This streetcar is an actual Philadelphia streetcar painted in that city’s original PCC livery, dating from 1938. Although Philadelphia Rapid Transit Co. (PRT) was the largest streetcar operator that was not a member of the coalition that designed the famous PCC streetcar, they were still an early buyer.

Todd Lappin photo.

Philadelphia’s first batch of 20 PCCs ran on Wayne Avenue’s route 53. In 1940, successor company Philadelphia Transportation Co. (PTC) ordered 130 more PCCs, and the following year—worried that impending war would shut off availability of new cars—bought an additional 110. Philly’s new PCCs soldiered hard, carrying the wartime crush of riders, and may have saved the system from early bus conversion.

Car No. 1060, which Muni acquired from Philadelphia as part of the initial F-line fleet, models the original PTC livery of silver with cream window area and electric blue striping. The similarity to the packaging of Kraft’s famous ‘Philadelphia Cream Cheese’ did not go unnoticed, providing the car a nickname — the Cream Cheese Car.

When it originally went into Muni service in 1995, car No. 1060 was painted to represent Newark, New Jersey. In November of 2002, the car suffered severe body damage when she took a curve at Market and Steuart too fast, jumped the track, and hit a lightpost. After extensive repairs, Muni repainted No. 1060 in this 1938 silver and blue Philadelphia livery to replace the paint scheme in Muni’s fleet by wrecked PCC No. 1054. That Newark livery is now worn in Muni’s fleet by a streetcar that actually ran in Newark, No. 1070.

» Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Co. No. 1007
» Philadelphia Transportation Co. (PTC) No. 1055

No. 1061 »  

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