Disaster struck the already hard-pressed SEPTA (Philadelphia) system when 60 PCCs were lost in the Woodland Depot fire in October 1975. This led to immediate negotiations with TTC which concluded a sale of 30 PCCs in March 1976. These comprised all but two of the remaining A-14s, nos. 4750-4751, 4756, 4759, 4761-4762, 4765, 4767, 4772-4773 and 4779, and 19 of the A-13s, nos. 4706-4707, 4709-4711, 4718, 4724, 4726-4732, 4734, 4740-4741, 4744 and 4746. The terms were far more lucrative than the San Francisco sale three years previously, SEPTA having to pay $12,500 each for units already due for retirement plus another $15,000 for each of the 15 cars TTC would regauge before they were shipped to Philadelphia. The first cars were shipped on 15 March 1976: nos. 4731, 4750 and 4762. So desperate were their new owners that these three cars were pressed into service within days of their arrival in Philadelphia on the 25th. Three cars were to be loaded every other week thereafter until November of that year, using special flat cars with dummy trucks that had to be cycled back and forth between the two cities.