Thread by @jackson_betz

Welcome to a mega-thread of EVERY Philadelphia streetcar route that used PCC streetcars, from 1938 to the present day! Each tweet will include photos and context - feel free to comment with observations, questions, or corrections! Photo creds in alt text

When Philadelphia Rapid Transit (PRT) bought its first group of PCCs in 1938, they went to route 53 in northwest Philly (rumor has it, bc PRT execs lived along that line)! They were gorgeous vehicles with a stunning silver livery!

After that original order of PCCs were scrapped in the 50s, the 53 continued to use later generations of PCCs until being "temporarily" suspended in 1985.

On Sundays, the 53 and 75 (whose western end was then located at 17th and Erie) were joined together to make one long line, known as the 53. Hence, we get these neat (and rare) pictures of the 53 using PCCs at today's Arrott Transportation Center!

By 1940, PRT had reorganized into the Philadelphia Transportation Company (PTC), which bought another order of PCCs. The first of those went into service in January 1941 on the 42, a POWERHOUSE of a line that ran on Walnut/Chestnut in Center City and Spruce in West Philly

The PTC replaced the 42 with buses in 1956, a decision that was unpopular in the city. The day after their retirement, one last car ran through on the line with a "goodbye Chestnut Street" banner!

In February 1941, the PTC brought out PCCs on yet another juggernaut route, the 13, which ran on Walnut/Chestnut in Center City, then west on Chester Avenue to Darby.

In 1955, the 13 was rerouted to use the subway-surface tunnel (during the construction of the tunnel, this and other routes were temporarily routed through Locust Street in West Philly! see second pic). It continued to use PCCs until being replaced with Kawasakis in 1981

The 56, which ran on Erie and Torresdale Aves in North Philly, received PCCs in March 1941. I still have yet to find a pic of a silver PCC on the 56, so here's some pics of misc later equipment on that line!

The 56 was served by some rare Philly trolleys! In 1956, the PTC bought some used trolleys from St. Louis and placed them onto the 56, but, plagued by problems, they were withdrawn by 1962 (pics are rare). Also peep this red ex-Birmingham, ex-Toronto PCC on the line in 1979!

One of the last lines in Philadelphia to use PCCs, the 56 used them until being bustituted in June 1992.

The PTC wanted to show off their new streamlined cars, and in April 1941, began taking advantage of lower ridership on Sundays to launch Sunday-only PCC service on selected lines. First up was the 40, which crossed West Philly and South Philly via the South Street Bridge!

Also in April 1941, the West Philly shuttle route 41 also received Sunday-only PCC service! These photos were all taken later, when service was provided by late-40s PCCs with standee windows (but still only on Sundays!) Both the 40 and 41 became bus routes in the 50s

Also in April 1941, the 43, a crosstown route on Spring Garden, received Sunday-only PCC service. The 43 passed through a special trolley tunnel under the Art Museum steps, making for great photos! The route received full PCC service in 1948, but was bustituted in the 50s

The final April 1941 Sunday-only PCC addition was the 6, an interurban line that crisscrossed rolling pastures and rural woods en route to the Willow Grove Amusement Park! This line was a favorite of rail enthusiasts before being cut back to Cheltenham and Ogontz in June 1958.

Even after being severely cut back, the 6 continued to shuttle between Olney and the city line until 1986!

In August 1942, the PTC finally ordered another batch of PCCs (delayed by wartime production shortages). They lost no time putting them into service full-time on the 47, another POWERHOUSE line that ran north and south on 5th (in North Philly) and 8th and 9th (in South Philly)

In a picturesue tableau, the 47 passed through South Philly's narrow Italian Market, making a popular subject for photographers! The 47 operated until the late 60s, when PATCO construction forced the bustitution of the southern end in 1967, then the whole line two years later.

The 50, another long north-south line, received PCCs for exactly one year (1942-1943) before having them withdrawn to boost service on the 53 and 56. In 1955, the PTC bought a raft of used PCCs from Kansas City, and THOSE cars allowed PCCs to be restored to the 50!

The 50 included a bespoke trolley tunnel at 5th and Vine Streets (shown in the previous tweet). In 1976, SEPTA painted 27 of its ex-Kansas City cars in red, white, and blue for the US bicentennial; these cars were most often spotted on the 50! SEPTA bustituted the 50 in 1980.

Okay, it's big boi time: the 23! The PTC ordered ONE HUNDRED PCCs in 1947/1948 JUST to serve this 14-mile long route (which used 10th and 11th Aves in Center City, then went north to Chestnut Hill on Germantown Ave). These are all pics of the original set of cars from the 23:

In 1957, routes 20 and 23 were combined, so the southbound 23 moved two blocks over to 12th Street. As SEPTA shifted carbarn assignments in the 1970s and 1980s, different equipment began to use the 23, making for colorful trolley spotting!

The 23 continued to operate with PCCs until February 1992. Even afterwards, though, it was a popular line for charters, and PCC trolleys rode the entire line on occasion as late as 2002. The 23 is sorely missed - arguably the greatest Philadelphia trolley line!

