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Matt Cosgro photo, all rights reserved. Used with permission.
Although the streamlined PCC car had been developed, New York's vast Third Avenue Railway, which served Manhattan and the Bronx, was to impoverished to afford them because of a politically mandated nickel fare. But, even in the face of threats by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and other politicians to drive "outmoded" streetcars (and elevated railways) out of Manhattan, the company bravely undertook, in its own shops, construction of what would be the last group of conventional cars built in this country. These comprised a fleet of some 335 new or totally reconstructed cars, all of similar appearance, built from 1934 to 1939, an impressive undertaking under the circumstances. The program was halted when the company was finally forced to agree to eliminate streetcars to keep its franchises. After a delay in conversion process due to World War II restrictions against elimination of streetcar operations, the Third Avenue lines were rapidly motorized from 1946 to 1948, although the separately operated system in Yonkers survived until late 1952.
A number of the relatively new cars were sent to the rescue of the ravaged Vienna System under the Marshall Plan for the rebuilding of wartorn Western Europe. They served well on what is today one of the world's largest operating streetcar systems. No. 631, built in 1939 and renumbered 4216 in Vienna, came home to America and Seashore after new cars built in Austria began service in 1980. The move was financed in part by Boston University, which had hoped to use the car in a campus transport improvement project that unfortunately was not consummated. Car 631 has been faithfully and beautifully restored to its New York configuration.
History from Historic Cars: The National Collection at the Seashore Trolley Museum by Ben Minnich
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