PCC streetcar
The PCC (Presidents' Conference Committee) streetcar is a streetcar (tram) design that was first built in the 1930s. The unusual name comes from the fact that the car was designed by a committee, first formed in 1929, representing various electric street railways. The Electric Railway Presidents' Conference Committee, or ERPCC, was tasked with producing a new type of streetcar that would help fend off competition from buses and automobiles. The committee produced a high-performance design that was very commonly used in the following decades. The cars were popular because of their distinctive streamlined design and smooth acceleration.
It turned out that, unlike many other things produced by committees, the PCC streetcar had a very good basic design. Many railways altered the car in various ways to fit their own needs, but most cars retained a very normal appearance. The first batch of 100 cars was built in 1936. In all, 4978 streetcars were produced, with the last PCC cars built in the early 1950s. The cars were very sturdy and many have lasted a long time. A handful still remain in service alongside modern vehicles, though most of the functional PCC cars in existence today are operated by museums and heritage railways.
The early, pre-World War II versions of these vehicles were known as air cars and used a belt-driven air compressor to provide the capability to open doors and operate brakes. Later models were entirely electric, doing away with the noisy compressor and air brakes by replacing them with dynamic brakes to provide most of the stopping power instead (though brake pads were available if an emergency stop was required).
PCC cars were initially built in the United States by the St. Louis Car Company, Pullman Standard, and the J.G. Brill Company. PCC cars for Canadian cities were built jointly by St. Louis Car Co. and Canadian Car and Foundry in Montreal, Quebec. The PCC technology was also exported to Europe, with the company La Brugeoise et Nivelles of Bruges, Belgium building several hundred streetcars which saw service in the cities of Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, The Hague, Saint Etienne, Marseille and Belgrade (the latter city buying vehicles initially used by the Belgian Vicinal Railways).
The first PCC cars in Canada were operated by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) in 1937. By 1954 Toronto had the largest PCC fleet in the world, having purchased many second hand from U.S. cities that had abandoned street car service following WWII. A number of different models of Toronto PCC cars are on display at the Ontario Electric Railway Historical Society museum known as the Halton County Radial Railway near Rockwood, Ontario. Several are in operating condition and rides are available to the public.
They are used up to this day in Belgium. The Antwerp and Ghent vehicles are metre-gauge while the Brussels ones are standard gauge. One of the particularities of the Brussels PCC vehicles is that some of them have been equipped with bogies and electric motors acquired second-hand in the United States from decommissioned streetcars from Kansas City, Missouri and Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
PCCs still in revenue service
There are still a few places in North America where transit agencies offer PCCs in true revenue service (as opposed to short-run or intermittent heritage railway service):
- San Francisco Muni's F line runs along Market Street from The Castro to the Ferry Building, then along the Embarcadero north and west to Fisherman's Wharf. This line is more or less exclusively run by pre-World War II streetcars, the bulk of which are PCCs.
- The Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line is a light-rail extension to the MBTA's heavy Red Line. It runs from the Ashmont terminus of the Red Line to Mattapan, and runs PCCs exclusively.
In addition, the Newark City Subway ran PCCs until upgrading to modern light rail vehicles in 2001. The unique Tandy Center Subway, essentially a glorified shuttle operation bringing passengers back and forth between a mall and its parking lot, also used PCCs, though their exteriors were modified so as to be largely unrecognizable. The system was shut down in 2002.
