June 2013 Main Line vol5 No4 - Seashore Trolley Museum

! THE !
MAIN LINE
! !
Vol 5
The Monthly Bulletin
No 4
of the New England Electric Railway Historical Society Libraries
June 2013
June has just sailed by as I am writing this heading into the last full week of the month. We
have had a mix of wet and cool and sunny and warm so a little bit for everyone.
Seashore Goings On-
The Museum is now in full
swing on the seven-day a week
schedule and Lowell is also into
its Summer operation.
Speaking of Lowell - the annual
Safety Seminar for all operators
and flag persons operating at
Lowell was held on 8 June
2013 in the Event Center on
the Boott Mill Second floor
above the Trolley Barn. This is
about the only time all of the
Lowell folks are at the same
place at the same time so it
was a great opportunity for a
group photo. My thanks to
Roger Somers, Seashore
Director of Railway Operations,
for supplying a copy of the
photo to The Main Line. I
Annual Lowell Safety Seminar Attendees - 8 June 2013
say this every year and its not to imply that Lowell is invisible but most of us see a lot more of
the Maine campus than Lowell. Lowell is a wonderful operation and setting - if you haven’t
availed yourself of a visit you should do so and if you have been there go again! The Seashore
Lowell team runs STM’s New Orleans Public Service, Inc. car # 966 (Perley-Thomas Car Co. -
constructed 1924) in weekend service integrated with operations of cars with National Park
Service crews.

Seashore Trolley Dog Day -
Back in the Pine Tree State on
the same day as Lowell’s Safety
Seminar was Seashore Trolley
Dog Day - a chance for canine
visitors and their owners to have
the opportunity to ride the rails
together. There were also
demonstrations of specially
trained dogs, dog related
organizations and good food.
There were an amazing number
of dogs and owners who came for
Matt With Peppermint the event. Seashore’s own Matt
" " " " Cosgro had a particular hit on his
" " " " hands with Peppermint.
A Future In Steeplechase?
Creatures Large and Small - Really Large and Really Small
A very interesting day and fun for all involved.
One of the working dogs and his associates visit with Bill Pollman
Railroading Merit Badge Program
I was at Seashore on 22 June 2013 to receive a donation of materials for the Library - more
below on that - and there were several dozen boy scouts working on their railroading merit
badges. Extra cars and crew were on hand to support this effort.
Boy Scouts of America Railroading Merit Badge Program

Boy Scout troops from all over the region come to the Seashore Trolley Museum for a weekend
to learn about the parts of a railroad, from jobs and safety to the infrastructure that allows the
railroad to run. Normally scout troops earn their Railroading Merit Badge individually and
usually with a model railroad. The Museum provides an opportunity for an entire troop to earn
the badge together on an operating railway.
This program has been developed by Museum member Donna Perkins, who is a Merit Badge
Counselor for Troop 275 of East Longmeadow, Massachusetts. She has researched the
connections between the standard Railroading Merit Badge requirements and the requirements
of real railway operations. She has successfully created a program that is both fun and filled
with activity that has sparked the interest of many Boy Scouts and their leaders.
Learn what various freight trains do
Learn about the various parts of a train
Get hands-on experience by working side by side with the crew members of our railway
Learn about the golden era of transportation
Take a ride on a historical streetcar
Tour our museum to learn the history of where streetcars came from and how they're all unique
Some of the fleet on the 22nd-
!
Library Happenings -
We have recently received two generous donations of materials. A long-time Seashore
member Joseph McCarthy of Exeter, NH recently passed away. He had instructed his nephew,
Mr. Peter Strakhen of St. Louis, that his collection should be offered to Seashore. I met with
Mr. Strakhen in Exeter and accepted a number of hard and soft cover electric railway books. In
addition there were a large number of inventory / accession sheets from the late 1990s through
the early 2000s recording both library holdings and rolling stock with ascession numbers etc. It
is my assumption that Mr. McCarthy worked with Librarian George Sanbourn. On the next day,
22 June, I met at Seashore with George Zeiba of Quincy, MA who many will recognize as a
preeminent authority on the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway and also on bus history in
Eastern New England in general. Mr. Zeiba contributed a large number of books to the

