First Rewired PCC Starts Carrying Passengers

No. 1071 being tested in March. Jeremy Whiteman Photo

A big surprise passed by our San Francisco Railway Museum this morning: the eye-popping yellow PCC No. 1071, carrying passengers!

This is the first of the 11 PCCs of this class to enter revenue service following a complete rewiring by Brookville Equipment Company. It was considered the “pilot” car of the group, where components would be looked at closely before any other cars in the group were accepted back in San Francisco. The contract says Muni had 60 days to accept or reject the first car to return, but No. 1071 has been back in San Francisco almost eight months now.

We had heard about reliability problems with both a new type of door controller installed in these cars and a new low voltage power supplies. The contractor has spent quite a bit of time on these issues, but even a week or so ago, we had heard indications that more testing of No. 1071 (without passengers) would be in order before revenue service (with passengers) began.

We heard this morning though that an open issue about the door operation has been addressed. The power supply issue had apparently previously been resolved. So, we’ve been told that No. 1071 has been “conditionally accepted” by Muni from Brookville.

You can follow 1071’s progress on our F-line live map. It’s on the street as this is posted; it may well not operate every day, though one would hope Muni wants to give it the toughest test it can.

1078 pulls into Metro East following its return trip from the contractor, Brookville equipment of Pennsylvania.

On a related note, another of the rewired PCCs, San Diego No. 1078, returned to San Francisco just before the weekend, and is reportedly being readied for testing (without passengers) as well, as is No. 1080, which arrived June 24.

We hope any reported problems with these renovated cars turn out to be minor and that the cars enter service quickly, uneventfully, and — most importantly — reliably. No question Muni needs the extra capacity.

UPDATE: We’re told the 1071 developed operating problems on that very first day in service and is back at the shop being looked at. We will be taking a closer look at these problems soon.