Saturday I decided to take the motorcycle up to the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, Maine. I decided to go Saturday since it was the middle of the July 4th holiday weekend, and traffic was likely to be less. I decided to take the motorcycle to see if I could handle doing a longer trip. The plan was to take I-95 up, in order to get there as soon as possible, and then take Route 1 a little of the way back. It wasn’t the best trip for a motorcycle, but it was long, but not too long. As it happens, they were celebrating their 86th birthday on Saturday.
This was my second trip to Seashore; I’d gone up Labor Day Weekend of 2004 with Mum tagging along. It’s of particular interest to me because a lot of Boston transit history is there; whenever the MBTA retires a fleet, they generally donate a unit or two to the museum. So they have an original 1924 East Boston Rapid transit car, a 1950’s Orange Line train, a 1963 Red Line train, and Tower C and Northampton Station from the Boston Elevated, a Boeing Light Rail Vehicle, as well as a number of restored trolleys from the early part of the 20th Century from all over the country.
The unfortunate part of the situation is that the museum really doesn’t have the resources to properly display or restore or even take care of the their collection. What this means is that a lot of the collection is not on view, and what is there is often left exposed to the elements, and sits there rusting. There’s a definite junkyard feel to the place. They also aren’t able to display their entire collection — I know they had an example of each type of Boston’s PCC fleet, but I didn’t see any of them, for example.
I got up there around 2, just in time to change into sneakers, stash my boots and helmet in the saddlebags, get my ticket and get a ride on New Orleans Public Service car #966, built in 1924. The trolley had both a motorman and a conductor, who punched my ticket. The trolley had been impeccably restored with varnished wooden seats. We rode a ways out, past some of the rolling stock and what looked like some pieces of the Northampton Elevated station, and then changed ends, and headed back. I opted to get off early to walk through the restoration building and the various car barns.
In the restoration building, I saw a trolley that had been completely gutted in the process of restoration. Also, tucked into a corner, was a Boston Elevated Type 5 train.
I looked in all of the car barns. Several of the cars in the buildings were quite old, from the early 20th century, and had been at least cosmetically restored. On the other hand, the Red and Orange Line trains were out in the open, and while I could walk right up to them, they were badly rusted. They also had a Boeing LRV there, although it was in a restricted area so I couldn’t get close. I was amused to see that the LRV’s rollsign was set to A Watertown — the A branch was closed before the LRVs started service. They also had an example of a Canadian Light Rail Vehicle (CLRV) which was a recent addition to their collection. I remember the MBTA trialling the CLRVs briefly on the Green Line when the Boeings proved unreliable.
After touring the grounds, I picked up a couple of items at the museum store, then took a look at the model railway building across the way. It had a huge HO layout, still under construction, wrapping around three walls of the building.



















By this point, it was nearly 4:30, and time to head for home. I stopped for a cup of coffee and a muffin, and decided to take Route 1 back through to York. It really looked like a nice place to visit, and it would be nice to go back up some time when I have the time to poke around a bit.
So how was it as a ride? My back was hurting me off and on through the afternoon, and my butt got very sore. I did find that if I stood up on the pegs a moment to let the blood flow, I felt better. I’m cautiously optimistic that if I ride more, I can possibly do longer trips.