The J.G. Brill Company manufactured

streetcars A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport ar ...

,Young, Andrew D. (1997). ''Veteran & Vintage Transit'', p. 101. St. Louis: Archway Publishing. interurban coaches,

motor bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

es,

trolleybus A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or trol ...

es and railroad cars in the United States for almost ninety years, making it the longest-lasting trolley and

interurban The Interurban (or radial railway in Europe and Canada) is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 ...

manufacturer. At its height, Brill was the largest manufacturer of streetcars and interurban cars in the US and produced more streetcars, interurbans and

gas-electric A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is a type of hybrid vehicle that combines a conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) system with an electric propulsion system (hybrid vehicle drivetrain). The presence of the electric powertrain is intended ...

cars than any other manufacturer, building more than 45,000 streetcars alone. The company was founded by

John George Brill John George Brill (German: ''Johann Georg Brill'') ( Kassel, Germany, May 31, 1817 – September 22, 1888) was a co-founder of J. G. Brill and Company, which, at its height, was the largest manufacturer of streetcars and interurban cars in the U ...

in 1868 in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

, as a

horsecar A horsecar, horse-drawn tram, horse-drawn streetcar (U.S.), or horse-drawn railway (historical), is an animal-powered (usually horse) tram or streetcar. Summary The horse-drawn tram (horsecar) was an early form of public rail transport, w ...

manufacturing firm. Its factory complex was located in south-west Philadelphia at 62nd St and Woodland Avenue, adjacent to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad tracks. Over the years, it absorbed numerous other manufacturers of trolleys and

s, such as Kuhlman in Cleveland and Jewett in Indiana. In 1944, with business diminishing, it merged with the

American Car and Foundry Company ACF Industries, originally the American Car and Foundry Company (abbreviated as ACF), is an American manufacturer of railroad rolling stock. One of its subsidiaries was once (1925–54) a manufacturer of motor coaches and trolley coaches und ...

(ACF) to become ACF-Brill. Although the company ceased production in 1954, some of its interurbans served the

area until the 1980s.

History

Trolleys and interurban cars

In 1868, the Brill company was founded as ''J.G. Brill and Sons''. After James Rawle joined the firm in 1872 it was renamed ''The J.G. Brill Company''. In 1902, Brill bought out the American Car Company; in 1904

G. C. Kuhlman Car Company The G. C. Kuhlman Car Company was a leading American manufacturer of streetcars and interurbans in the early 20th century. Middleton, William D. (1967). ''The Time of the Trolley'', p. 423. Milwaukee: Kalmbach Publishing. . The company was based ...

(Cleveland), then the

John Stephenson Company The John Stephenson Car Company was an American manufacturer of carriages, horsecars, cable cars, and streetcars, based in New York City. It was founded by John Stephenson in 1831. Middleton, William D. (1967). ''The Time of the Trolley'', p. ...

(New Jersey) ; and in 1907

Wason Manufacturing Company The Wason Manufacturing Company was a maker of railway passenger coaches and streetcars during the 19th and early 20th century. The company was founded in 1845 in Springfield, Massachusetts by Charles Wason (1816-1888) and Thomas Wason (1811-18 ...

(Massachusetts). Brill acquired a controlling share of the Danville Car Company in 1908, dissolving it in 1911, then the Canadian railway car builder

Preston Car Company The Preston Car Company was a Canadian manufacturer of streetcars and other railway equipment, founded in 1908. The company was located in the town of Preston, Ontario (now part of the city of Cambridge). Preston sold streetcars to local transpo ...

in 1921, which ceased operating in 1923. With rapid internal growth plus these acquisitions, Brill became the largest rail car manufacturer in the world. As large orders continued to be won, new facilities continued to be added in Philadelphia, including steel forges and cavernous erecting shops. Brill's primary and very large plant was at 62nd and Woodland Ave., adjacent to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad which it used for shipping its products. One particularly large order, received in 1911, was for 1,500 streetcars for the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company. It took two years to build those trolleys, with delivery rates at times exceeding a hundred cars a month. All told, more than 30,000 rail vehicles were produced at the Brill plant. In its best years, a workforce of 3,000 Philadelphians was employed by Brill, with many being skilled laborers and craftsmen.

Gas electric motor cars

Heavy weight full railroad size gas electric cars capable of towing up to two trailers were manufactured using General Electric Company electrical equipment and various engine manufacturers for branch line service with little passenger demand to uphold U.S Post Office contracts requiring reduced crew sizes. The Pennsylvania Railroad was a large purchaser.

