Why not make more PCCs?

mtuandrew wrote: I stand corrected on the Red Arrows, and will take your word on the others. When you mentioned them, I was under the impression you'd meant the Brilliners or the Electroliners.

I have seen a couple of articles which classify the Brilliner as a PCC variation, though I don't believe this is accurate. In actuality, the Brilliner was a failed attempt by Brill to compete with the PCC, and there were some pretty significant differences between the two car types. The double ended Red Arrow versions, however, are remarkably similar to the later St. Louis built PCC type cars; they use exactly the same motors, and seating arrangement is identical. In fact, when the Red Arrow was considering ordering the additional cars they initially approached Brill to get more Brilliners,( circa 1945), however Brill had ceased rail car building upon completion of Red Arrow Nos 1-10, and declined the offer. It was only then that the Red Arrow placed the order with St. Louis Car for the 14 PCC type cars. The Electroliners ( nee Liberty Liners on the Red Arrow/ P&W) were an entirely different animal. St Louis had managed to shoehorn a complete railroad type streamliner into a four car articulated heavly interurban which was designed to snake over the Chicago Elevated and then run at 90 MPH over PRW between Chicago & Milwaukee. Though there was street running in Milwaukee, the Liners were never intended to run over the slower lighter infrastructure of the four Red Arrow trolley lines. In fact, the Red Arrow found that the two trains were too heavy and used too much power to be suitable for use on the P&W, which was more substantial in construction than the trolley lines, though they did run over that line during rush hours for about ten years.

walt wrote: There are 32 variations of the "standard" PCC body, ...

Does this mean 32 different options (door width, rear window size, ceiling fans, etc.) and the different combinations of which options you choose would number in the hundreds or even thousands?
Or did just 32 of the different combinations of options ever get ordered and made?

Disney Guy wrote:

walt wrote: There are 32 variations of the "standard" PCC body, ...

Does this mean 32 different options (door width, rear window size, ceiling fans, etc.) and the different combinations of which options you choose would number in the hundreds or even thousands?
Or did just 32 of the different combinations of options ever get ordered and made?

Basically, the "variations" have to do with length of the body ( standard versus the longer Chicago Length or the shorter DC Length), standee vs non-standee windows, windshield slope ( 12, 24 or 32 degree slope), double ended vs. single ended, side window arrangement, height of the front and rear windows, door arrangement, etc. There is a good article ( written by a Railroad.Net member) on the NYCSubway.Org. web site entitled PCC Cars, Not so Standard which goes into considerable detail on this subject.

Let us also not forget that body width was an option as well. The small fleet built for Shaker Heights Rapid Transit were much wider than the standard PCCs whose body widths were most likely designed with the restrictive clearances of street running in mind.

After Shaker Heights system was abandoned the wide body PCC cars were sold to Public Service Coordinated Transport for modernization of the 7-City Subway Line. My "pop-pop", a trolley driver for Public Service, once said that near the end of operations for the few Essex County lines that still fed into the City Subway, brief consideration was given to running the wide body PCC cars on the street trackage, but roads such as Bloomfield Avenue (29 Line) didn't have the extra clearance required.

Of course, getting stuck behind the 102" wide, 53 foot trailers that sometimes travel the length of the road I wonder how serious the consideration to run the PCCs actually was.

Do you mean Minneapolis, not Shaker Heights?

SemperFidelis, I second gardendance - pretty sure Twin Cities Rapid Transit had their PCCs built wider than average, as their system was designed with their generously-sized homebuilt standard cars in mind (such as the one in my user icon - more info here.) After streetcar-unfriendly interests came into power there, the company sold its nearly new PCCs to Shaker Heights, Newark and Mexico City. Shaker Heights may also have had cars built wide, as they purchased some new from St. Louis Car Company as well, but I'm not sure.

This illustrates the problem with having a factory crank out new PCCs (Moderator Note: and remember, this topic is about heritage-style streetcars for modern transit lines). If one of the big manufacturers really wanted to get into the heritage market with a nouveau PCC (or Birney, or what have you), they'd either charge through the nose, or insist that every car be nearly identical aside from paint and a few interior fittings. So far, they've been content with leaving the small heritage market to small companies or the cities themselves.

mtuandrew wrote:If you want to make a "new PCC", remove most of that electromechanical complexity, trade it for a computerized control system and make them easy to repair, service AND operate. Then, switch from mechanical crank windows to air conditioning, improve the seating, change the body from heavy-gauge steel to aluminum and fiberglass... pretty soon the cars begin to look a lot like your average Bombardier or Skoda product. I do think that a cheaper single- or double-unit car would find a market in smaller cities, though.

