Eight of SEPTA’s antique trolley cars will be making a return to Route 15 on Sunday morning, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

The restored 1947 trolleys were initially expected to make their return in the fall, but the plan was delayed because SEPTA needed time for inspection, road-testing, and crew training.

The cars have spent more than four years in the shop where they were rebuilt from scratch at a cost of about $250,000 each. 10 more trolleys in various stages of repair are also on the way, and PennDOT has installed new tracks and overhead wires, the Inquirer said.

“We’re finally getting the PCC trolleys back,” SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch said. “It takes a lot of work to get them ready. Each trolley has had 200 miles on the road already, during the ‘burn-in’ period.”

The trolleys’ route has been on hiatus for 12 years. They previously disappeared in the early 1990s as financial problems forced SEPTA to close several trolley lines. The first PCC IIs came to Philadelphia in 1947, the last time trolleys were widespread in the city, the Inquirer said.

The full story is here. For a Youtube slideshow of the trolleys from the 1960s, you can watch this video:

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Photo courtesy of Wikipedia