When the first “Peter Witt” designed trams appeared in Milan, Italy, in 1928, they were painted a most attractive golden yellow with black and white trim. Within a couple of years, they were all repainted two-tone green and stayed that way until the 1970s, when the “Ventottos” (“28’s,” for the year they first appeared) became solid orange. All ten of the trams Muni bought from Milan arrived in solid orange in the late 1990s (as did No. 1834, which came for the Trolley Festivals in the 1980s).
At the suggestion of Market Street Railway, Muni’s great streetcar paint shop, headed by Carole Gilbert, painted one Milan in each of the earlier liveries several years ago, 1811 in yellow and 1818 in green. Now, again at our urging, Muni has taken the next step toward evening out the Milan fleet among the three historic paint schemes.
No. 1807 emerged from the paint shop a few days ago resplendent in the original yellow livery. No. 1888 was repainted in the two tone green last month. Both trams needed extensive repainting anyway following accident repair.
Market Street Railway hopes that more Milan trams will receive these handsome older liveries as they require repainting until the fleet is divided nearly equally among the three liveries.
By the way, No. 1807 is expected to return to service fairly soon; No. 1888 still needs electrical and other work.
Thanks to Peter Ehrlich for the photo.
Love the two tone green paint job on 1818 and I’m sure 1888 will look just as good when it comes out. 1807 looks real nice as well.
Are the broken trolleys why the F-line has been running with busses instead lately? I hope “soon” means days or weeks beacase the Castro plaza isn’t the same with busses 🙁
Not sure this time around. Sometimes when buses appear on the F-line it’s because they don’t have enough streetcars ready for service (that’s why they’re renovating more — the ridership demand just eats up everything they can put out there). Sometimes, though, it’s because they don’t have enough operators show up for work who are qualified to operate the F-line streetcars. When they run short, they’ll use operators qualified on buses only.