The Last CTA Green Hornet

Or, if you prefer, "light-rail";-) The last surviving CTA Green Hornet of a fleet that once numbered 600-plus trundles around a short loop at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union. The Chicago versions of these cars, known as PCC's, were unusual in that they had three sets of doors. Riders entered and paid at the rear, exited at the middle and front. The CTA began phasing out streetcars when it was formed out of the bankrupt Chicago Surface Lines and Chicago Elevated Railway Company in 1947. Cars like these were either scrapped or remade into rapid transit cars, some of which ran on the Ravenswood Brown Line as late as 1992. One of these was involved in a horrible accident at 62nd & State in May of 1950; a speeding Green Hornet hit a gasoline tank truck, which exploded. Riders died in the ensuing fire because they were unable to exit the conductor-operated doors.