This post got me thinking, so I sketched out what a modern streetcar with PCC-styling might look like:



It would also have at least a partial low-floor design (middle segment) to decrease (un)loading times, eliminate need for high platform stops, and meet ADA regulations. Smaller segments allow it to negotiate tight curves without a large vehicle overhang beyond the tracks. And the overhead compartments for A/C also leave plenty of room for batteries or super-capacitors, thus allowing future modern streetcar lines to run without continuous overhead wires, perhaps with only "electric umbrellas" over each car stop to give a quick recharge while passengers get on and off (much like the super-capacitor bus lines in operation in Shanghai).

I have no idea why I typed Shaker Heights. My mistake! The correction is appreciated!

Nice sketch on the PCC car looks like this could work a Type 9 Green Line Trolley the builder not to sure on that one!!!

Actually, the best indication of what a "modern" PCC car would look like already exists in the 18 Brookville Mining Co. built Philadelphia PCC II cars which now operate over SEPTA's Route 15 on Girard Ave in West and North Philadelphia. Though placed in a rebuilt 1947 PCC body, these are actually completely new cars ( and are probably non-PCC, in those important patented elements which comprise the "true" PCC Car) with air conditioning, sealed windows, and wheelchair lifts. You can see photos and a complete history of these cars on the http://www.Phillytrolley.org web site.

It's also fair to note that the market for Light Rail Vehicles is MUCH smaller than the market was for street/interurban/trolley cars back when the PCC was designed and built. An entire light rail system might operate on 30 vehicles. Compare that to the fleet of PCCs that Pittsburgh alone had, 666 cars. Pittsburgh was the largest buyer, if I recall my facts correctly, but easily a dozen of large cities (and most likely many more) had fleets in the hundreds.

If one were to count the total number of light rail vehicles in this country today, the number would come nowhere near the number of trolley cars then. Back when the PCC was built, trollies operated in cities/suburbs much in the same way city busses do today. If Light Rail in America had the sort of geographic footprint that city busses do, a virtual spiderweb around even our smaller (50,000 population) cities, the potential for a standardized PCC-like vehicle would be much higher.

Indeed, SemperFidelis, and the heritage-style market is even smaller. Brookville seems to have the right idea in terms of modernizing PCCs, and Gomaco has done well with old-style cars with old-style propulsion systems. Perhaps a combination of the two approaches (modern propulsion package with old-style new-build cars) would find more customers?

Then again, there just isn't a market for more suppliers at the moment. It's possible streetcars and heritage-style LRVs will become more attractive with increased transit funding, but I doubt they'll beat the bus in terms of flexibility and operational costs. Beyond that, battery-electric buses will soon be available that can charge at the end of a route in 15 minutes - that's far less hassle than stringing wire, if less romantic. Maybe a modern streetcar could take advantage of that technology, but who knows.

And, without getting into whose ideas are right and wrong in our political system, it is highly unlikely that federal dollars will continue flowing into transit projects much longer unless political winds begin to blow towards more moderate waters. Our incoming congress will most likely not look kindly upon
such "pork".

Just a couple of quick comments...

A PCC is technically a car on which royalties were paid to Transit Research Corp. These include a few of the thousands of cars built in Europe but not certain American cars which are in the PCC family. As far as I am concerned, the Brillliners, Magic Carpet Cars and St. Louis Red Arrow cars all use PCC technology and can be considered PCC cars, as can most of the Tatra cars on which no royalties were paid since the Soviets didn't believe in such things! Now add the various Russian built cars and you have somewhere in the 20000 range of cars built. And every New York Subway car since the 1930s uses some technology developed for the PCC. As someone said, The Boeing LRV and Type 8 both draw on PCC designs (welded steel body for example).

The Brookville Cars use rehabbed PCC bodies but are no more true PCCs than the LRVs. The only remaining true PCC cars in service in the US are the 5 Kenosha cars, 10 Boston cars and those on the F line in San Fran.

I would love to comment further, but gotta go.

On the contrary, the Soviets did "believe" in royalties, just not being involved in situations where they were the paying party. Many Soviet military designs were sold to various countries who either allied themselves with the Soviet Union, were "allied" with the Soviet Union by force, or simply preferred Soviet designed weaponry. I'm near certain that the Soviets were the paying party in many cases, but there are many notable cases where they simply took technology and duplicated it without proper recompense to the developer. If I had to guess, we probably did the same thing time and again.

But the other point is very true. Many current designs owe their roots to work done during the development of the original PCC car.