These cars would become the quintessential Portland streetcars, with their wooden omnibus-sided bodies, maximum traction trucks (one wheel larger than the other) and Pay-As-You-Enter vestibules. They saw use throughout the city during the peak years, serving such lines as Bridge Transfer, Broadway, East Ankeny, Irvington, Mississippi Avenue, Montavilla, Mount Tabor, North & South Portland, Rose City Park, St. Johns, Sunnyside,Willamette Heights and 23rd. In other words, they could be found everywhere but on the steepest hills.

There were 145 cars in the series, yet only a single car survives, and not in a museum. After the abandonment of city lines in 1950 No. 611 was saved for the Willamette Valley Electric Railroad Association, which was storing several cars at the Guilds Lake railroad yard in NW Portland.  When Guilds Lake was cleaned up for development soon thereafter, 611 was removed to a farmer's field near Molalla.  In 1957 Dr. Larry Griffith paid to have the deteriorating car moved to Glenwood, site of the Oregon Electric Railroad Historical Society's new Trolley Park.  The car was stored there for 15 years before Manager Paul Class decided it could not be restored to operating condition and remodeled it for use in the Spaghetti Factory Restaurant in Newport Beach, California instead (Class also installed Birney car #800 in the Spaghetti Factory in Old Town Portland).  One other car similar to 611, standard gauge No. 1351, survives as a novelty shop in Lincoln City, Oregon.

Retirement: 1936: 557, 601, 631, 636, 637, 640, 643, 645, 646, 648 & 649.
1937: 581, 582, 600, 602, 603, 606, 609, 625, 628, 629, 632-35, 638, 639, 641, 642, 644, 647, & 662.  1938: 526, 544, 552, 556, & 567.
1939: 541, 542, 545, 566, 616, 618-23, 626, 627 & 630.
1940: 521, 529, 562, 569-71, 576, 578-80, 583-90, 597, 598, 661 & 663-65.  1941: 547  1943: 546  1945: 528, 560 & 568.  1946:  537 & 575.  1947: 593  1948: 522, 525, 527, 530, 532-36, 539, 540, 543, 548, 549, 551, 554, 558, 563, 564, 572-74, 594, 599, 615 & 651-59.
1950:  523, 524, 531, 538, 550, 553, 555, 559, 561, 565, 591, 592, 595, 596, 611, 650 & 660.

Technical Notes: 

No. 525 had two Westinghouse 316 motors installed at some point.  These were removed in 1927 and replaced with the same GE-218's as the others.

Cars 626-665 had two GE K-11R controllers (instead of K-11H).

The 1922 field check showed snow scrappers on all cars except for 527, 529, 531-33, 535, 536, 538, 554 and 559-60.

Car 600 was unpopular with crews because of defective brakes.  They claimed that a slight application would "big hole" the car, resulting in complaints against the operator.

Cars in this series were converted to one-man operation during 1927-29.  To help win public acceptance of this effort No. 615 was rebuilt as an experimental one-man "safety car" in 1929.  Old seats, doors, fixtures and bulkheads were junked and the car's exterior was repainted.  New adjustable seats were recycled from Willamette Valley Southern car No. 13.  The $3,173 cost of rebuilding this showcase car was $1,000 more than the actual value of the vehicle, but in may have been written off as a public relations expense.

No's 650-59 received secondhand cane cross-type seats in 1928, which gave them a mix of cross and longitudinal seating.  They were then referred to as "modernized" cars in company records.

Most of these cars received Nelson safety fenders in 1912, but several were listed with (or replaced with?) the Portland Ry. type as follows: 1929: 561-65 & 569.  1930: 522, 566-68, 570 & 571. 1931: 521