By Railfan & Railroad Staff
The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum celebrated the completed restoration of Pittsburgh Railways 1138 with a ceremonial “rollout” on June 5, in a private thank you event for its volunteers who worked on the historic car.
Car 1138 is a very early example of a PCC streetcar, built in 1937 by the St. Louis Car Company, and was one of more than 600 delivered to Pittsburgh Railways. The PCC car (named for the President’s Conference Committee) represented a quantum leap in streetcar design – it was designed to effectively compete with the automobile (which it could out-accelerate) through improvements in engineering and performance, not to mention style.
Acquired by the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in 1961, car 1138 was cosmetically restored to its mid-1950s appearance in 2001 courtesy of Adtranz (now Alstrom) in their Elmira, N.Y., facility. Since then PTM volunteers have worked tirelessly to complete the overall of the car’s electrical system and other details to make it operational.
The car is expected to be in service throughout the year. For more information visit pa-trolley.org.