The National Streetcar Museum is a

streetcar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include s ...

museum and

heritage railway A heritage railway or heritage railroad (U.S. 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) ...

located in

Lowell, Massachusetts Lowell () is a city in Massachusetts, United States. Alongside Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, it is one of two traditional county seat, seats of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Middlesex County. With an estimated population of 115,554 in ...

. It is owned by the New England Electric Railway Historical Society, which also operates the

Seashore Trolley Museum Seashore Trolley Museum, located in Kennebunkport, Maine, Kennebunkport, Maine, United States, is the world's first and largest museum of mass transit vehicles. While the main focus of the collection is Tram, trolley cars (trams), it also incl ...

, and is operated as part of the National Park Service's

Lowell National Historical Park Lowell National Historical Park is a National Historical Park of the United States located in Lowell, Massachusetts. Established in 1978 a few years after Lowell Heritage State Park, it is operated by the National Park Service and comprises a ...

History

Lowell, like many other cities in the country, formerly possessed an expansive network of trolleys, which served as the primary method of transit throughout the city. Trolley service in Lowell ended in 1935, and the last of the trolley trackage was removed during World War II. In 1978,

was established in order to preserve the image of the Industrial Revolution in Lowell. In 1984, the Park acquired one closed and two open trolleys, the former of which seats 48 passengers and the latter two of which seat up to 90 passengers. Because the original trolley trackage was removed, the trolleys run along the former

Boston and Maine Railroad The Boston and Maine Railroad was a United States, U.S. Class I railroad in northern New England. It was chartered in 1835, and became part of what was the Pan Am Railways network in 1983 (most of which was purchased by CSX in 2022). At the e ...

tracks.

Route

Lowell National Historical Park Official Map

The trolleys run daily from March to November, connecting the park to the downtown area of the city. Three regular stops are made, as well as several irregular stops upon passenger request.

References

External links

* * Railroad museums in Massachusetts Heritage railroads in Massachusetts Museums in Lowell, Massachusetts Street railway museums in the United States {{Massachusetts-museum-stub