The trolley cars were expected to return in about a year, but the project ended up taking longer, largely due to delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The 18 handicap-accessible trolley cars that had been running from 63rd Street at Girard Avenue to Richmond Street at Westmoreland Street were taken off the roads and replaced by buses in January 2020 due to repair work, as well as a bridge removal. "I think that's one thing that people really like, and one of the reasons why we're keeping them around." "They're definitely very unique," Sabrina Eisl, a senior project engineer at SEPTA who leads the restoration’s design team, said. Following more than a decade of public demands and political pressure to bring back the trolleys, 18 PCC II cars were fixed up by a company in Pittsburgh and reinstated. There were once hundreds of these cars in Philadelphia, before they were taken out of service in the early '90s due to budget and service cuts. Trolleys have roamed the streets of Philadelphia in some form for over 150 years, and the city acquired its first PCC II cars in 1947, The Inquirer reported.
"We're basically trying to extend the life of these as long as we possibly can," Aaron said. The interior of a SEPTA PCC II trolley car undergoing repairs. The trolleys are also receiving new paint, although the familiar green and cream coloring will remain. The team is restoring them to "better-than-new" condition, with all-new frames, sheet metal on the sides, flooring, windows, air conditioning systems and wheels. You have a lot of rock, salt, moisture and just wear and tear on the vehicles."Īaron oversees about 80 employees at a Woodland Avenue facility in Southwest Philadelphia, with about half of them devoted to the trolley repair project. "T hese are from 1947 and they've been on the streets of Philadelphia since then. "It's almost like we're separating the body from the frame and we're replacing all of the frame again," SEPTA director of rail maintenance Brian Aaron said. Pennsylvania could undo its automatic gas tax increase for 2023, lawmakers say.Philadelphia ranks among top 10 most traffic-congested cities in the world.In New Jersey's food deserts, refrigerated lockers could improve access to groceries.SEPTA expects to have the project largely completed by September. The multimillion dollar project aims to restore the 1947 PCC II trolleys that ran on SEPTA Route 15 along Girard Avenue through North and West Philadelphia. SEPTA is working to refurbish its historic fleet of green-and-cream colored trolley cars that date back to the first year of the Cold War and Jackie Robinson's first MLB contract.
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