The Presidents' Conference Committee (PCC) car is a type of streetcar (tram) that was first built in the United States in the 1930s. The design proved successful domestically, and after World War II it was licensed for production and use elsewhere in the world.
The PCC car has proved to be a long-lasting icon of streetcar design. About 5,000 PCC streetcars were built in the United States, with production continuing until 1952. In North America, some PCC streetcars are still in regular service, with most operating on heritage streetcar lines. , the San Francisco Municipal Railway is the largest North American operator of PCC cars, using a fleet of 27 on two heritage lines.
After World War II, the PCC design was licensed to multiple European companies. Over 15,000 PCC-derived streetcars were built in Europe, including the popular Tatra T3.
Origins The Presidents' Conference Committee (PCC) originated from the design committee formed in 1929. It was renamed the "Electric Railway Presidents' Conference Committee" (ERPCC) in 1931. The group's membership consisted primarily of representatives of several large operators of U.S. urban electric street railways plus potential manufacturers. Three interurban lines and at least one "heavy rail", or rapid transit, operator—Chicago Rapid Transit Company—were represented as well. Also included on the membership roll were manufacturers of surface cars (streetcars) and interested component suppliers.
ERPCC's goal was to design a streamlined, comfortable, quiet, and fast accelerating and braking streetcar that would be operated by a seated operator using floor-mounted pedal controls to better meet the needs of the street railways and appeal to riders. ERPCC prepared a detailed research plan, conducted extensive research on streetcar design, built and tested components, made necessary modifications and revisions based upon the findings, and ultimately produced a set of specifications for a standardized and fixed design. It included a modest list of available options with ample room for customer customization but was to be built with standard parts as opposed to a custom designed car body with diverse parts added depending on the whims and requirements of the individual customer. Numerous national and international users operated large fleets of PCC cars for many years.
Many design patents resulted from the work of ERPCC. These were transferred to a new business entity called the Transit Research Corporation (TRC) when ERPCC expired in 1936. Although this company continued the work of research on improvements to the basic design of the car and issued sets of specifications three times in the ensuing years, because TRC defined a PCC car as any vehicle which used patents on which it collected royalties, it was formed for the primary purpose of controlling those patents and promoting the standardization envisioned by the ERPCC. The company was funded by its collection of patent royalties from the railways which bought PCC cars. The company was controlled by a voting trust representing the properties which had invested in the work of ERPCC. One participant in Committee meetings, Philadelphia trolley manufacturer J.G. Brill Company, brought a competitive design—the Brilliner—to market in 1938. Because Raymond Loewy designed elements that were very similar to the PCC look, the Brilliner attracted no large orders, being built only for Atlantic City Transit and the Red Arrow Lines in suburban Philadelphia. Fewer than 50 were sold.
A significant contribution to the PCC design was noise reduction with extensive use of rubber in springs and other components to prevent rattle, vibration, and thus noise and to provide a level of comfort unknown before. Wheel tires were mounted between rubber sandwiches and were electrically isolated so that shunts were required to complete a ground. Resilient wheels were used on most PCC cars, with later heftier versions known as "Super-Resilient".
Gears were another source of considerable noise, solved by employing hypoid gears which are mounted at a right angle to the axle, where three of the six teeth constantly engaged the main gear, reducing lash and noise. All movable truck parts employed rubber for noise reduction as well. "Satisfactory Cushion Wheel of Vital Importance; Develop New Truck Design; Generous Use of Rubber" are headings within a paper that Chief Engineer Clarence F. Hirshfeld both presented and published.C.F. Hirshfeld, Ch.Engr., PCC; (October 1933) Electric Transit and Bus Journal, pp.321–325, 331.
Initial purchases
After a specification document was created by TRC, orders were placed by eight companies in 1935 and 1936. First was Brooklyn & Queens Transit Corporation (B&QT) for 100 cars, then Baltimore Transit Co. (BTCo) for 27 cars, Chicago Surface Lines (CSL) for 83 cars, Pittsburgh Railways Co. (PRCO) for 101 cars, San Diego Electric Railway (SDERy) for 25 cars, Los Angeles Railway (LARy) for 60 cars, and then Boston Elevated Railway (BERy) for one car, a "test" car. In late 1935 or early in 1936 Westinghouse Electric Corporation pressed for one car to be equipped with their electrical equipment for testing in Pittsburgh, since the Brooklyn order would have all cars equipped by General Electric.Clark Equipment Company pressed for one car to be made by them of aluminum for delivery to B&QT. Agreements among the parties were reached whereby St Louis Car Company would build 101 essentially identical PCCs but Clark would build one of its own body design.
Brooklyn received its first car number 1001 on May 28, 1936, PRCo took delivery of car number 100 on July 26, 1936, and Baltimore received its first car on September 2, 1936. In the late 1936 discussions of operating experience, it was noted that the Brooklyn car had run 3,000 miles by the time the Pittsburgh car had run 1,000 miles. One of the key patents was filed by Dan H. Bell on January 8, 1937, and granted on July 5, 1938, and entitled, "Rail Car or Similar Article," Patent No. 110,384. The first car to be placed in a scheduled public service was PRCo 100 in August and B&QT launched its first scheduled service with a group of cars on October 1, 1936, followed by CSL on November 13, 1936.
