A Picked-Over Pack of PCCs

Ralph Cantos Collection

In this beautiful view taken from a private airplane, the camera looks down on Vernon Yard in the summer of 1964. Twenty-five air-electric PCCs have been removed from Vernon Yard for shipment to Chile, necessitating those in charge to move some of the PCCs from spots where they had been parked for storage on March 31, 1963. About 135 cars remained at this time.

From Ralph Cantos:

Soon, 133 of the cars will be shipped of to Cairo, 2 cars (the #3048 and the #3072) will be sold to private parties, one car (#3084) will be stripped for parts, as it had sustained moderate front end damage. The picked-over shell of #3084 was moved to OERM where it remains today as a storage shed. The last PCC to arrive at OERM for preservation was #3165. Recently, the #3072 came home to roost at Perris with sister cars #3001 / #3100 and the #3165. Ironically, the #3072 and the #3165 were the last two PCCs to be repainted into the LAMTA green paint job. The #3072 left the paint shop in February of 1962 and the #3165 in April of 1962 , and was “retired” just 11 months later. The remaining 133 beautiful, well maintained PCCs faced a bleak future in Cairo, Egypt. Once in Cairo, the cars were operated as battering rams by a bunch of suicidal “motor-morons” whose idea of the best way to stop a PCC was to ram it into anything that was stopped in front of it, more often then not , the rear end of another of LA’s once beautiful PCCs . Within just a few years of “service” in Cairo , the once immaculate cars looked as though they had been through a demolition derby.

Ralph Cantos Collection