Appendix III: Resources

Beyond this study, there are a number of other useful places to go for information on streetcars. The American Public Transportation Association (APTA), the underwriter of this study, has established a Heritage Trolley Task Force. The task force is in turn hosted by America's oldest streetcar museum, the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, Maine. APTA's Heritage Trolley Task Force has a web site, which you can locate at www.heritagetrolley.org. You may contact its Chairman, Mr. Jim Graebner (who is also a consultant on streetcars, and a good one), at (303) 628-5510. And you may reach the SeashoreTrolley Museum at (207) 967-2712.

Streetcar museums are often an excellent source of expertise. While museum operations differ somewhat from the operation of a regular streetcar line, museums have the great virtue of knowing how to do things cheaply (because they usually don't have very much money). They can also be helpful in locating (and sometimes providing) Vintage streetcars that used to run in your city, or models or plans from which new streetcars can be built to the old designs. Often, they are also sources for volunteers. Most states have at least one streetcar museum. A good guide to the streetcar museums of North America is Veteran & Vintage Transit by Andrew D. Young (Archway Publishing, St. Louis, MO, 1997).