Buses

With the rapid growth of paved roads nationally and the explosion in auto use plus the impact of the great Depression, the business of trolley use thus trolley construction collapsed. Attempts by Brill to provide acceptable new designs went nowhere. The last rail cars built by J.G. Brill were 25 streamliner Brillliners for Atlantic City in 1939 and a final 10 trolley PCC competitive Brillliners for Philadelphia's Red Arrow Lines two years later. Production shifted to rubber-tired vehicles. More than 8,000 gasoline- and electric-powered buses (

trolley buses A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or troll ...

) were built in the 1940s. But by the early 1950s, even the bus orders had dried up. In March 1954, the Brill plant was sold to the Penn Fruit Company and a strip mall was built on the eastern end of the site. In 1926,

acquired a controlling interest in what had become the Brill Corporation. The new structure consisted of: * ACF Motors Company, which owned Hall-Scott Motor Car Company (100%) and controlled 90% of Fageol Motors; and * the J.G. Brill Company. In 1944, the two companies merged, forming the ACF-Brill Motors Company. Sebree, Mac; and Ward, Paul (1973). ''Transit's Stepchild: The Trolley Coach'', p. 127. Los Angeles:

Interurbans The Interurban (or radial railway in Europe and Canada) is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 a ...

. LCCN 73-84356. In the same year, ACF-Brill licensed

Canadian Car and Foundry Canadian Car and Foundry (CC&F), also variously known as "Canadian Car & Foundry" or more familiarly as "Can Car", was a manufacturer of buses, railway rolling stock, forestry equipment, and later aircraft for the Canadian market. CC&F history ...

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

to manufacture and sell throughout Canada motor buses and trolley coaches of their design as Canadian Car-Brill. The firm built about 1,100 trolley buses and a few thousand buses under the name. Brill had earlier (in 1908) established a company in France (Cie. J.G. Brill of Gallardon, which was sold to Electroforge in 1935). In 1946,

Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation Convair, previously Consolidated Vultee, was an American aircraft manufacturing company that later expanded into rockets and spacecraft. The company was formed in 1943 by the merger of Consolidated Aircraft and Vultee Aircraft. In 1953, i ...

acquired a controlling interest in ACF-Brill for $7.5 million. Consolidated Vultee was sold the following year to the Nashville Corporation, which in 1951 sold its share to investment firm Allen & Co. In early 1954, the Brill name disappeared when ACF-Brill ceased production and subcontracted its remaining orders. Brill granted licenses to build its vehicles to the

Canadian Car and Foundry Company Canadian Car and Foundry (CC&F), also variously known as "Canadian Car & Foundry" or more familiarly as "Can Car", was a manufacturer of buses, railway rolling stock, forestry equipment, and later aircraft for the Canadian market. CC&F history g ...

( Peter Witt streetcars, trolley buses and

es), and the

South Australian Railways South Australian Railways (SAR) was the statutory corporation through which the Government of South Australia built and operated railways in South Australia from 1854 until March 1978, when its non-urban railways were incorporated into Aust ...

(Model 75 railcars).

Products

Birney A Birney or Birney Safety Car is a type of streetcar that was manufactured in the United States in the 1910s and 1920s. The design was small and light and was intended to be an economical means of providing frequent service at a lower infrastruc ...

safety car – by subsidiary, the American Car Company. *Traditional arch-windowed, all-wood interurban cars. 1890-1920s. *Model 55 (1924–38), Model 65 (1924) and Model 75 (1924–) railcars. Almost 300 were built for US and foreign railroads. A major purchaser was the

, which bought 12 Model 55 power cars plus trailers in 1924, followed in 1928 by 39 Model 75 power cars (all but the first being constructed in South Australia at the

Islington Railway Workshops The Islington Railway Workshops are railway workshops in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia. They were the chief railway workshops of the South Australian Railways, and are still in operation today. *Steel heavy interurban cars built 1920-1930s. The Brill "Center Door" car was typical of suburban trolleys and interurbans built around 1920. These tended to be large, heavy, double-ended cars, with passengers entering and exiting via doors located at the center of the car. Many were rebuilt into one-man cars. *Brill "Master Unit," built 1930s. All-steel; had standard controller stand, capable of 70 mph. 86-100*

Brilliner Brilliner was a tram designed by the J. G. Brill Company. The tram was designed to be a competitor to the successful PCC cars, but the design ended up being a failure for the company, with only several trams built. The tram utilized a clean, stre ...

