Presidents Conference Committee (PCC) Streetcar - San Diego Electric Railway (SDERy)

This is a custom painted PCC streetcar painted for the SDERy, commissioned by the San Diego Model Railroad Association.  The car is unlettered but include a set of custom printed decals and an Ad Poster sheet.  The model comes with a detailed instruction sheet describing decal and ad placement.

This model has the Industry Standard NMRA 8 pin Socket set included on the circuit board inside the model, along with 2 power leads for connecting a speaker (not included) if you decide to mount a sound decoder inside this model. There is space near the rear of the model for a speaker, and Con-Cor has provided speaker holes in the rear of the chassis for better sound quality.

You can run your Con-Cor PCC Streetcar off overhead power if you wish. The Trolley Pole on Con-Cor PCC Streetcar is all metal and fully functional. There is a small slide switch under the rear power truck, so you can switch the power circuit to operate from Overhead Power Pick up (ANT), and back again to 2-rail (RAIL) as you so desire.

Prototype History

The Presidents Conference Committee Car, from a Vision to a Reality

In 1930, the Electric Railway Industry desperately moved to revitalize the use of city streets by launching the Electric Railways Presidents Conference Committee upon a comprehensive program of car and equipment research and experimentation.

As a result of three years of work, study and close cooperation between the Committee, staff and representatives of operation companies and manufacturer, a laboratory car evolved, embodying among its numerous features, modern styling, passenger appeal, absence of noise, smoothness, and performance characteristics for surpassing those ever deemed possible to incorporate in an electric railway unit.  The St Louis Car Company (SLCC) was chosen to build and make the car a reality.  The car was known as the Presidents Conference Committee (or “PCC”) car.

The orders came into SLCC for this car from Brooklyn (100 cars), Baltimore (27 cars), Chicago (83 cars), Pittsburgh (101 cars), San Diego (25 cars)and Los Angles (60 cars).

Local San Diego History

The San Diego cars started service in 1937 and continued until the San Diego Electric Railway ended service on April 24, 1949.  At that time, the San Diego Transit System converted to buses through the financial motivation of General Motors Corporation, Standard Oil of California, and Firestone Tire and Rubber Company under the guise of the National City Transportation Corporation (unrelated to National City in San Diego County.)