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Pittsburgh Railways
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History - Page 1




Ah, That New Car Smell: Brand-spanking-new PCC from PRCo. publicity brochure

The PCC Era Begins
It was in Pittsburgh that the PCC design successfully faced its toughest challenges. At peak, the former Pittsburgh Railways Company (PRCo) operated a streetcar and interurban network comprising more than 600 miles/960 km of broad gauge track (5'2-1/2" or 1588 mm). PRCo's empire included a wide variety of construction from street running city routes to two interurban lines, all of which climbed up over and around the wickedly hilly terrain of southwestern Pennsylvania. The many bridges, tunnels, trestles and other structures which carried PRCo's lines came at great cost, but were essential to properly serve the area's widely-dispersed population. PCC trams rose unflinchingly to the challenge, hauling hordes of Pittsburghers over the rugged landscape with gradients in excess of 12 per cent, despite deferred maintenance during PRCo's later years.

PRCo. was an enthusiastic member of the Electric Railway Presidents' Conference Committee, which spearheaded the PCC project. The second production model car constructed, PRCo.100, arrived in Pittsburgh on July 26, 1936, diverted from the original 100-car Brooklyn order to demonstrate its Westinghouse equipment in the manufacturer's home city. Number 100 carried passengers on a special demonstration route beginning in August 1936, and entered regular service on route 50 Carson Street the following month.

The motorman of car 1030 seems to take pride in his charge. Signed for 94 Sharpsburg; date, location unknown to me. Roger DuPuis Collection; photographer unknown.

Within two years, PRCo observed ridership gains of 5 and 10 percent on PCC-equipped routes. Fewer PCCs were required to hold down the same schedules previously worked by a greater number of conventional cars; the PCCs were faster, and they suffered fewer accidents and breakdowns.

For PRCo, the "million dollar streetcar" was worth its weight in gold. The company, with a history of financial instability, fell into a lengthy 14 year receivership in 1937. It nevertheless acquired a total fleet of 666 PCCs through 1949. Pittsburgh boasted the third largest fleet of PCC cars in North America behind Chicago and Toronto, with their 683 and 745 cars, respectively. PRCo's PCCs, incidentally, would come to outlast their sisters in both cities. Chicago's surface streetcar lines were closed in 1958, with PCC streetcar components cannibalized to construct PCC-type rapid transit cars. Toronto's vast fleet had dwindled down to 19 rebuilt cars by December 1995, when the Canadian city's last streamliners were retired. TTC retains two of these on the property for charter work, as well as two additional PCCs which were long ago converted to rail grinders.

PCCs At War: America's Fleet
Dominating the fleet were 565 air-electric cars of the pioneering pre-war body design. Standardization of mechanical and body parts helped reduce cash-starved PRCo's maintenance and operation costs. Subtle cosmetic variations within this group included two windshield designs (nearly vertical vs. a 24- degree layback), small vs. large anticlimbers and the use of chrome ornamentation (viz., headlight wings, trim, etc.)--which was omitted from wartime cars.

By the time America entered the Second World War in December 1941, PRCo had 301 air-electric PCC cars in operation, and 100 more were on order with St. Louis Car. In addition to car 100, there were three groups of 100 cars each: 1000-1099 (1937), 1100-1199 (1937-'38) and 1200-1299 (1940).

Air PCC 1182 and an unidentified sister slumber in the yard at Keating Carhouse in 1961. Roger DuPuis Collection; photo by John Barth Jr.

These new cars would prove invaluable to PRCo for the quick, efficient service they rendered during the war years, when Pittsburgh's industrial plants were booming. America was the "arsenal of democracy," and Pittsburgh was its most important foundry. The crowd-swallowing abilities of the PCC design were demonstrated beyond doubt when shifts changed at local factories--not bad for a car designated "lightweight." While many of those U.S. cities which still operated streetcars were forced to press elderly, even retired cars into service to meet wartime traffic needs, PRCo was in better shape than most.

Buffalo presents an interesting contrast. That industrial city on the shores of Lake Erie, some 200 miles north of Pittsburgh, had a rather different wartime transit experience. Though smaller and less densely populated than Pittsburgh, Buffalo and environs nevertheless constituted an important industrial center. The electric traction empire operated by Buffalo's International Railway Company (IRC) once boasted 27 city streetcar lines, several long suburban/interurban routes, separate small city operations in Niagara Falls and Lockport, three international bridges and a tourist-oriented trolley line in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. By early 1941, only 13 Buffalo city routes remained, the rest of the system having been converted to buses. Four of those routes were bussed during 1941, two as late as September, with IRC removing track and wire immediately in some cases.

The Mitten-molded system was served by 199 utilitarian Nearside and Peter Witt cars built between 1911 and 1918: think Philadelphia without PCCs. IRC had been anxious to eliminate the ponderous old trolleys during the late 1930s, replacing them with 25 passenger Mack buses on many lines. Those streetcar lines which survived were bus-operated in the late evenings and on Sundays. During the war, the diminutive Macks--and buses in general--proved barely adequate to the task. Surviving streetcar lines were restored to full service, and bus mileage was cut back due to wartime gas and tire rationing.

Meanwhile, back in Pittsburgh, PRCo had initiated an order for 100 more PCCs in June, 1941. St. Louis Car had begun fabrication of parts and bodies for this order prior to Pearl Harbor, and the order went ahead despite the subsequent imposition of wartime transportation and production controls, which limited PCC car production as well as bus mileage. Cars 1400- 1499 (there was to be no 1300 series) were delivered to PRCo between February and May of 1942, and not a moment too soon.

Chartered air PCC 1461 is seen on Forbes Avenue below Craig. R.H. photo; Ken Josephson Collection.

Interestingly, a Pittsburgh PCC car paid a brief diversionary visit to Buffalo in that same month of June, 1941. Hundreds of Buffalonians viewed the car, inside and out, while it was displayed on a flatcar parked on a downtown rail siding. The wide gauge PCC could not operate on Buffalo's standard gauge tracks, although no such demonstration would have changed IRC's position that buses were the wave of the future.

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