The picture accompanying the month of January, 2011 in the Red Cars Yellow Cars - The Streetcars of Los Angeles calendar shows a PCC chartered by a railfan group. I have seen many pictures of chartered streetcars and they always seem to be associated with the streetcar's imminent removal. Did these charters take place throughout the streetcar era, or did they begin near the end when it became obvious that streetcars were going to disappear altogether?

Tim
Detroit, MI

In the Baltimore area the streetcar charters were held throughout the streetcar era, with emphasis on riding over those routes that were nearing the end of their existence. Fortunately, in Baltimore there were numerous railfan photographers taking both still photos and movies of the events. Many of these photos have found their way into the books documenting the Baltimore streetcar era.

The Bay Area Electric Railroad Association (parent organization of WRM) charters streetcars (and now also LRV's) occasionally. We have had excursions in San Francisco, San Jose, and Sacramento. Our most recent charter in San Franccisco was to celebrate WRM's fiftieth anniversary, and required three cars.

In contrast to the "farewell" runs mentioned in previous posts, the Sacramento charter was the first revenue operation over the line extension to Sunset Station.

Also our Chairman chartered a car in San Francisco to celebrate his birthday a couple of years ago.

From the early 1940s on, Pennsylvania Trolley Museum predecessor Pittsburgh Electric Railway Club operated trolley fantrips several times a year. These were often marathons that ran from early morning to late afternoon and covered up to two dozen different routes. Using seldom operated trackage and unusual routings was a hallmark of these trips. The fun lasted into the early Port Authority days and finally came to an end with the final PCC trip of Sept. 5, 1999.

Thus there exist countless photos generated by these trips. But there was almost always a clue that a given photo was a fantrip and not a regular car. This was most obvious on blind side views of PCCs. Since these trips often covered the trackage of several different carbarns, it was usually necessary to change destination sign rolls in the course of the trip. The extra signs were universally stacked behind the operator's position and visible in the first window behind the operator. The other clue of course was the "what's going on here?" dumb stare of uninformed bystanders.......

We are still chartering trolleys in Philadelphia, as late as New Year's Eve, 2010. The system is still running.