| •
| Built
as a single-ended PCC (President's Conference Car) streetcar by St. Louis Car
Company in 1945 for (Washington) DC Transit. |
| •
| Operated
by DC Transit as car 1506 until abandonment of that system in February 1962.
|
| •
| Bought
by Fort Worth's Marvin and Obediah Leonard for their proposed rail shuttle line
from their vast parking lot to their downtown department store's basement station
via a 1,400-foot subway. |
| •
| Rebuilt
as a double-ended car and given a more "modernized" appearance in Fort
Worth — stainless steel siding and blue roof trim. This modification did
not completely conceal its standard PCC design heritage. |
| •
| Old
1506 was renumbered as M&O #4. |
| •
| The
"M&O Subway" opened February 15th, 1963. |
| •
| No.
4 was originally equipped with a pantograph and later with trolley poles. |
| •
| Tandy
Corporation bought the Leonard Brothers out in 1967.
|
| •
| From
1974 to 1977, subway car 4 served as a "Dillard's Metroliner" car after
Dillard's bought the downtown Leonard's store. |
| •
| Prior
to 1977, Tandy began rebuilding the old streetcars. With this rebuilding, all
external traces of Winnie's PCC heritage vanished. The rebuild gave her a boxy,
but more symmetrical appearance. |
| •
| No.
4 served as a Tandy Subway car until the line was abandoned on August 30, 2002. |
| •
| Thanks
to a grant from the Uptown Public Improvement District, MATA was able to purchase
Winnie at a bargain price and thereby attain a ready-to-run double-ended PCC car
for our fleet. |
| •
| In
February 2003, #4 was trucked to Dallas and touched down on MATA tracks at the
end of Cityplace Blvd. |
| •
| We
installed a temporary trolley pole long enough to reach our overhead wire and
drove No. 4 to the car barn under her own power. |
| •
| The
shop crew quickly named her "Winnie," as they thought she resembled
a Winnebago. MATA officially assigned her the number 143. |
| •
| We
rewired the car and improved the air-conditioning. We replaced her florescent
lights with PCC-style lights. |
| •
| MATA
built and installed new doors for street-level boarding. The side-skirting that
concealed her trucks was partially cut away. |
| •
| We
also made some exterior cosmetic changes to make 143 look more like a streetcar
again and gave Winnie a snazzy new paint job. |
| •
| Despite
her boxy appearance, Winnie is a quiet, smooth riding PCC streetcar. |