– Brill's competitor to the PCC (Presidents' Conference Committee) car looked somewhat like the first PCCs. The Brilliner was not successful when compared to the PCC. Underpowered. Few were sold, whereas PCCs were well sold worldwide. Twenty-four built for Atlantic City's Miss America Fleet. *Brill "Bullet" car, 1929–1932. For suburban/interurban use. *Brill diners – Brill sold and designed diners, generally through one of its four subsidiaries, the

. The last one believed to be operating is the Capitol Diner in

Lynn, Massachusetts Lynn is the eighth-largest municipality in Massachusetts and the largest city in Essex County. Situated on the Atlantic Ocean, north of the Boston city line at Suffolk Downs, Lynn is part of Greater Boston's urban inner core. Settled by E ...

, which is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

. * Peter Witt streetcar **Large cars with trailers **Small cars *Numerous models of

es, including T30, T40, 40SMT, 44SMT and, as ACF-Brill, TC44 and T46/TC46 *C-36 city bus *IC-41 intercity bus

Bullet interurban cars

The lines that operated interurban passenger cars recognized in the mid-1920s that they needed faster, quieter, more power-efficient equipment. Until then, the wooden and most of the steel interurban cars were large, sat high, and were heavy. Streetcars were slow, noisy, and clumsy to operate using the motor controller "stand" of the time. Car manufacturers such as

Cincinnati Car Company The Cincinnati Car Company or ''Cincinnati Car Corporation'' was a subsidiary of the Ohio Traction Company. It designed and constructed interurban cars, streetcars (trams) and (in smaller scale) buses. It was founded in 1902 in Cincinnati, Ohio. ...

(who already in 1922 made a lightweight, albeit slow, interurban),

St. Louis Car Company The St. Louis Car Company was a major United States manufacturer of railroad passenger cars, streetcars, interurbans, trolleybuses and locomotives that existed from 1887 to 1974, based in St. Louis, Missouri. History The St. Louis Car Company ...

, Pullman, and Brill worked to design equipment for a better ride at high speed, improved passenger comfort, and reduced power consumption. This particularly involved designing low-level trucks (

bogie A bogie ( ) (in some senses called a truck in North American English) is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transp ...

s) able to handle rough track at speed. Brill, in conjunction with Westinghouse and

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable ene ...

, worked on a new interurban design and on a new streetcar design (the PCC). The interurban design result was the aluminum-and-steel, wind-tunnel-developed, slope-roof "

Bullet A bullet is a kinetic projectile, a component of firearm ammunition that is shot from a gun barrel. Bullets are made of a variety of materials, such as copper, lead, steel, polymer, rubber and even wax. Bullets are made in various shapes and co ...

multiple-unit A multiple-unit train or simply multiple unit (MU) is a self-propelled train composed of one or more carriages joined together, which when coupled to another multiple unit can be controlled by a single driver, with multiple-unit train contro ...

cars, the first of which were purchased in 1931 by the

Philadelphia and Western Railroad The Philadelphia and Western Railroad was a high-speed, third rail-equipped, commuter-hauling interurban electric railroad operating in the western suburbs of the U.S. city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is now SEPTA's Norristown High Speed ...

, a third-rail line running from 69th Street Upper Darby to Norristown in the Philadelphia region. This line still runs as SEPTA's

Norristown High Speed Line The Norristown High Speed Line (NHSL), also called the Purple Line, the P&W, or Route 100,) is a interurban light rapid transit line operated by SEPTA, running between the 69th Street Transportation Center in Upper Darby and the Norristown Tr ...

. The Bullets could attain speeds as high as . They were very successful, and operated until the 1980s, but Brill sold few others. Only the central New York state interurban

Fonda, Johnstown, and Gloversville Railroad The Fonda, Johnstown and Gloversville Railroad (FJ&G) was formerly a 132-mile steam engine and electric interurban railroad that connected its namesake towns in east central New York State to Schenectady, New York. It had a successful and profita ...

ordered Bullets, albeit a single-ended, single-unit "trolley-ized" version. Five were procured in mid-Depression 1932 for passenger business that was rapidly declining. In 1936, the closing FJ&G sold these Bullets to the Bamberger Railroad in Utah, which ran them in high-speed service between Salt Lake City and Ogden until the mid-1950s. Three of the SEPTA Bullet cars are now at the

Seashore Trolley Museum Seashore Trolley Museum, located in Kennebunkport, Maine, United States, is the world's first and largest museum of mass transit vehicles. While the main focus of the collection is trolley cars (trams), it also includes rapid transit trains, ...

