate post.
Car 1007 will now have various electronic equipment installed, including fareboxes, radios, and security cameras by the Muni shops, which will then run the car for 1,000 miles without passengers to test all systems before formally accepting it from Brookville. The first of the three double-enders in this order, Car 1015, has finished its burn-in, while Car 1010 is just starting that process. Brookville still has one PCC, single-end Car 1056, painted to honor Kansas City, at its plant, undergoing warranty repairs.
We hope that by the time Muni finishes the burn-in of Car 1007, it will able to go right into service in resumed vintage streetcar operations.
One note to railfans who have followed the saga of two original Red Arrow cars acquired by Muni with the anticipation of adapting them to Muni’s system and restoring them: the need to move the trucks on those cars to allow them to clear certain Muni curves and to provide adequate room for operators with today’s requirements proved to be too expensive to undertake at this time. Accordingly, Car 1007 received the Red Arrow tribute livery to keep this famed operation visible in San Francisco. Should either or both of those cars be restored in the future, we would request them to be painted in the Red Arrow livery, with 1007 moving on to a different livery.
