This streetcar is painted to honor Chicago, which ran PCC streetcars from 1936 to 1958. Chicago had the largest PCC fleet ever purchased new by one city—683 cars.

Chicago’s first PCCs hit the streets in November 1936. At 50’ 5” they were the longest single-end PCCs ever built, and boasted three sets of doors to swallow crowds quickly. The design worked well and Chicago stuck to it, though no other city followed suit.

The first cars were nicknamed ‘Blue Geese’ after their paint scheme, so it was natural that the cars delivered in green after the war would be dubbed ‘Green Hornets’ after the then-popular radio serial.

Chicago Transit Authority scrapped its PCC streetcar fleet in the 1950s, but “they died and went to heaven,” because many parts of the cars were used in new PCC elevated trains used on the famous Loop.