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) were built in the 1940s. However, 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, American Car and Foundry Company 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. In the same year, ACF-Brill licensed Canadian Car and Foundry of Montreal 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 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 (Peter Witt streetcars, trolley buses and motor buses), and the South Australian Railways (Model 75 railcars). Products Birney safety car – by subsidiary, the American Car Company. Traditional arch-windowed, all-wood interurban cars. 1890-1920s.