PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Riders eager for a nostalgic journey on SEPTA's refurbished PCC trolley cars will have to keep waiting. The transit agency says the rebuilt cars are still being road-tested and aren’t ready for prime time yet.
The 18 dilapidated 1940s-era trolleys were sidelined four years ago for a rebuild. Last summer, SEPTA expected a September return for eight of the restored cream-and green-colored PCC trolleys along Route 15 on Girard Avenue, but that timeline was delayed.
"We had a setback last fall,” said SEPTA Chief Operating Officer Scott Sauer. “We realized that some of the cars still needed more mileage. We had found some things that we wanted to go back and take care of."
A bigger delay, he says, was the mandatory safety training all SEPTA employees went through after a string of crashes last year, which Sauer says set them back in PCC training.
For now, Sauer says crews are continuing to test the rebuilt trolleys.
"We want to put these cars through about 200 miles of burn-in each. So we're using the training to try to accomplish both tasks — training operators, do the burn-in, and try to expedite getting these cars back in service," he said.
He says they want to make sure all of their operators and management staff are ready to go.
“When we put those cars in service we don't want to pull them again for any reason."
Sauer says it's hoped the first vintage cars can be back on the tracks by early spring, but he's not putting a firm date on it.