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Air-Electric PCCs: Final Resting Place

Text by James Bow

In the late 1960s, subway expansion and the TTC's streetcar abandonment policy had rendered a number of Toronto's streetcars surplus. Most of the venerable Peter Witt cars had been retired and scrapped after the opening of the UNIVERSITY subway in February 1963. With the opening of the BLOOR-DANFORTH subway, the TTC's oldest PCCs, the air-electric classes, were next on the chopping block. A number of cars were lucky enough to be sold off to Alexandra, Egypt, and some were considered for Tampico, Mexico. Two lucky models were saved for preservation (4000 and 4138), but only one exists today (4000). The full history of the air-electric PCCs can be found here.

The fate of the rest of the fleet was more grim, however. With no buyers, most air-electric PCCs were bound for the scrapheap. For many, that heap was located in a scrap yard in Oshawa. In May 1969, Richard Glaze paid a visit to this yard and caught these images of these PCCs in their final resting place.


Air Electric Final Resting Place Image Archive

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