Though the PTC ordered 100 cars for route 23, it turned out the line needed only 85, so in 1948, the PTC selected several other lines for Sunday service. One of those was the 3, which crossed town on Columbia Ave (today's Cecil B. Moore), then followed the El to Frankford.

Also in 1948, route 15, a crosstown route on Girard Ave, received Sunday-only PCCs. Until 1955, the route also trundled up Richmond Ave all the way to Bridge Street before being cut back and replaced with an extension of the 73 bus. The same year, the 15 received full-time PCCs!

The 15 used PCCs right up until September 1992! Like the 23, the 15 trackage was popular for fan charters until, in 2005, PCCs were restored to the line full-time (I won't include modern photos in this post, since modern photos are found very easily!)

Back to 1948, when the 26, a North Philly crosstown route that's still a juggernaut today as a bus route, received Sunday-only PCC service! (That date might be wrong, since I'm PRETTY sure every silver PCC had been painted green by 1948, so let me know if you have more info!)

In September 1948, the 5, which traveled on Frankford Ave in North Philly and 2nd and 3rd Streets in South Philly, received full-time PCCs left over from the 23 group. (3 of these pics show Kansas City cars, which later ran on the 5!) The 5 became a bus route in 1955.

Fast forward to 1950, when the 21 (a now-defunct L-shaped route similar to today's 33 bus, but on 17th and 18th Streets) received PCCs. Accounts I've seen are conflicting over whether this route used PCCs only on Sundays or full time!

What I DO know about that 21 was that on Sundays, it was combined with its mirror image across Market Street, the 32 (similar to today's route 17), to form one long north-south route on 17th and 18th Streets!

In 1951, the PTC, which was still determined to show off its streamliners to the leisurely crowd, instituted ANOTHER Sunday-only PCC route: West Philly's 70, which traveled north and south on 52nd Street! This route didn't last long with PCCs - it became a bus in 1955.

In 1955, the PTC extended its streetcar subway, and concurrently, placed prewar PCC air cars on all the subway-surface routes that would be using the newly lenghened subway (the 10, 11, 34, 37, and 38). Before trolleys had crossed the Schuylkill River on a metal truss bridge!

Route 10, which traveled west on Lancaster Avenue to Overbrook, received a unique subway portal entrance at 36th and Sansom Streets!

PCCs were placed on the 38, a line that ran through Mantua in West Philly, for one month, but the line ended up being replaced with buses after it was determined to be too great an ordeal to reroute the line into the new subway (into which it ran for exactly one day)!

The 11, which ran on Woodland Ave and wound up in Darby, was rerouted into the new subway-surface tunnel at the same time and also received PCCs!

The 34, a relatively short subway-surface route that traveled down Baltimore Avenue to the Angora neighborhood (right at the Philadelphia city line), also received PCCs in 1955.

In preparation for the lengthening of the subway, the monumental route 37, an interurban that ran all the way to Chester via Elmwood, Island, and Eastwick Avenues (passing some pastoral woodlands along the way), received PCCs!

A month after the subway extension opened, in October 1956, the 37 was combined with the much shorter route 36 and shortened to 94th and Eastwick Aves (and then later shortened even further)! Along with the 13, this brought the total routes using the subway to 5: 10/11/13/34/36

Despite most PCCs being over a decade old (and not that novel or flashy), in December 1955, the PTC added one more Sunday-only PCC service: the 57, an L-shaped route using Jefferson/Master (east/west) and pivoting to Front/2nd (north/south). The 57 was bustituted in 1956.

In June 1956, the PTC scrapped a group of double-ended cars that dated from the 1920s, and replaced those cars with PCCs on Allegheny Avenue's route 60 (after building new loops on either end of the line to accommodate the single-ended PCCs).

Trolley spotting on the 60 was a colorful time - the line not only used bicentennial ex-Kansas City cars, but also red cars bought from Toronto in 1976 to stock up after the disastrous Woodland carbarn fire of 1975! In 1977, the 60 was bustituted and never returned.

Also in June 1956, PCCs came to the 62, a very short shuttle that operated entirely in the borough of Darby and connected the endpoints of routes 11 and 13! This route was absorbed into the 13 as a rush-hour only extension in 1971 (minus the private right-of-way shown in pic 1).

The very last route to receive PCCs (in Sept 1956) was route 20, a powerhouse north/south route that ran on 12th and 13th Streets in Center City, then up Germantown Ave and Old York Road to end up at Olney Transportation Center.

On its southern end, the 20 ran down to the Navy Yard, and fans leaving football games at Municipal Stadium would be greeted by a phalanx of route 20 cars ready to transport them back north! In Dec 1957, the 20 was combined into the 23, and the Navy Yard diversion disappeared.

You know the drill from then on! On the subway-surface routes, PCCs were replaced with Kawasakis in 1981; the 15, 23, and 56 were bustituted "temporarily" in 1992; the 15 came back from 2005 to 2020... Yada yada yada. That's all folks, thanks for reading!

Oh crap, forgot one! The 12 briefly had PCCs as well - it used to go all the way to Darby like its siblings the 11 and 13 (rather than the much shorter 12 bus route that exists today)! Okay, NOW I promise - THAT IS IT