As with many transit companies emerging from the depression, the Kansas City Public Service (KCPS) had it own share of financial difficulties in the late thirties. By 1940, when the first PCC cars were ordered, the average KCPS streetcar was 32 years old. In that year, KCPS placed their first order, order #1628, for PCC cars with Saint Louis Car Company (SLCC). This order was for a mere 24 cars, series 701-724, as shown below left. These pre-war air-electrics or "air-cars" were very similar to the 1940 order sent to Philadelphia, one of which is shown, below right.

When they arrived, they went into service on the Troost Line. The restrictions of the World War II and the same financial problems prevented the second order from being let until 1945. This order, SLCC #1650 placed in 1944, had been planned for 100 cars, but was pared back to 75. Cars 725-799 arrived during the summer of 1946 and were placed into service on the Country Club line in Missouri and other lines which crossed into Kansas. A third and final final order, SLCC #1656 for 85 post war cars, was let in 1946. When these cars were delivered in 1947/48, they allowed modern service on most lines.

The President of KCPS at the time, Powell C. Groner, was a dynamic individual who was not afraid to follow his intuition. When we saw the plans for the post war cars, he disliked the standee windows that would be the "trademark" of the post war cars. He told the Transit Research Commission (TRC) that he would have "none of those little apertures" on his cars. So his 160 post war cars were characterized by the lack of standee windows and the larger side windows that resulted.

The initial paint scheme on these cars, as shown on car 513, above left, was heavily influenced both by the paint scheme used in Atlantic City, New Jersey on the Brilliners and the art-deco lines of the air-electric PCC. The final paint scheme, shown above right on car 530 also kept a lot of the same influence. There are some rail fans that consider these 160 cars as the most handsome PCC cars ever built. When street railway service ended in Kansas City, half of these cars found their way in whole on in part to other cities in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Europe.

Forty of the post war cars, all from the initial 1947 order, were sold to the Philadelphia Transportation Company in 1954. They were placed in service on Route 5 until that line was abandoned. They went on to serve Route 50, which passed Independence Hall, for many years. They were all gone by 1981, succumbing to years of neglect by SEPTA. Car 2277, originally KCPS 729 is shown below left. Thirty more of the post-war cars were sold to the Toronto Transportation Commission, where they ran for years on the St Clair, Rogers Road and Earlscourt lines until replaced by Canadian Light Rail Vehicles (CLRV). Toronto Car 4759, shown below center, was originally KCPS 769. Below left, Car 505 is shown in Tampico in 1970, as ten ex-Kansas City post-war PCC cars also went there. Seventy nine other cars of both orders were scrapped but the controls, trucks, motors and other parts were sold to the La Brugeoisie et Nivelles S.A., Bruxelles, Belgium in 1956 for use in construction of cars #7081-7155 for the Societe des Transports Intercommunaux de Bruxelles, Belgium, which were built in 1957-1958. The remaining car, car 795, was placed on exhibition in Swope Park in July 1957.

The longevity of the PCC car is again demonstrated by the fact that eleven of these second-hand Toronto ex-Kansas City cars saw more service in San Francisco during the building of the BART system in the mid-1970s. Another eleven were sent to Philadelphia to replace cars lost in the Woodland Car house fire in 1975.