This car is painted to remember Illinois Terminal Railroad, which once ran an extensive interurban passenger service.

One of its shortest routes—six miles from St. Louis, Missouri across the Mississippi River to Granite City, Illinois—was served by PCC streetcars (see story at right) from 1949 to 1958. Those eight PCCs had bodies identical to this car (except that the Illinois Terminal cars had no rear doors). Patronage fell rapidly on the Granite City line despite the PCCs, and the route was abandoned in 1958. But on both the Illinois Terminal and suburban Philadelphia (Muni ‘Red Arrow’ car No. 1007), these big double-ended PCCs proved their capability in interurban service.

One wonders what might have been if Muni had made the commitment to upgrade the famed #40 interurban line to San Mateo with fast new cars like No. 1015, instead of abandoning the line in 1949.