Purchases after 1936 and in Europe Production continued in North America by St. Louis Car Co. and Pullman Standard until 1952, with 4,978 units manufactured. In Europe, under license to use the designs patented by TRC, thousands more PCC and PCCs with trailer towing occurred through the last half of the 20th century. All were well built as many hundreds are still in operation.
The majority of large North American streetcar systems surviving after 1935 purchased PCC streetcars. Those which eventually terminated street car operation often sold their PCCs to surviving operators, some for operation, some for parts.
The Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board (MMTB) in Australia was keen to build two new tram routes after World War II, and these routes would be served by PCC Streetcars. The MMTB decided that it was too expensive and Melbourne only ever had two PCC streetcars, of which one was a prototype for a completely different class.
Several dozen remain in public transit service, such as on the Mattapan Line in Boston, as well as in Philadelphia, Kenosha, San Diego and San Francisco following extensive overhauling. All other surviving and functional North American PCC cars are operated by museums and heritage railways.Proceedings of the American Transit Association, 1936, pp. 821, 822, 833, 834, 1126, 1127 & 1938 Proceedings, pp. 372, 374, 376, 378, 380, 382, 384, 408, 416, 417, 418, 420, 422, 380, 382, 384, & An American Original, The PCC Car, Kashin and Demoro, pp 42, 43, 46, 187. Several retired PCCs from Boston, Cleveland, and Philadelphia were purchased as scrap and have been privately stored just outside Windber, Pennsylvania since 1992.
"The PCC car was not just another modular vehicle but the result of a carefully managed systems engineering approach to designing and producing a new concept to the urban transportation scene." Research went into providing simpler car ingress and egress, improved passenger comfort resulting from less vibration when moving, better acceleration, brighter lighting, better heating and cooling, increased seat spacing and height, consideration of spacing for arms, legs, for passengers standing, less weight, reduced power consumption, reduced wear of trucks, wheel components, and track. Dimensions were established to fit the majority of transit company's needs who purchased, but with a design that could easily be changed for special situations. Windows were spaced to match seating. While some of the components in the PCC car had been used in street cars before 1936—resilient wheels, magnetic braking, sealed gears, and modular design to name a few, this particularly by JG Brill Co. —the ERPCC redesigned, refined, and perfected many of these requirements while developing better acceleration and braking controls and put them all in one PCC package.
Unique need in Washington, D.C. The PCCs built for Washington, D.C. were among the more unusual examples due to the installation of overhead wires being prohibited within the city limits, necessitating the use of conduit plowsKing, Leroy O., Jr., 100 Years of Capital Traction: The Story of Streetcars in the Nation's Capital. Dallas: Publisher Leroy O. King, Jr. (1972), page 153 that collected current using a "plow" similar to that of a San Francisco cable car lowered into a slot between the rails and once there contacting positive and negative rails under the street. A pit was located at the boundary line of the D.C city limits over which cars would stop to have their power collection changed from the trolley pole to the conduit plow and vice versa.
Truck/Bogie manufacturing The unique new design PCC streetcar trucks (the assemblies holding the wheels and traction motors) were primarily manufactured by St. Louis Car Company and Clark Equipment between 1936 and the 1950s. Clark Equipment produced most B2-model trucks, while St. Louis Car produced B3-model trucks. Westinghouse as well as GE supplied the electric motors and braking components for these trucks. St. Louis Car Company built the vast majority of PCC streetcar bodies, those with standard 4'8+1/2" trucks. Clark Equipment manufactured PCCs with specialized trucks, such as for Philadelphia's wide gauge, double ended coach application, plus building the only aluminum-body PCC.
Manufacturing
+ Pullman Standard PCCs Operator Qty Year Fleet numbers Order Baltimore Transit Company 248 1939 7023-7033, 7306-7334 W6569 1941 7034-7053, 7335-7353 W6634 1941 7054-7097, 7354-7378 W6645 1941-42 7379-7403 W6665 1944 7098-7147 W6701 1944 7404-7428 W6712 Birmingham Railway and Electric Company 48 1947 800-847 W6777 Boston Elevated Railway 320 1941 3002-3021 W6629 1944 3022-3121 W6697 1945-46 3072-3096 (2nd), 3147-3271 W6710 1951 3272-3321 W6892 Chicago Surface Lines 310 1946-47 4062-4171 W6749 1947-48 4172-4371 W6786 Cincinnati Street Railway 1 1939 1000 W6580 Cleveland Railway Company 50 1946 4200-4249 W6750 Dallas Railway and Terminal Company 25 1945 601-625 W6699 Pacific Electric Railway 30 1940 5000-5029 W6624 Shaker Heights Rapid Transit 25 1948 71-95 W6820
PCC cars were initially built in the United States by the St Louis Car Company (SLCCo) and Pullman Standard. Clark Equipment built the only aluminum-body PCC as well as all narrow gauge B1 trucks for Los Angeles, all the standard and broad gauge B2 trucks both air- and all-electric, and the B2B trucks used under PRCo 1725–1799 and Toronto 4500–4549. SLCCo built all B3 trucks, both standard and broad gauge. PCC cars for Canadian cities were assembled in Montreal, Quebec by Canadian Car & Foundry from bodies and trucks supplied by St. Louis Car.