Trolley takes a detour up Tremont Street in the South End

Yes. The T has a contract currently out-to-bid for an overhaul program that'll refurbish 8 of the 10 Mattapan PCC's for another decade of reliable service by:

• replacing the propulsion systems
• doing corrosion abatement work on the carbodies
• installing winter weather protections so the cars are less a risk to crap out in snow/ice conditions, so the line doesn't have to be bustituted nearly as often in winter
• rolling back misc. wear that's piled up since the last rebuild program 18 years ago.

An outside vendor experienced at trolley repair will come in and do the work onsite at Everett Shops with parts ordered by the T. Bids on the contract don't actually close for a few more weeks but with the recent accident gutting the line's car reserves it's put added urgency on a quick start date for the program, so the T wants the winning bidder to get to work ASAP the second the contract is inked. That's why car 3234, which has been out-of-service for almost 5 years, is moving to Everett right now.

Brookville Corp., a well-established U.S.-based builder, has submitted a bid for the contract and is very likely to win because they have superlative track record on this type of restoration job. Brookville rebuilt fleets of vintage PCC's for San Francisco's F-Market Line (32 cars to-date) and Philadelphia's Route 15 line (18 cars, all of them modded with modern ADA-compliant wheelchair lifts). They've also done brand-new modern LRV's for Dallas, Tampa, Seattle, and Detroit and built a fleet of fully modern but historically-accurate replicas for New Orleans' famous streetcars. They're very good on craftsmanship; probably no one on the planet is better-suited to this job on the Mattapan cars than them.

Severely damaged car 3262 from the collision is going to become a parts donor for the rebuild program then scrapped, since it's been deemed wrecked beyond repair. The other damaged car, 3260, will also be mined for parts for the other 8 cars for expediency's sake...but it may be repairable so they aren't yet planning to scrap it. If the rebuild program on the other 8 cars goes well the T will revisit its options for 3260 at the very end and determine if it's worth attempting a repair. If so, they'd appropriate a little more money for parts and tack it onto the very tail end of the contract as the 9th rebuilt car. That's the best-case scenario, but we won't know for a couple more years if it's in the cards because the 8 undamaged cars are the main priority.