Built 1946.
Served Minneapolis-St. Paul MN 1946-53.
Served Newark NJ 1953-2001.
Purchased by Muni 2004.
Exterior paint design: Toronto 'Red Rocket'.
This car is painted to honor Toronto, which ran PCC streetcars from 1938 until 1995. Toronto boasted the largest fleet of PCCs in North America – 745 cars – many acquired second-hand from US properties.
Nowhere on the continent did PCCs have such extended success, with routes running all over Canada’s largest city. The opening of heavy-rail subways decreased the PCC fleet over the years, and Toronto began replacing its beloved ‘Red Rockets’ in the late 1970s with Canadian Light Rail Vehicles (CRLVs).
Muni’s Historic Trolley Festivals in the 1980s partly inspired the renovation of 19 PCCs for the new Harbourfront line that opened in 1990, but these were replaced by CLRVs just five years later, leaving only two PCCs in Toronto for charter service.
In the 1970s Muni acquired 11 ex-Toronto PCCs for brief service in essentially this same paint scheme (with Muni’s ‘cable car ribbon’ logo).
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