Public Service Coordinated Transport 27

Dave's Electric Railroads

Built in:1949 by St. Louis Car Company (ord#1670)
Out-of-service/Retired:1990
Type of car:streetcar (PCC, postwar)
Current Owner:Branford Electric Railway Association(East Haven, Connecticut)

Car History by Frank Hicks


Public Service of New Jersey 27
The only postwar PCC car in the BERA collection, PSNJ 27 was originally built as part of the last order of streetcars built for the Minneapolis/St. Paul streetcar network. Originally TCRT 416, this car was built for two-man operation but was converted to one-man configuration within two years after construction. But the car's career in Minnesota was very short-lived: after only four years, TCRT replaced all of its streetcars with buses and put its PCC's up for sale. Thirty of them were bought by PSNJ, which decided to upgrade the 18-year old Newark City Subway rather than replace it with bus service. Car 27 spent the next 25 years of its life shuttling back and forth along the four-mile Newark subway route until it was bought by the Cleveland RTA for service on the Shaker Heights line. In this capacity it was used largely as a back-up for the older Shaker Heights PCC's, which were failing frequently, and for the new Breda light rail vehicles that were just being delivered. After 1982 the PCC's retained by the RTA were only rarely used, and in 1990 car 27 was acquired by MTM and moved to Minneapolis. There it was stored under a tarp at the Jackson Street Roundhouse for a little over a decade; with the completion of restoration work on another similar Minneapolis PCC, MTM deemed the car unneeded and sold it to BERA. Plans are in place to restore it as a PSNJ car.

Ownership History:Twin City Rapid Transit #416 1949-1953 / Public Service Coordinated Transport #27 1953-1971 / New Jersey Transit #27 1971-1978 / Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority #27 1978-1990 / 1st preserved by Minnesota Transportation Museum 1990-2001 / Branford Electric Railway Association(East Haven, Connecticut) 2001-present



Facts and Figures


Status:operated occasionallyGauge:4'8.5"
Construction:steelRoof type:AREnded:SE
Length:46'5"Width:9'0"Weight
#Seats:54#Wheels/Conf.:8 (B-B)Total HP:220
Trucks:Clark B2Brakes:ElectricCompressor:n/a
Motors:GE 1220E1 (4)Voltage (if not 600DC)

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