PCC era has passed...

[Derrick J Brashear]

With the final public runs last night, and the chartered trip today, the
PCC era has come to an end on the lines of the Port Authority. 

My brother and I wrote 4008 in regular service on Saturday afternoon, and
I returned Sunday with my wife for the fantrip.

Three 4000 series PCC streetcars, remanufactured using some components
from older 1949-vintage 1700 series cars, did the honors. The cars were
4008, 4009 and 4004 respectively. By the luck of the draw, my wife and I
rode 4004, giving us the privilege of being on the last car. Our operator
(*) was retiring, and since he wanted to be the last to run through Drake
loop, when 4008 was run north off the Drake line, turned, and returned for
a meet photo-op, it then looped, and passed the 4009 and 4004 by taking
the outbound siding track inbound. 

*(I got the names of all 3 operators, but can't find the paper now; Any
of you others ride and get their names?)

The trip began with us waiting on the outbound platform at South Hills
Village, where we got shots of the cars coming out of the yard and headed
up to Washington Junction. The cars looped there and came back to load.
First car out of the yard was 4008, whose destination sign read:
"FAREWELL PCC's" (The apostrophe isn't mine, sorry:-)
It was followed by 4009: "GOODBYE FRIENDS"
Last was 4004: "A PCC FINALE"

As the cars left, crews from 2 local stations short footage from the other
(inbound) platform.

The cars shortly returned, and we loaded up. My wife and I grabbed two
seats in the back of 4004, which made the rear window available for some
shots later.

We headed into the yard, unloaded, and took pictures. A side note here:
Port Authority personnel were friendly and very accomodating. This sort of
thing doesn't often happen around here, at least not anymore, but they
handled it like pros. That several museum members work for the Authority
probably helped, but I was quite impressed.

We then headed out, travelling down the lines to Library and Drake
respectively with stops for photo-ops. Those who had been on fantrips
before got somewhat frustrated by those new to it which kept popping out
of and from behind cars into shots, and who, as one said, "didn't know
what a photo line was". Still, no fist-fights broke out, and hopefully
we're all still friends:-) I tried to stay back and low, but probably
managed to get into a few shots. 

At Simmons loop, 4008 pulled through and headed back inbound about 150
feet. 4009 and 4004 unloaded, backed up, crossed over and went the wrong
way through the loop(!), 4004 first. 4004 backed into the siding, 4009
pulled up beside it on the loop, and 4008 backed up, making for a good
shot of all 3 together. The Port Authority personnel also gathered for a
shot in front of 4008 and 4004 (I did manage to get one shot.)

At Drake loop, we unloaded and visited (swamped is more like it) the
adjacent Sunoco station for a quick snack, then headed back out for the
aforementioned meet. 

After that, we did the Library and then the Drake lines "non-stop" (being
the last car we got stopped for signals several times) before heading back
to South Hills Village to wrap things up. My wife had the priviledge of
being the last passenger (other than the operator's wife, who stayed on
the car back to the shops) off the last car at the Village, which she was
quite proud of.

I snapped off 224 pictures from Saturday and Sunday of various activities,
which I'll be uploading Tuesday from work (since it's like 14mb of
pictures). My wife has promised to do a write-up, and if I can find an
easy way to generate thumbnail images, I'll do that as well.

I'm going to miss the PCCs; Speeding along the Library line as the car
bucked and swayed reminded me of my high school days, when I would buy a
weekend all day family fare for $4.50 and ride the whole system. I failed
to find any pictures, but did find some prints of our tour of the
Operations Control Center at South Hills Village from 1995. Anyone have
the capability to and want to scan some prints? ;-)

-D