Connecticut Trolley Museum

The Connecticut Electric Railway Association, Inc. is the owner and operator of The Connecticut Trolley Museum. Founded in October 1940, it is the nation's oldest incorporated organization dedicated to the preservation of the trolley era.

As a non-profit institution, its educational and historical aim is the establishment of a full scale operating street and interurban railroad system with the appropriate accessory equipment and buildings, to recreate an important phase of New England's business and social life from 1890 to 1945.

A three mile round trip streetcar ride with an educational narrative is provided to the museum's visitors during their visit. Dedicated volunteers provide labor for operations, maintenance, and management. The Association owns over 70 pieces of rolling stock dating back to 1869, of which approximately half are housed within five storage barns. The collection consists of passenger and freight street cars, interurban cars, elevated railway cars, service cars, locomotives, passenger and freight railroad cars, and a variety of other rail equipment.

All major buildings and the Museum's center of operations are located on a 17-acre facility adjacent to State Route 140 in East Windsor. The right of way is a 3.2-mile portion of the original Rockville branch of the Hartford and Springfield Street Railway Company. Void of all track, the property was purchased when the organization was formed in 1940. Over the years the volunteers have been able to build not only 1.5 miles of track and the associated overhead wire for power distribution, but all of the yard and storage track, the power substation, the storage barns, and a restoration shop.

Our mission is to provide a historically accurate educational experience of the trolley era, through the interpretation, preservation, restoration and operation of an electric railway.