collection including many that were not in our holdings. It was great fun to talk with George as
our common memories overlap many of the major and especially minor players in the intercity
bus industry of 60-odd years ago. As George’s wife noted - bus nuts can talk forever.
The Collection -
The several levels of inventorying of the overall New England Electric Railway Historical
Society (NEERHS) collection also continue. Specific materials such as albums and individual
photos continue to be transported to York County Community College (YCCC) for individual
identification, inventory, scanning and packing in protective sleeves, etc. as needed. Additional
movement of materials to the storage containers from both the old library and boxcar are
stalled at the moment as the receipt of the OR Cummings Collection plus the more recent
noted above have overloaded our space. We need to accelerate our processing effort to free
up additional space.
Funding -
The NEERHS has incorporated results of the Feasibility Study into the Strategic Plan. The
Trustees are currently evaluating the new information and as part of revisions to the Strategic
Plan the overall site plan and development goals are being reviewed. The Feasibility Study
identified and recommended a preference for coordinated planning and development for the
museum campus. To that end the Executive Director has established a Site Planning Team as
discussed previously. The NEERHS Development Committee is looking into other near and
longer term grant possibilities for the Library.
Please remember when sending donations for the library to note that it is for Library
Development – Fund 951.
Do You Recognize?
Last Month’s Do You Recognize -
I went a bit afield for the May “Do You Recognize”.
The city, St. Petersburg, Russia (nee Petrograd/Leningrad) was founded by Swedish settlers
who built a fortress there in 1611. Unfortunately for these settlers it was an attractive location
for control of trade and in 1703 the fortress was captured by Tsar Peter the Great of Russia. A
new city was built at the location, partially through the labor of the Swedish prisoners. In
1712/13 the new city became Russia’s capital and, other than a brief interlude from 1728 to
1732, remained the capital until the 1918 revolution.
St. Petersburg, Leningrad at the time, once had the largest tram network in the world,
consisting of about 340 kilometers of unduplicated track into the late 1980s. Street railways
arrived in the 1860s in form of horse-drawn rail carriages. Electrification was experimented
with in 1880 but dropped as the conversion was considered too expensive. In the winter of
1894 electrification was attempted for temporary service with track laid on the adjacent river’s
ice. This resulted in a drawn out legal battle with the horse railway that possessed a monopoly

agreement with the city. In 1902 the monopoly
expired and the city took possession of the
horse system and began to plan electrification.
Finally in 1907 electric trams began service
with final electrification taking until 1922 having
been interrupted by several years of civil war.
Growth was rapid through 1936 when tram
expansion was mostly halted in favor of the
trolley bus.
From 1907 to the late 1960s, the tramway
network operated British-built Brush tram
engines along with various tram designs built
starting in 1933 at a local factory.
A replica of a 1907 Bush tram built in the 1980s pulling
a horsecar replica in a 2012 parade dedicated to the 105th
anniversary of electric trams in the city.
A powered tram and trailer (model LP-33 and
LM-33 built at the Petersburg Tram Mechanical
Factory (PTMF) (Russian: Петербу́ргский
трамва́йно-механи́ческий заво́д (ПТМЗ))
between 1933 and 1939 and operated until 1979
Another locally made product of the tram factory were model LP-49/LM-49 whose production started in 1949
and extended through 1960 with service ending in 1982-83. A total of over 600 units (287 powered and 268
trailers) were produced. The beautiful arch above is the The Moscow Triumphal Gates (1834-38) that were
erected in the memory of the Russian victory in the Russo-Turkish war of 1828.

and yet again the 1949-design LP-49 and LM-49
with motor car and trailer of a 1933 MS-class
design in the rear. There were 865 powered
motor cars and 900 trailers of the 1933 model and
they were in service until 1968.
The arch, the Narva Triumphal Arch,
was erected as a memorial to the war
of 1812. A wooden triumphal arch
designed according to the plan of
famous Italian classical architect
Dzhakomo Quarenghi. Quarenghi also built the Concert Hall pavilion (1782-88), Alexander
Palace in Pushkin (1792-1800) and the Smolny Institute (1806-08) in St. Petersburg. The
Narva Triumphal Arch was specially constructed on the Narva highway to greet the soldiers
who were returning from abroad after their victory over Napoleon. The arch was located
approximately halfway between Ploshchad Stachek and Obvodny Canal. In the 1820's famous
Russian architect Vasily Stasov took Quarenghi's dilapidated wooden arch construction and
redeveloped it while at the same time preserving the essence of Quarenghi's original
composition. A place was selected for Stasov's arch on the Peterhof road close to the bridge
across the Tarakanovka River. The river has since been filled in. On August 26, 1827
celebrating the 15th year anniversary of the Battle of Borodino, ground was broken at the site
of the new arch in the presence of officers, soldiers and veterans of the war of 1812.
However, construction on the new arch essentially began in the 1830's after a long debate
about what material to use for the facade of the new arch. Stasov suggested building the arch
from brick and using sheets of copper for the facade. His idea was innovative in Russian and
Western European construction circles at the time. The copper facade sheets, ornament and
sculpture details from copper and arch decorations were produced at a local factory.
Construction was completed on the arch in the fall of 1833, but it was officially opened one year
later on August 17, 1834.
A fascinating model GM motor service tram and two
model GP trailers - probably carrying cable. There
were 40 of the powered units (numbered 11-50 should
you wonder) and 100 of these trailers built in two
batches during the years 1925 and 1926.

