Michele Bordone
Roberto Cambursano
Luca Giannitti
Turin's answer to the PCC
The Turin Class 3000 streetcars and their look-alikes
Language: English 
150 pages
20,00 € / 15,00 € discounted price for ATTS’ Members
2025, ATTS Publishing company
ISBN 978-88-946249-91
The term PCC, which stands for “Presidents’ Conference Committee”, is a well-known acronym for those distinctly American streetcars sporting a streamlined body and a rounded shape. Beginning from the middle of the thirties of the last century, PCC’s enjoyed an exceptional success throughout the world, either as originals or as copy versions (built under licence or otherwise). Until the post-WW2 period, their innovative technical features sustained the vain hope that streetcars could rise from their deep existential crisis brought about by the growing proliferation of the private car. The truth was that the PCC’s were just the swan song of the first-generation of streetcar, whose fate was to go through a long phase of uncertainty, followed only at the end of the twentieth century by a reversal of fortune which is still underway today. This book, after a short historical and technical review of the PCC streetcars in the USA and in Europe, concentrates on the case history of Turin. It covers the class 3000 cars, delving into their technical specifications and mode of operation within the city network, operated by the local transit authority (first ATM, then GTT) until they were definitively taken out of service in 2003. Specific attention is devoted to the surviving cars, with an account of different rescue initiatives undertaken and restoration projects realised. Six cars currently in running order stand out among them: 3104, 3203, 3279 and 3501 (all in service on historic line 7), theatre-tram 3179 and the peculiar tram-café 3265 (a bit of Turin in the far away city of Santos in Brazil!).