page_title: Seashore Trolley Museum
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Seashore Trolley Museum / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The former Morrison Hill station of the Portland-Lewiston Interurban at Seashore Trolley Museum in May 2010
context_page_description: The Seashore Trolley Museum, located in Kennebunkport, Maine, United States, is the world's oldest and largest museum of mass transit vehicles. While the main focus of the collection is trolley cars, it also includes rapid transit trains, Interurban cars, trolley buses, and motor buses. The Seashore Trolley Museum is owned and operated by the New England Electric Railway Historical Society. Of the museum's collection of more than 250 vehicles, ten trolley and railroad cars that historically operated in Maine were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, as Maine Trolley Cars.
context_section_description: Theodore F. Santarelli de Brasch was one of the founders of the museum, which was initially operated as the Seashore Electric Railway. He graduated from Harvard University and led the museum until he died in 1987.
  The events that led to the formation of the museum started in 1939, when a group of railfans learned that the Biddeford and Saco Railroad was purchasing motor buses to replace its fleet of trolley cars.  More and more trolley companies were doing this as the technology of buses had developed to the point that they were reliable and economical.
  The railfans decided to find out if they could purchase a trolley to preserve it for posterity.  The railroad was willing to sell them a car (#31, a 12 bench open trolley) for $150.  However, it would have to be moved to another location due to local ordinances that prohibited retired trolleys from being used as houses, even though this was not the railfans' intention.
  A plot of land, part of a farm, was rented on Log Cabin Road in Kennebunkport, adjacent to the right-of-way for the Atlantic Shore Line Railway's Kennebunk-Biddeford route, and the trolley was moved to it.
  At about the same time, another group of railfans purchased a trolley from the Manchester and Nashua Street Railway.  The two groups merged, and the Nashua trolley was brought to the Log Cabin Road site. The group of founders formally incorporated in 1941 as the New England Electric Railway Historical Society.
  World War II caused the museum to be put on hold, as many members served in the armed forces for the duration.  This also brought about a temporary revival of trolley services in many cities, as rubber and gasoline were rationed for the war effort.
  After the war, conversion of trolley lines to buses resumed, and created a period of rapid growth for the museum's collection.
  In the 1950s, a diesel-powered electric generator was used to allow the cars to move under their own power.  Car 31 was moved into a small building so that it could be repaired and restored. The first major expansion occurred in late 1955 and early 1956, when the Society purchased land near the Biddeford city line along U.S. Route 1. In the summer of 1956, the Seashore Electric Railway began passenger operations on weekends over its ¹⁄₄ mile (0.40 km) of track.
  In 1980, ten of the museum's trolley and railroad cars were listed on the National Register of Historic Places (as "Maine Trolley Cars").  These include trolley #31 and other vehicles either built or operated in Maine.  Two cars of the Aroostook Valley Railroad, and two built by the York Utilities Company of Sanford are included in this collection.
  As of 2010, the museum had over 260 vehicles.  While most are from New England and other areas of the United States, trolleys from Canada, Australia, Japan, Germany, Hungary, England, Scotland, Italy, and several other countries are also in the collection. One of the motor buses the museum owns is Biddeford and Saco #31, the bus that replaced trolley #31 in 1939.  The bus was donated to the museum by the bus company. The Seashore Trolley Museum continues to acquire new vehicles for the collection.
  The museum is open from 10 am to 5 pm. From Memorial Day to Columbus Day, it is open daily, and from the first weekend of May through Memorial Day, and from Columbus Day to the last weekend in October, it is open on weekends.
caption: The Morrison Hill Station at the Seashore Trolley Museum
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot SD1000", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2010:05:29 14:33:51", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "2272", "Image XPKeywords": "[80, 0, 111, 0, 114, 0, 116, 0, 108, 0, 97, 0, 110, 0, 100, 0, 32, 0, 66, 0, 105, 0, 107, 0, 101, 0, 32, 0, 84, 0, 114, 0, 105, 0, 112, 0, 0, 0]", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "7696", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6503", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:05:29 14:33:51", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:05:29 14:33:51", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "255/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "29/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3072", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2304", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "3072", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2304", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "7494", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "40960/3", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "2304000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4160"}