The Heritage Trolley Survived the Twister.

The El Reno Trolley #: 145 is not only historic; it has also become a pop-culture icon. Its origins start much closer to home. It was built by the J.G. Brill Company in Philadelphia, PA in 1924 and started out serving as Philadelphia and Western Streetcar #: 60. It was the first in a class of 11 cars that became known as, "Stafford Cars", for the branch they most frequently ran on. It served the successor railroad companies until it was retired in 1986, from its last owner, SEPTA. It was sold in 1991 and, since then, has been refurbished to run on propane gas. It now runs a Saturday-only schedule through downtown El Reno, OK. Most recently, it was featured in the movie, "Twisters". I was informed by the woman in the photo (with the blacked out face, for privacy) that she spent four days at the garage while the movie crew measured and documented every detail of the car. The film crew then made a shorter but exact replica of the trolley to use in the movie. In the film, the car is flipped over on its side and is destroyed by the tornado. I was told that, due to the realism of the replica, she received backlash from the residents as to why she would allow the film crew to destroy the streetcar. She said it took months of her reassuring the residents that only a replica was destroyed and not the trolley itself. There are now T-shirts sold in the museum which bear the title of this photo, hence, why I used that line.

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