; one is at the

Electric City Trolley Museum The Electric City Trolley Museum is a transport museum located in downtown Scranton, Pennsylvania, next to the Steamtown National Historic Site. The museum displays and operates restored trolleys and interurbans on former lines of the Lackawanna a ...

in Scranton; one is at the

Rockhill Trolley Museum The Rockhill Trolley Museum is a museum and heritage railway in Rockhill Furnace, Pennsylvania that collects and restores trolley, interurban, and transit cars. Founded in 1960, the museum operates what has been historically referred to as the Sha ...

in Orbisonia, Pennsylvania; one is at the

National Museum of Transportation The National Museum of Transportation (NMOT) is a private, 42-acre transportation museum in the Kirkwood suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1944, it restores, preserves, and displays a wide variety of vehicles spanning 15 decades of Amer ...

in St. Louis, Missouri; and one is at the

Pennsylvania Trolley Museum The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum is a museum in Washington, Pennsylvania, dedicated to operation and preservation of streetcars and trolleys. The museum primarily contains historic trolleys from Pennsylvania, but their collection includes examples ...

in Washington, Pennsylvania. A Bamberger Bullet is in the Southern California Railway Museum in Perris, California, and another has been preserved by the

Utah State Railroad Museum Union Station, also known as Ogden Union Station, is a train station in Ogden, Utah, at the west end of Historic 25th Street, just south of the Ogden Intermodal Transit Center. Formerly the junction of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific R ...

. A third is a part of a restaurant building in Springville, Utah, but is barely recognizable as a Bullet. Brill also manufactured the Pack Howitzer 75 mm cannon for the U.S. Military during the years between World Wars I and II.

Brill look-alike cars in the 2010s

Since 2015 the

JR Kyushu The , also referred to as , is one of the seven constituent companies of Japan Railways Group (JR Group). It operates intercity rail services within Kyushu, Japan and the JR Kyushu Jet Ferry Beetle hydrofoil service across the Tsushima Str ...

, one of the constituent companies of

Japan Railways Group The Japan Railways Group, more commonly known as the or simply JR, consists of seven for-profit stock companies that took over most of the assets and operations of the government-owned Japanese National Railways (JNR) on April 1, 1987. Mo ...

, has operated the Aru Ressha "sweet train", a deluxe excursion train. It comprises two power cars and two newly built trailer cars based on a luxury Brill car the railway ordered in 1908 but never used. Scale models of the original cars were used to derive the design.

References

Bibliography

* Middleton, William D. ''The Interurban Era'', Kalmbach Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 2000

965 Year 965 ( CMLXV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Arab–Byzantine War: Emperor Nikephoros II conquers the fortress cities of Ta ...

. (Coverage: list of US interurban car manufacturers, pp 416–417; Bullet design, pp 68–70.) * Volkmer, William D. ''Pennsylvania Trolleys in Color'', Morning Sun Books, Scotch Plains, 1998. Vol. 2. . (Coverage: photographs of Brilliners, Bullets and other Brill designs, on Philadelphia and Western line and in shops.) * Hilton, George W. & Due, John F. ''The Electric Interurban Railways in America'',

Stanford University Press Stanford University Press (SUP) is the publishing house of Stanford University. It is one of the oldest academic presses in the United States and the first university press to be established on the West Coast. It was among the presses officially ...

, Stanford, reissue 2000. . (Coverage: development of improved interurban car design.) * Springirth, Kenneth C. ''Suburban Philadelphia Trolleys'', Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, 2007. . (Coverage: development of Bullet design.) * Bradford, Francis H. & Dias, Ric A. ''Hall-Scott: the untold story of a great American engine maker'', SAE International Book Publishing, Warrendale, 2007. .

External links

History of J.G. Brill Company
* Th

including approximately 16,000 photographs, are available for research use at the

Historical Society of Pennsylvania The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a long-established research facility, based in Philadelphia. It is a repository for millions of historic items ranging across rare books, scholarly monographs, family chronicles, maps, press reports and v ...

.
Brill Bullet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brill, J.G., Company Defunct bus manufacturers of the United States Defunct rolling stock manufacturers of the United States Tram manufacturers Trolleybus manufacturers Manufacturing companies based in Philadelphia Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1868 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1954 1868 establishments in Pennsylvania 1954 disestablishments in Pennsylvania Electric vehicle manufacturers of the United States Defunct manufacturing companies based in Pennsylvania