PCC No. 1074, the "Red Rocket", near the end of its testing period on The Embarcadero near Mission Street, signed for the future E-line. Jeremy Whiteman photo.

For decades, people in Toronto have called their streetcars “Red Rockets.” They ran all over town (their successors still do!) Now, a PCC streetcar painted in tribute to the Red Rockets is carrying passengers on the F-line, having just gone into revenue service for the first time.

PCC No. 1074 has actually been hanging around Muni for years, acquired eight years ago from Newark as one of 11 identical cars to help reduce crowding on the overloaded F-line. Several of these 11 have been in service for extended periods since then, but several, including No. 1074, never got into regular passenger service until now.

In the 1970s, Muni ran several ex-Toronto PCCs when they needed extra equipment to handle detours while the Market Street Subway was being built. But the livery of those cars was partly altered, so No. 1074 is the first to run in full Toronto Transit Commission regalia in San Francisco. (By the way, to those who grouse that these and other Muni tribute PCCs don’t have every exact decal the original did, take a deep breath. They’re running here, not there; they have to have some standard Muni signage. We encourage that to be kept to a minimum, though, and Muni has been great about getting as many details correct as feasible.)

This is the of the 1070-class to be put into service following complete rewiring. Nos. 1071, 1078, 1079. and 1080 preceded it. The rest are either being tested now or still being worked on at the contractor, Brookville Equipment Company in Pennsylvania. The full streetcar fleet status list is here. And you can see which of these streetcars are on the F-line right now by looking at the cool map here.

FINALLY some much needed rain today, and to greet it, the latest 1070-class streetcar to go into service following rewiring, with a little bonus.

PCC No. 1078 at the F-line Wharf terminal on its first day back carrying passengers, January 19, 2012. Click to enlarge.

PCC No. 1078 honors San Diego, whose original PCCs carried a special slogan above the windows: “Ride & Relax.” Their original PCCs did not have those little oval windows, called “standee windows” above the main windows, so on Muni’s tribute livery, the slogan was put on the lower panel of the door side instead, while other minor changes in the lettering were made to avoid confusion between historic San Diego transit routes and current Muni ones.

But when San DIego restored a PCC (ex-Muni, by the way) to run on their downtown San Diego Trolley loop with their modern LRVs last year, they found a way to fit the motto between the main windows and the standee windows. So, we did too, on the non-door side at least. Thanks to a contribution from one of our members and graphic work by our Dave Dugan, we created a decal design that closely resembles the original lettering. It was installed by the crew of Muni’s Carole Gilbert, just in time for No. 1078’s return to revenue service. Thanks to everyone involved, including Liz WIlmes, whose company has done a great job of making decals for cable cars and streetcars alike.

This is the fourth of the 11 cars in the 1070-class to return to service after rewiring. The fifth, Toronto No. 1074, should be joining them within a few days.

PCC No. 1070, in 1953 Newark livery, testing on The Embarcadero, January 15, 2012. Copyright Jeremy Whiteman.

MLK Day Weekend saw a surfeit of unfamiliar PCCs on the F-line, as the 1070-class of streamlined streetcars showed up in force. Some were in passenger service, having been accepted by Muni from the contractor, Brookville Equipment of Pennsylvania, following complete rewiring, installation of some new propulsion components, and other work. At this writing, three of the 11 PCCs in that class have been accepted: Nos. 1071 (honoring Minneapolis-St. Paul, the first city this group of cars served, from 1946-1952), 1079 (Detroit) and 1080 (Los Angeles Transit Lines). On the verge of acceptance, having just passed its 1000-mile test period, No. 1078 (San Diego) was out on the F-line for final testing.

Also on the line being tested, Nos. 1070 (honoring Newark, where this group of cars ran from 1953-2003), 1072 (Mexico City), 1074 (Toronto).

At Muni Metro East on January 16, 2012, PCC No. 1076 tows its sibling No. 1075 off the trailer arriving from Brookville Equipment Company before taking its place for the trip back to Pennsylvania. No. 1076 is the last of the 11 cars in the 1070-class to leave San Francisco for rewiring at Brookville.

Meanwhile, the last of the 11 cars in this group left San Francisco for Brookville today. To get on the trailer for the trip, No. 1076 (Washington, DC) had to tow returning No. 1075 (Cleveland) off the trailer first. No. 1075 will go into testing soon, along with No. 1073 (El Paso-Juarez) and No. 1040 (Muni’s own), which both returned recently from Brookville. No. 1077 (Birmingham) is at Brookville now being rewired, completing this set of cars.