Lastly the giveaway clue was the cruiser Aurora, the oldest active duty warship in the Russian
navy, on display at the St, Petersburg’s
waterfront. The cruiser Aurora, built in St.
Petersburg between 1897 and 1900, took
an active part in the Russo-Japanese War
of 1904-05 and participated in the Tsushima
battle, in which most of Russia's Pacific
fleet was destroyed. After the war the ship
was used for personnel training and, during
the October revolution of 1917, gave the
signal (by firing a blank shot) to storm of the
Winter Palace, which was being used as a
residence by the democratic, but largely
ineffective Provisional Government.
June’s Do You Recognize -
We are back in North America for this
month’s mystery. This electric railway
entity was the operator of a several large
urban streetcar lines in several cities and
interurban lines connecting those cities.
Formed in 1909 through merger of certain
electric holdings of one of the four major
eastern trunk steam railroads (what better
Predecessor lines in one of the urban centers
hint could you ask for?) with further
expansion through a 1912 acquisition of
systems. With the consolidation activity
the local and intercity passenger business
along the steam railroad was virtually
monopolized. This eliminated the concern
One of an order of 50 Peter Witt cars purchased
from the Cincinnati Car Co. (1916)
that the large third-rail system interurbans with their big arched windows and plush seats were
often faster than the steam trains of the parent company.

A home-made locomotive produced by
the company’s shops from GE kit in 1928
Patronage on the streetcar and interurban lines
declined in the 1920s, thanks to autos, buses, and
paved roads — but the electric utilities owned by
the company grew. As a result, in 1928 the steam
road sold its control of the New York State
Railways system to what became a gas and
electric utility.
Timing is everything and shortly after the sale was
completed, the stock market crashed, and on
December 30, 1929, the company was put into
receivership. Afterward the interurban routes were
abandoned along with many unprofitable city and
suburban routes. The electric railway emerged from receivership in 1934, and gradually the
remaining city systems were sold as separate operations with the last city streetcars running in
1941.
#56 built by Cincinnati Car Co. (1916) I know who and where this car but at the moment I don’t
have the manufacturer.
A number of the cars of this system survived its demise and carried on for a local transit
authority until well after WWII. As a closing hint we have two of this railways’ cars in the
collection at Seashore.
Library Committee and Working Groups -
Please Note - The location of the Seashore Library Committee meetings for July 6 and
August 3 is the NPS Visitor’s Center Conference Room at Lowell. Library Committee
Chair Kate Sullivan announced the location.
Please come and join us at the Library Committee meetings, we all look forward to seeing you
and hearing your thoughts and needs. Can’t make the meeting – please drop an email to the
library SeashoreLibrary@ramsdell.com or use the contact link on the Museum’s Internet site.
Committee and Working Group dates have been established through August 2013 (see below).

Committee Meetings (10AM - Noon)
Date
Location
July 6 (Saturday)
August 3 (Saturday)
Later 2013 dates will be
announced
NPS Visitor’s Center Conference Room at Lowell
NPS Visitor’s Center Conference Room at Lowell
Working Groups-
Our full-day working groups have been put on hold during the Summer because scheduling is
very difficult with so many things going on and lots of people away on vacation. However there
is still plenty to do over at YCCC and any member who would like to put in some time should
contact Amber Tatnall at atatnall@yccc.edu.
Just Interesting -
Recently we received a query about the Third Avenue Railway System (TARS) from our friends
at the National Tramway Museum at Crich in the UK. They have TARS #674, a sister car to
Seashore’s #631, in their collection. In the process of doing a little research it occurred to me
that while many of us know that after World War II what is now Seashore’s #631 and 41 similar
cars built by TARS in its shops during 1938/1939 went to Wiener Stadtwerker
Verkehrsbestriebe of Vienna, fewer of
us remember that another 15 went to
the Bombay Electric Supply and
Transport Undertaking of India.
Following are two of those widely
travelled cars in their TARS livery and
their Vienna and Bombay configurations
and liveries.
Here above is TARS #645 posing at 59th Street
and 10th Avenue operating on the 59th Street
Crosstown Line - the date is 5 November 1946.
Left, some years later - date uncertain - is ex-645
complete with pantograph operating as Wiener
Stadtwerker #4201 at its carhouse in Vienna,
Austria. In Vienna these were officially called type
Zs and unofficially they were Amerikaners.

