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Matt Cosgro photo, all rights reserved. Used with permission.
In 1930, Brill announced a modified design that could be further adjusted for special requirements. This effort was slightly more successful, with 100 Peter Witt configured units sold to Baltimore's United Railway and Electric Company in 1930, and 90 more to Indianapolis Railways during the years 1932-34. Payments for these new cars drove the Baltimore firm to bankruptcy during the Depression, and a 500 car order for Philadelphia, which would have vindicated the program, failed to materialize in hard times, and a conference of street railway presidents had already begun work on a drastically new car design.
The Baltimore Master Unit Peter Witts were split into three sets including 100 from Brill and 50 from Cincinnati. The last 50, from Brill in 1930, included No. 6144. This final group of cars embodied two special innovations. The Westinghouse Variable Automatic Control System made it possible for the motorman to control the rate of acceleration, as well as the final speed of the car. This car was also equipped with a patented double reduction gear system, the Westinghouse Company's W-N Drive, allowing 22 inch wheels on a modified Brill 177E1X truck. This represented one of the very first departures in traction history from Frank Sprague's original positive drive system. The trucks were built to Baltimore's uniquely wide (5 ft. 4.5 in.) gauge, which made the regauging somewhat more difficult, but the car is now operating with the drive in the original mode, but standard gauge. Car 6144 was donated to Seashore by the Baltimore Transit Company in 1955.
History from Historic Cars: The National Collection at the Seashore Trolley Museum by Ben Minnich
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