The Connecticut Trolley Museum, founded in October 1940, is the oldest incorporated

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

dedicated to electric railroading in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The museum is located in

East Windsor, Connecticut East Windsor is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 11,190 at the 2020 census. The town has five villages: Broad Brook, Melrose, Scantic, Warehouse Point and Windsorville. History In 1633, Settlers laid cl ...

and is open to the public April through December. The museum features static and moving displays, and self-guided tours of the state's trolley history. Also located on the same property is the Connecticut Fire Museum which exhibits antique fire apparatus and motor coaches.

Heritage Railroad

The museum operates a 1.5 mile (2.4 km)

heritage railroad A heritage railway or heritage railroad (US usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) i ...

over the original right-of-way of the Hartford and Springfield Street Railway Company's Rockville Branch. The Rockville Branch started at the Main Fish Market, and ran 17.5 miles (28.2 km) to Rockville, Connecticut. The branch line saw factory workers, tourists, and high school students. The interurban cars were more direct, and could hold more people than the few buses of the time. The line also serviced Piney Ridge, an amusement park located just between Broad Brook and East Windsor. Most trolley companies built parks — like Piney Ridge — to create revenue on the one day no one went to work, Sunday. Piney Ridge featured a large pipe organ, a dance floor on trolley springs, and a baseball field. The dance floor with trolley springs allowed people to ease their knees as they danced the night away. The baseball field hosted games to two major players, Babe Ruth, and Lou Gehrig. Unfortunately when the Hartford and Springfield faced financial debts, the company went out of business. Their streetcars were brought to Piney Ridge and scrapped. By 1926, the track was gone, and the Rockville Branch with it. It would be 14 years until the Connecticut Electric Railway Association was formed and began restoring service on the line. Unlimited rides on cars are included in the admission for the day. A minimum of two different cars are run each day. Many times up to three or four cars will be rotated through during the day, giving visitors an opportunity to experience many different types of streetcars and interurbans.

Collection

The museum has a diverse collection of equipment to help tell the story of the trolley era and its impact on society. Most of the equipment is stored in one of four car barns, the Visitor Center, or the car shop. Although, there exists an outdoor storage track that is next to the car shop, it goes quite far into the woods. The Connecticut Trolley Museum has one or more of the following cars operating for the public when the museum is open: * Montreal Tramways sightseeing car 4 * Springfield Terminal combine car 16 *

New Orleans Public Service Entergy New Orleans, formerly New Orleans Public Service Incorporated (NOPSI), is an electric and natural gas utility and former mass transit provider that was based in New Orleans, Louisiana. The various streetcar lines of New Orleans were consoli ...

closed car 836 * Fair Haven and Westville Railroad open air car 355 *

Boston Elevated Railway The Boston Elevated Railway (BERy) was a streetcar and rapid transit railroad operated on, above, and below, the streets of Boston, Massachusetts and surrounding communities. Founded in 1894, it eventually acquired the West End Street Railwa ...

Type 5 car 5645 *

Connecticut Company The Connecticut Company was the primary electric street railway company in the U.S. state of Connecticut, operating both city and rural trolleys and freight service. It was controlled by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (New Haven), ...

closed car 1326 In addition, the museum is currently working on the following cars in the restoration shop: * Connecticut Company

Birney Safety car A Birney or Birney Safety Car is a type of streetcar that was manufactured in the United States in the 1910s and 1920s. The design was small and light and was intended to be an economical means of providing frequent service at a lower infrastruc ...

(double truck) 3001 * Nassau (New York) Electric Railway car 169 * Oshawa Railway steeplecab 18 *Iowa Southern Utilities Co. line car 1 *Northern Ohio Traction & Light Co executive car 1500 *

PCC 3100 *

New Jersey Transit New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit, and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey, along with portions of New York State and Pennsylvania. It operates bu ...

PCC 15 (Cosmetic restoration) The Main Hall of the Visitor Center is set up with an exhibit detailing the progression of the era and its impact on society. The following cars are on display in the Visitor Center: *

Northern Ohio Traction and Light Northern Ohio Traction and Light was an American company. It operated electric interurban rail lines in Ohio. It also provided power for streetlights to Dover, Ohio and Akron, Ohio. It purchased train cars from G. C. Kuhlman Car Co. History The Ak ...

parlor car 1500 *Illinois Terminal PCC 451 * Springfield Electric Railway combine car 10 *

Five Mile Beach Electric Railway 5 is a number, numeral, and glyph. 5, five or number 5 may also refer to: * AD 5, the fifth year of the AD era * 5 BC, the fifth year before the AD era Literature * ''5'' (visual novel), a 2008 visual novel by Ram * ''5'' (comics), an awa ...

car 36 * Ponemah Mills Locomotive 1386 * Shaker Heights Rapid Transit car 1201 * Montreal Tramways car 2056 * Fair Haven and Westville car 154 *For a full list of the collection, go to their website '
here
''.

References

External links

Connecticut Trolley Museum
Website
Connecticut Fire Museum
with photographs of the collections
CT Trolley Museum "Lusa Car Shop Blog"
{{authority control Museums established in 1940 Railroad museums in Connecticut Museums in Hartford County, Connecticut Heritage railroads in Connecticut East Windsor, Connecticut Streetcars in Connecticut Street railway museums in the United States