On 15 July 1940 TARS 655 pauses at
Fordham Road, Bronx Park, NY. On
that sunny summer day who would
have guessed that only a decade later
this car would be almost 8,000 miles
and two continents away in an
unbelievably changed world.
Ex-TARS 655 operating in Bombay
(now Mumbai), India as car #34 for the
Bombay Electric Supply and Transport
Undertaking of India. For operation in
Bombay these cars were rebuilt to be
narrower and with a single motor.
Incidentally, I believe that the 15 were
sold to Bombay prior to the Marshall
Plan sale to Vienna.
The second half of this Just Interesting results from my
doing a bit of research to answer a query about the
Biddeford & Saco Railroad. In the process of this
looking around I was perusing a loose leaf binder put
together by one of Seashore’s founders, Charles A.
Brown, as part of documenting the B&SRR at the
closing of trolley service in 1939. Mr. Cunningham
worked on setting up and promoting a “Farewell To The
Biddeford & Saco” series of fan trips scheduled for the
last day of trolley operation - 18 June 1939. Of course
fate intervened at the last moment and the switchover
from trolley to bus was postponed to 6 July. However,
with arrangements in place the “last day” fan trips went
ahead on 18 June.
****************************
The adjacent and following items are from Mr. Brown’s
loose leaf binder. Undated B&SRR Summer Schedule - Perhaps 1939

A photo postcard mailed on 4 June 1939 announcing the fan trips.

The postcard is severely faded and apparently was in 1939 as Mr. Brown included a typed copy.

As noted in the announcement trip #1 was run with car #10, an 18’ box built by JG Brill in 1899.
Trip #2 is announced as to be run with a Birney (OR Cummings notes, in his 1956 ERHS
publication “The Biddeford & Saco Railroad,” that the Birney was #607 a Birney Safety car built
by Wason in 1919). Trip #3 was run with what was to become Seashore’s first car - B&SRR
12-bench open car #31 built by JG Brill in 1900.
_ _ _
The above image is identified as the only known photograph of the first B&SRR electric plow -
Plow #1 - a four wheel nose plow built by the B&SRR in 1892. The plow is being assisted by
three motorized closed horsecars. Four closed horsecars (# 2,4,6,8) were built by J.M. Jones’
Sons of West Troy, NY in 1888 and motorized in 1892.

For last my favorite - something rare and with a bit of mystery. This image is from a quite
degraded photo in Mr. Brown’s album. On the back of the picture is a stamp indicating it had
belonged to G. F. Cunningham of Washington, D.C., yet another founding father of Seashore.
There is also an inscription “Biddeford & Saco RR, Early two-car train after electrification, Saco
Country Club, Saco, Maine.”
Considering Messrs. Brown and Cunningham I am quite certain as to the description on the
photo. However the train appears to be made up of two Bombay roofed cars - one carrying a
pole and the other does not appear have such and apparently a trailer. At electrification three
open horsecars, 11,13 and 15 were motorized and the rest 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 were used as
trailers. The cars in the image appear to have Bombay roofs - unfortunately there seems no
surviving pictures of a B&SRR horsecar except a picture of #1 and it has a monitor roof which
raises a question about the others. All of the initial open horsecars were constructed by J.M.
Jones’ Sons of West Troy, NY in 1888 and the three were motorized in 1892. In that time
period Jones was building lots of Bombay roofed cars. My theory is that the motorized cars
were Bombay roofed as were some number of the trailers. However this is speculation derived
from analysis of what is known rather than “proof.” If anyone can help in confirming or
dispelling this theory please let me know.
Another degraded print that I have squeezed as hard as I can through scanning and
manipulation.

Well, that is the end of various hypotheses for this edition. Best wishes to everyone for a
Happy Fourth of July Holiday!
Let me know your thoughts, suggestions, criticisms, etc. The Main Line exists to share and
exchange information and ideas about your NEERHS Library.
" " " " " " " " " "
Ed Ramsdell, Editor
The Main Line
TheMainLine@ramsdell.com