What is on the site that was occupied by the St. louis Car Company?
Do street cars stil run in St. Louis?
Al W.
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Last time I was at the St Louis Car Company plant, which was quite a while ago, the buildings were being rented out to many small businesses. The transfer table pit had been filled in and was being used as the parking lot.
What runs in St Louis is what the government wants us to call a Light Rail System. It is quite extensive and crosses the river into Illinois. I believe that most of the track is on private right of way. If you are in St Louis go for a ride. It is a nice system.
I recently purchased a St. Louis car Co builders plate from a phila PCC at a train show It would have been interesting to see the site when it was an active car shop.
When I was a teenager-- seven decades ago-- I wrote to the St.Louis car Company
and asked for blue prints of the PCC car and they sent me two sets.
I have never been on a street car in St.Louis but I seen cars on the private ROW
behind houses in the 4100 block od West Bell. Don't know if they were built in
ST.Louis or not
I worked for ACF and their Brillliner is far from being a beauty. Don't have a clue as to where the J.G Brill plant was in Philadelphia.
The REd Lion Budd plant built to make RDC's is gone and the place is country club
No evidence that Budd was ever there can be found.
BTW, I never had this idea before, but I am going to be on the lookout for a
St. Louis CAr Compnay builders plate-- there were two in each subway car.
Al W.
Although I very often rode PCC cars to center city Phila and back I never thought of the
builder plate until I was walking through a train show and saw one at a dealers table what a find! Its brass or bronze painted in PCC green. Al that is awesome that the St Louis car Co sent the copies of the Blue Prints. I would like to buy one or both if you may be interested sin selling. My email is in my profile.
If I remember correctly, the Illinois Central's Highliners used on their electrified suburban service, were the last cars manufactured by St Louis. It's a shame they did not survive the downturn in business, as it would be nice to see a U.S company with that much experience with streetcars thrive in today's light rail boom.
After much research & many (30+) St Louis phone calls to the Baden Suburb......
The boundarys of the St Louis Car Shops (55 acre site) are:
North.... Bittner St
West...... Hall Street (Curved)
South...... Terminal RR Track
East......... Terminal RR Track
In hind site... Not many St Louis people today recall even the name of this
important RR Car Company that closed in 1973... Even less know where it was located.
Current Google satellite views of this impressive site details well this NE St Louis area.
Dennis M from GBay, WI
This got my attention, because St. Louis Car Co. built bodies for gas electrics, too, as, of
course did Brill, mentioned on this thread.
I have found a tremendous amount of information concerning the St. Louis Car Company and its products. Has anyone ever met anyone who actually worked there? When the company closed, the union that represented the workers closed and destroyed all of its membership records.
FYI the 1980 book “PCC: The Car That Fought Back” by Stephen Carlson & Fred Schneider, although focused on the products rather than the manufacturers that built them, has plenty of discussion of the St. Louis Car Company (and their competitor Pullman-Standard) including b&w photos of PCC cars in various stages of assembly in the plant.
Bill
