SEPTA Carhouse Fire - 1975

Hello-

Can someone tell me about the carhouse fire in 1975 that nearly wiped out the PCC fleet? I've searched but haven't found anything with details. Can someone tell me how many cars were lost?

Also looking for information on PCC 2332. I found its former number 2196. Was this car originally delivered to PTC, or was this one of the cars that came from Kansas City and Toronto as replacements for the 1975 fire loss?

-otto-

Pictures of the fire can be found here:

http://world.nycsubway.org/us/phila/depots.html

Don't have an exact count but judging form the pictures, the number of cars lost was easily in the dozens. From what I've found, approximately 40 cars were purchased from Kansas City back in the fifties. The Toronto cars (some ex- KC themselves) were purchased in 1976 to replace some of those lost in the fire.

Just found another page. From the roster, it appears that 59 cars were lost, their numbers can be found here:

http://www.phillytrolley.org/phlrostr2.html

I believe the Woodland shops were rebuilt and reopened in 1984.

It's ironic to note that the cars that were destroyed were good cars and other cars which were out of service were untouched by the fire.

Hi Glenn, When the fire struck in 1975, Woodland was an actual car house. Elmwood was built in the early 80's to take over Woodland's function as a car barn, but Woodland reemerged as a heavy repair shop. Not only will yuo see city trolley cars, but Red Arrow and occasionally a MFSE (yes they do go there from time to time). I have been in Woodland many times, and is a pretty impressive place. Once in the 90's Peter Witt car 8534 was in for heavy repair work and Bob Hughes (a Legend at Septa and a good friend) called me because he was swinging by to pick the car up and take it to Elmwood. I showed up and the next thing I know, I was running the car down Woodland Avenue to Elmwood. Ahh the good old days. Surely those days cant be repeated today.

BuddSilverliner269 wrote:Once in the 90's Peter Witt car 8534 was in for heavy repair work and Bob Hughes (a Legend at Septa and a good friend) called me because he was swinging by to pick the car up and take it to Elmwood. I showed up and the next thing I know, I was running the car down Woodland Avenue to Elmwood. Ahh the good old days. Surely those days cant be repeated today.

Hey Budd,

Great memories, I'm sure. Too bad all you get to do today is run the Acela up and down the NEC.

Thanks all for the info, I appreciate it. From what I understand, the 1975 car fire hastened the closure of several trolley routes through the city?

Hi Glenn believe it or not, I actually got more enjoyment when I ran the old stuff like the Peter Witt and pcc cars and once a mfse train on the road overnite back in 98 when it was still the old budd almond joy cars or when I worked at septa running silverliner 2s then I do with the acelas. The acela is like a toy. As I mentioned, thank God for my experiences and memories and my connections at septa growing up because those things could never be done today, unfortunately. To Otto you are correct about the fires effect, but septas lack of interest in trolleys hastened the abandonment more then the fire did although much to there credit they did purchase 2nd hand cars from Toronto to help them out

Otto Vondrak wrote:Thanks all for the info, I appreciate it. From what I understand, the 1975 car fire hastened the closure of several trolley routes through the city?

I suspect that the fire hastened, somewhat, the demise of the North Philly all surface routes.( Including the 23 which operated from Germantown to South Philly) Most of the Toronto replacement cars wound up in North Philly, while SEPTA ultimately replaced the Woodland Cars with the then New Kawasakis. ( Woodland had been the primary depot for the Subway Surface Lines, with the exception of Route 10, which operated out of Callowhill until the temporary bustitution of Route 15). Certainly the result today is that other than the 're-railed" Route 15, there are no all surface trolley routes remaining in Philly, with the five subway surface routes, now operating out of Elmwood, constituting the bulk of the remaining streetcar operations in Philly.

Otto Vondrak wrote:Hello-

Can someone tell me about the carhouse fire in 1975 that nearly wiped out the PCC fleet? I've searched but haven't found anything with details. Can someone tell me how many cars were lost?

Also looking for information on PCC 2332. I found its former number 2196. Was this car originally delivered to PTC, or was this one of the cars that came from Kansas City and Toronto as replacements for the 1975 fire loss?

-otto-

Nearly 60 cars were lost in the fire, and ironically most of them operational cars; almost nothing in the deadlines was touched.

2196 was an original PTC car, from the 2080-2200 group of all-electrics delivered a couple years before 2701-2800.

The ex-Kansas City cars (most of those were already on hand from being purchased in PTC days) were in the 2200-series numbers; the cars that came from Toronto were numbered in the 2300's. The PCC-II fleet starts at 2320 because the last Toronto car in the fleet (as a non-standard SEPTA car) was either 2318 or 2319.

A few of the North Philly routes immediately became bustituted after the fire, with perhaps 50 Luzerne air cars and all-electrics being shifted to Woodland to replace the destroyed cars. Then, the Kawasaki fleet allowed retirement of the air cars by 1983 and 112 of the best of the all-electrics went into the GOH program which started in 1981, and as overhauled cars came out the shop, other all-electrics went to scrap. Car 2728 was the 100th graduate of the GOH program in 1986 and received commemorative ribbon decals on each side of the car proclaiming that fact as well as 'headlight wings' which none of the other rebuilds received.

Do you have a picture of the el in the streets? Is there a track connection in the subway that allows it to get there? And is there a connection between the El and the MSHL at 69th street? Is that how those get there?

There may be a connection b/w MSHL and the EL at 69th street but certainly no rail connection from either to the surface trolley system.

Does anyone have a picture of the el at woodland? And could the MSHL run on the Subway surface?

jackintosh11 wrote:And could the MSHL run on the Subway surface?

MSHL? I'm a bit sleep-deprived today but are you referring to NHSL? If so, the answer would be no because the P&W is standard gauge while the El and all trolley lines, both ex-PTC and ex-Red Arrow, use the [in]famous Pennsylvania gauge of 5' 2.5"

MSHL = Media/Sharon Hill lines