Trolleys At Night

D.C. Transit 1304, Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine; November 7, 2015

The Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, Maine, boasts one of the largest (if not the largest) vintage streetcar collections in the country. Originally concentrating on New England, the collection has expanded to cover most of the U.S., and there are even some international cars in the collection. Each year the museum hosts a night photo event, coordinated by Joey Kelly, and because of the scope of the collection, seldom are the same cars used two years in a row. This year's event was on November 7, and a whole new set of cars from last year was used for the set-ups.

The scenes began with D.C. Transit No. 1304, the most modern of the cars we would photograph on the evening. The car was built by the St. Louis Car Company in 1941 for operation in Washington, D.C. We started with a scene of passengers boarding the car (above), then moved inside for interior shots (below).

D.C. Transit No. 1304, Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine; November 7, 2015

From Washington, we next moved on to Philadelphia with Lehigh Valley Transit car No. 1030. This car was built by American Car & Foundry for the Indiana Railroad. Converted to a parlor car with plush seating, it eventually found its way to LVT, where it was dubbed the Liberty Bell Limited for express service between Allentown and Norristown, Pa. The illuminated drumhead on the back is a nice touch.

Lehigh Valley Transit No. 1030, Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine; November 7, 2015

We also photographed the front of the car as it posed by the museum's section house. Arundel is the name of the township where the museum resides.

Lehigh Valley Transit No. 1030, Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine; November 7, 2015

Next up for the night was a stop at the museum's Tower C. This tower, built in 1901, served the Boston Elevated until 1938. When it was slated for demolition in 1975, the museum purchased the tower and moved it by barge from Boston to Kennebunkport. For a scene of the tower, a car that passed it many times in regular service was recruited for the shot -- Boston Elevated 01000, built by Wason Manufacturing in 1928.

Boston Elevated 01000, Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine; November 7, 2015

From here we hopped on one of the vintage streetcars and rode to about the midpoint of the museum's trackage to Meserve's Crossing. We paused here to photograph car No. 639 of the Wheeling (W.Va.) Traction Co. No. 639 is a curve-side car built by the Cincinnati Car Co. in 1924.

Wheeling Traction Co. No. 639, Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine; November 7, 2015

Moving further west (equipment-wise), our next subject was Twin Cities Rapid Transit Co. No. 1267 from Minnesota. This car was home-built by TCRT in 1907. The Twin Cities streetcar lines met a rapid demise in the early 1950s -- 400 miles of streetcar trackage was abandoned in only 22 months.

Twin Cities Rapid Transit Co. No 1267, Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine; November 7, 2015

The next target of our cameras hailed from Chicagoland. Chicago, North Shore & Milwaukee No. 755 was built by Standard Steel Car Co. in 1930 and was capable of speeds up to 80 miles per hour.

Twin Cities Rapid Transit Co. No 1267, Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine; November 7, 2015

It was back to New England for the next piece of equipment, an electric locomotive used in freight service. Atlantic Shore Line steeple cab No. 100 was built by Laconia Car Company in 1906. Interestingly, the museum's railroad is located on the old Atlantic Shore Line right-of-way, so this car is actually operating where it historically did in service.

Atlantic Shore Line Railway No. 100, Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine; November 7, 2015

We didn't get a chance to show off Wheeling Traction Co. No. 639 as well as we would have liked at Meserve's Crossing, so we posed it on a grade crossing for a proper portrait.

Wheeling Traction Co. No. 639, Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine; November 7, 2015

Finally, we were back at the museum's visitor's center. For the finale on the evening, we posed two cars together at the trolley loop. Car No. 4387 is a semi-convertible built for the Bay State Street Railway by Laconia Car Co. in 1918; it eventually went to the Boston Elevated. Car No. 5821 is also a semi-convertible (Boston "Type 5"), built by Brill in 1924 for the Boston Elevated. The two Boston Elevated veterans capped off our evening at the museum.

Boston Elevated Nos. 4387 and 5821, Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine; November 7, 2015

Thanks to all the museum volunteers who moved equipment and posed for photos. Thanks to Joey Kelly for all his coordinating efforts. And thanks to Michael T. Burkhart for his assistance with the lighting.

You can purchase prints of the photos in this post here.

Seashore Trolley Museum at Night

A complete set of photos of this trip can be found here.

Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine; November 2, 2013

Last year I had seen some photos taken by Joey Kelly of a night photo session at the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, Maine. I contacted Joey and said if the event was repeated, please let me know. He immediately responded that it would indeed be held again, this time on November 2, 2013. I circled the date on the calendar, and made my way up the Maine coast once the date arrived.

Amtrak; Hartford, Conn.

Timing conspired to force me into making the trip in a quick weekend up and back, so I plotted a route to Maine that would let me pick off a couple of Amtrak shots that I had wanted to do. There is a shot in Hartford, Conn., from the station platform that features the Nutmeg State's capitol building in the background. Unfortunately, the shot is looking straight south, making lighting tricky. I had done the shot with the mid-morning train a few weeks earlier with okay results; this trip would take me through Hartford at lunch time and I could try the midday train. This, as it turns out, did not work out well; the light was extremely harsh and Amtrak was running the shuttle trains between New Haven and Springfield with the cab cars on the north end (the first time I had seen that). Oh, well. . .

Up next was a shot I had scoped out on a rail photography site of the Boston section of the Lake Shore Limited in Worcester, Mass. The shot featured a nice backdrop of old mill buildings. I easily found the location, but in the four years between when the shot was taken and this day, the middle mill building had been demolished, leaving a large gap in the facade. A splash of fall foliage made the shot worth doing, anyhow.

Amtrak; Worcester, Mass.; November 2, 2013

Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine

Arriving in Kennebunkport, I did a few quick daytime shots, then met up with Joey, who was the coordinator for the event. I also met Shawn Duren, who would be doing the lighting. A second flash guy couldn't make it, so I dusted off my 20-year-old Lumedyne flash (which I haven't used in a couple of years; it has been supplanted by my collection of Alien Bees strobes) and joined Shawn in lighting the scenes. If the event had a downside, it was that is was too popular -- 34 photographers showed up, when the expectation was for a dozen at most. This made some of the scenes a touch crowded. Rain that had been predicted for after midnight arrived early, and a one hour rain delay after the first few shots thinned the crowd out.

Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine; November 2, 2013

The first setup was at north end of the museum's trackage, where three complete sets of subway cars (two from New York and one from Boston) were posed (above). Not many museums can field a full set of subway cars, never mind three sets. It was quite impressive, and a bear to light. From there the session moved down to Tower C near the museum's visitor center where the Boston Blue Line subway set was posed (top of this page), followed by a variety of streetcars including the museum's first car and a pair of Connecticut Company cars. The evening finished with a couple of electric freight motors.

Seashore Trolley Museum; Kennebunkport, Maine

Once all the shots were done, the session came to an end around 10:30 p.m. I had initially planned to stay in the Boston area overnight; in fact, my collection is very thin on MBTA photography and I had carefully plotted out a seven-shot itinerary for Sunday that would let me fill in a lot of gaps. Unfortunately, Sunday's weather forecast was not good. Not wanting to spend money for a motel just to get up and drive straight home the next day, I decided to just do the five and a half hour drive back to New Jersey right after the night session broke up. By 11:00 I was on the road and rolled into my driveway at 4:30 a.m. On the way home, my mind kept plotting shots that needed to be done next year at Kennebunkport. And that Boston trip is still near the top of the list for a day of shooting, hopefully soon.