by Roger DuPuis II and Bill Monaghan, Jr./photos as noted
Shortly before 5:00am on June 16, 2024, green and cream Presidents’ Conference Committee (PCC) streetcar 2326 rolled out of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority’s venerable Callowhill Depot in West Philadelphia to enter service on Route 15 – Girard Avenue. It marked the return of streamlined trolleys following a four-year absence during an intensive in-house rebuilding program that kicked off as the COVID-19 pandemic descended. The milestone also marked the third distinct era of regular PCC car operation on the system since 1938.
Almost as remarkable, perhaps, is the fact that these cars were rehabilitated for use on the purely street-running Girard line, a route whose future was in doubt at several points over the course of its existence. The line has a new lease on life; newly refurbished cars intended to keep rail service alive as SEPTA prepares to modernize the fleet and infrastructure of its entire trolley system, which is made up of two suburban and six city lines — the latter including five subway-surface routes and Girard.
The rebuilding program was designed to keep the 1947–48 green and cream trolleys roadworthy until a new generation of low-floor articulated cars can be built and delivered by Alstom Transportation Inc. between 2027 and 2030, according to initial estimates. The entire modernization program could take up to a decade to implement, SEPTA has said.
ABOVE: SEPTA’s venerable Callowhill Depot was built in 1913 by Philadelphia Rapid Transit Co. Today, it serves two trolley routes and several bus routes. In the depot are 9000-series Kawasaki light rail vehicles assigned to Route 10 and one of the system’s Route 15 PCC cars awaiting the call to duty in September 2024. —Roger DuPuis II photo
The newly outshopped trolleys have been dubbed “PCC-III” cars, reflecting the extent of work performed. Probably very little of the cars’ original fabric remains, as they have undergone three substantial overhauls in the past 40 years, in addition to previous work.
SEPTA is one of the nation’s most diverse transit operations, and the system’s roots are deep and complex. The multimodal undertaking serves five counties in the Philadelphia area, and its commuter rail operations extend into the neighboring states of New Jersey and Delaware.
The Girard Avenue route, which traces its roots to a horsecar line opened in 1859, has earned its own special place in the Philadelphia transit story as the last bastion of a once-mighty PCC fleet. Our purpose here is not to provide a definitive history, but to give readers who are not intimately familiar with the system a sense of how these cars, and the line, survived.
ABOVE: PCC-III 2332 heads west at Girard Avenue and 16th Street on July 5, 2024, under the gaze of figures in Parris Stancell’s “A Celebration of Poetry” mural. The artwork was completed in 2004 and is one of thousands created under the successful Mural Arts Philadelphia program. —Bill Monaghan Jr. photo
Another change was looming as this article was being finished, with the authority renaming its rail transit routes under the so-called SEPTA Metro “wayfinding” plan. The rainbow-colored rebranding will see Route 15 become the G, and it will be shown as yellow on maps and signs.
Given that this article mostly focuses on the system as it existed prior to those changes, legacy route numbers for Girard and other lines will be used throughout. And a substantial legacy it is — Philadelphia Rapid Transit Co. first assigned the number 15 to Girard Avenue service in October 1912.
Enter the Streamliners
The PCC car (named for the Electric Railway Presidents’ Conference Committee) was born after North American transit executives banded together in search of solutions to the sharp decline in streetcar ridership fueled by increased use of autos, buses, and the financial impacts of the Great Depression. Philadelphia Rapid Transit (1902–1940) ordered the system’s first 20 “air-electric” PCC cars from St. Louis Car Co., and they entered service on Route 53 in 1938. PRT and successor Philadelphia Transportation Co. (1940–1968) purchased 260 PCCs of the prewar “air-electric” design through 1942.
After World War II, PTC purchased 210 cars of the “all-electric” postwar design — notable for their standee windows and lack of air-operated components — in 1947 and 1948. The surviving Girard Avenue rebuilds started life in this group.
The last trolleys acquired in the pre-SEPTA era were 90 secondhand PCC cars bought in 1955 — 50 from St. Louis Public Service and 40 from Kansas City Public Service — to continue modernizing the fleet as older cars were retired.
ABOVE: PCC car 2332 is partially primed during the overhaul process at SEPTA’s Woodland Shops on February 8, 2021. —Bill Monaghan Jr. photo
The Ride Downhill
Philadelphia Transportation Company came out of World War II on a relatively high note. In 1946, the fleet included 1,900 trolleys serving 58 routes and 560 miles of track, and reports show the system carried more than 600 million riders that year. In that context, the purchase of new PCC cars made sense — especially considering there were still large numbers of Brill-built conventional cars, including some Nearside types dating to 1911.
Conditions changed quickly; transit ridership dropped by nearly half between 1946 and 1954. The rise of auto ownership, suburbanization, and the postwar loss of manufacturing jobs combined to hit Philadelphia hard.
In 1952, PTC drafted a plan to replace all but 14 trolley routes with buses or trackless trolleys within a decade. In 1955, management of the system was taken over by National City Lines, the conglomerate tied to General Motors and other automotive interests seeking expansion of bus transit over rail. New plans called for replacing all street-running trolley routes, saving only the handful of subway-surface lines connecting Center City with West and Southwest Philadelphia.
Girard Avenue would have been among the casualties if the 1955 plan had been realized. It was not, but Philadelphia’s transit system was dramatically transformed. More than 1,000 General Motors buses were purchased, similar numbers of superannuated trolleys were junked, and by 1958 only 14 trolley lines remained. The 1952 target had been achieved in six years, and all non-PCC cars were eliminated from the fleet.
ABOVE: Car 2322 was chartered on October 19, 2024, for the 20th annual OcTrolley Fest, celebrating transportation heritage and local history in suburban Darby borough. Behind the trolley at 10th and Main streets is the Darby Free Library, which traces its roots to 1743. —Roger DuPuis II photo
That was where things stopped, for a time. Some of the earliest PCCs and the clunky secondhand St. Louis cars were scrapped, but there were no more major changes for the time being. In part, this was because city officials’ views had shifted, and some increasingly opposed the private operator’s anti-trolley policy. As early as 1960, Mayor Richardson Dilworth proposed a municipal takeover of PTC. The idea was slightly premature, but it pointed toward bigger things to come.
Regional authorities would be formed to replace failing private transit companies around the nation in the 1960s and 1970s. PTC officials saw the writing on the wall and spent as little as possible on the trolley network ahead of the inevitable transition.
Trolleys in the Early SEPTA Years
SEPTA’s $47.9 million takeover of PTC was consummated on September 30, 1968. Among the new authority’s assets were 14 trolley lines and 465 cars built between 1940 and 1948. Of these, only about 400 cars were still operable.
A PCC overhaul program was launched in 1973, though this effort was much less intensive than later projects. Its most noticeable outcome was the adoption of a new paint scheme after several others had been tried since SEPTA took over. Dubbed “Gulf Oil” for its resemblance to the oil company’s corporate colors, the orange, white, and blue livery brought a dash of color to the rails. But new paint could not hide the real problems — declining ridership and insufficient funding made it harder to keep the cars in good repair, with safety and reliability suffering as a result…