How the promising PCC car was prematurely derailed: The U.S. electric streetcar industry failed to reap the rewards of its 1930s research, aimed at producing a revolutionary trolley car

Oct. 1, 1936, dawned cool and damp in New York City, another unmemorable day in the Great Depression, except for one event that at first glance appeared to be routine. Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia snipped a blue ribbon strung across a section of trolley tracks at the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn Bridge to mark the start of service by a new generation of streetcars - the PCC car.