When MATA founder Phil Cobb began revitalizing the city’s trolley system in the late 1980s, he visited a private collection in San Francisco and bought Rosie on the spot.
Margaret was purchased in the mid-1990s, when a transit system in Toronto planned to scrap it.
The car known as Betty ran in Dallas in the 1920s, but was eventually sent to the ranch of a Dallas Railway CEO, where his children and grandchildren used it as a playhouse.
The street cars were cobbled together from various countries and across decades.
For example, the car known as Emma came to Dallas from Brussels and has a narrower body, better suited for European streets.
Matilda is much bulkier and ran for six decades in Melbourne, Australia before being shipped to Texas. Rosie was built in Philadelphia in 1909 and then shipped to Portugal, where it ran for 79 years before being bought by a private collector in San Francisco.
Other than upgrading cars with safety features that include extra brakes, lights, and stop signs, MATA claims each car in the fleet is as close to original as possible.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/dallas-trolley-car-barn
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