You can see when each car goes into passenger service by checking our exclusive streetcar fleet status page here.

One more note: Muni’s flagship Car No. 1 took a brief fling on Taraval Street last week, just for a little exercise. Contrary to one report, it was not testing. The car is waiting for its inaugural event in February on a date soon to be determined. We’ll let you know as soon as we do.

Muni PCC streetcar No. 1080, representing Los Angeles Transit Lines, has been accepted by Muni from contractor Brookville Equipment Company and is carrying passengers on the F-line today. For details on the rewiring program and other streetcars involved, click here.

You can always see exactly which streetcar is where on the F-line here. And you can see the status of every streetcar in the fleet here.

Muni has finished testing on the second of the rewired 1070-class of streamliner PCCs. No. 1079, honoring Detroit, started regular service on the F-line today.

PCC No. 1079, honoring the Detroit Department of Street Railways, turns the corner from Mission onto The Embarcadero during its first stint in F-line service in 2008. Frank Zepeda photo.

As regular readers know, these 11 streetcars were acquired from New Jersey Transit in 2004 after finishing a 50-year career Newark. After repainting and other modifications for Muni service, five of the 11 cars, including No. 1079, saw some service on the F-line until it was determined that their (original) wiring was just not holding up and needed to be replaced.

There have been problems with the reliability of the new door controls on these cars. The first car accepted, Twin City Rapid Transit No. 1071 (the original owner of these 11 cars, which sold them to Newark in 1953), went out of service for a couple of days in its first week, but has been on the line for several days in a row now.

The next streetcars likely to be accepted are No. 1078 (San Diego), No. 1080 (Los Angeles Transit Lines) and No. 1074 (Toronto), probably in that order. These three could all be in service within a few weeks.

The Muni project team wants to test these cars in the order they were received back from Brookville Equipment Company, the rebuilder. By that standard, Nos. 1070 (Newark livery), 1072 (Mexico City), and 1073 (El Paso-Juarez) would be the next cars to be put into acceptance testing.

Behind them would come Muni original No. 1040, which we reported on last month. It is now at Cameron Beach Yard.

You can always see the operational status of every car in the F-line fleet by clicking here. You can also see which cars are actually on the F-line right now by clicking here. If you’d like to thank us for providing all the information we do (we’re all volunteers), we’d welcome your membership here or your donation (of any amount) here. Thanks.

PCC No. 1071, painted to honor Minneapolis-St. Paul, testing recently on West Portal Avenue.

Yellow isn’t traditionally thought of as a year-end holiday color, but that Twin City Rapid Transit livery still makes for nice “gift wrap” for PCC No. 1071, which (fingers crossed) entered revenue service for good today. It has been here more than a year after having been completely rewired at Brookville Equipment Company in Pennsylvania, but as we’ve reported in our member newsletter, Inside Track, getting the new door controls to operate reliably has been a vexing problem, and a variety of other glitches has cropped up over time. The car entered F-line passenger service earlier this year on a trial basis, but was soon pulled off the street as unreliable.

Now, though, with more than 3,000 test miles on No. 1071, the Muni engineer and project manager have accepted No. 1071, and it has been carrying passengers on the F-line today. Other cars in this class currently being tested, and which soon may join the active F-line fleet, include Nos. 1074 (Toronto), 1078 (San Diego), 1079 (Detroit), and 1080 (LA Transit Lines). As these streetcars start carrying passengers, additional rewired cars already back in San Francisco will start the testing process, including Nos. 1070 (Newark), 1072 (Mexico City), 1073 (El Paso-Juarez) and 1040 (an original Muni streetcar, painted in the 1950s “Wings” livery). For the current status of all 16 streetcars in this rebuilding contract (and all the others as well), click here.

The delay in getting these streetcars into service is a major reason we’ve seen so many buses on the F-line of late. Service had been increased to run every five minutes in September on the premise that these streetcars would be ready then. So they’re needed just as soon as they’re ready.

We celebrate the “present” that 1071 represents for the F-line fleet, and really hope all the bugs are worked out of it and the other streetcars in this group now, so that there won’t be any need to take it to the “return counter” after the holidays.