Home Page

Visiting
Pilgrim Hall

Calendar 
of Events

Join!

Museum
Shop

The Pilgrim
Story

Thanksgiving

Beyond the
Pilgrim Story

New
Exhibits

Collections

Learning

To Our Friends

Links

Trolley Ho!
1880-1920 was the Age of the Trolley. Cities and towns across America used cars on rails to carry people to work and school. As Americas’ economy changed from rural to urban, more people worked outside of the home in factories and offices. Some towns used horse-drawn cars, while others used cable or electric power to move the cars.

In the 1880s, the nearby city of Taunton had a horse-drawn railway, as did Boston. Plymouth originally planned a horse-drawn system, but chose to experiment with new electric streetcar technology. Plymouth became the second or third American town to have an electric trolley system (Richmond was the first).

In 1889 the Plymouth and Kingston Street Railway had almost four miles of track with five electric cars.  The name "trolley" comes from the pole which "trolls" (hangs) from an overhead electric wire. In 1900 the trolley was absorbed into the Brockton and Plymouth Street Railway, which ran 24 miles from Manomet (south of Plymouth) to Whitman, where people could change for Brockton.

Trolleys were used by commuters to get to factory jobs. The trolley route passed many factories, including the Plymouth Cordage Company in North Plymouth. Children also rode the trolley to school.

		Peak trolley use was in summer, when vacationers took the streetcar or railroad to amusement parks like Mayflower Grove (in Pembroke), Silver Lake Grove (in Kingston) and Nantasket Beach (in Hull).  Spur lines were added to Fresh Pond and Sagamore Beach for vacationers starting in 1916. The end of the line was the Pilgrim Hotel just south of central Plymouth. Tourists could pick up the trolley at the railroad station and take it to the ocean-front hotel.
1905 Commercial Route Survey showing rail lines and trolley lines.

Trolleys were expensive to operate, as not only the cars but the tracks and electric poles and lines had to be maintained. In the winter the tracks had to be cleared by special snow plowing equipment. As cars became popular after World War I, the street railroad system began to suffer. In 1922 the Brockton and Plymouth went into receivership, and was reorganized into the Plymouth and Brockton Street Railway. The company continued to have financial problems, and in 1928 abandoned the street railway for a bus system.