Updated: Aug. 28
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — SEPTA says its refurbished 1940s-era trolley cars will soon be back in service.
The rusting and rickety green- and cream-colored PCC trolley cars were sidelined from SEPTA’s Route 15 in January 2020. In June, less than half of the 18 cars were restored and tested on the tracks along Girard Avenue between West Philadelphia and Port Richmond.
SEPTA Chief Operating Officer Scott Sauer said only eight of those vintage trolleys will resume regular service on Sept. 11.
“We want to run them a couple hundred miles to get them well broken in and find whatever bugs we’re going to find now so that when we put them out in September, they’re ready to go,” Sauer said earlier in the summer.
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Sauer said they won’t have enough cars to run the whole rail line, but they will have enough that they can start to cycle them in and start running trolleys back on Route 15.
The vintage trolleys were designed in the 1930s by the Presidents’ Conference Committee (PCC), a group of representatives from large rail operators.
The retro PCC cars will ultimately be replaced by a new fleet of larger, modern trolley cars. Those cars, however, won’t begin arriving for another four years.
“This restoration kind of gets us another decade of use out of these historic cars,” Sauer explained. “And that gives us enough time to get completely through the trolley modernization program, with Route 15 probably being at the tail end of the program because we’ll be using these cars.”
Sauer knows riders have a special affinity for the old cars.
“I’m a trolley fan. I was a trolley operator, so I love them. I’m eager to see them back. I know the community is eager to see them back.”
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