Gomaco Trolley Company
| Division, Gomaco Corporation | |
| Industry | Transportation |
| Founded | 1982 |
| Headquarters | Ida Grove, Iowa, United States |
| Products | Streetcars |
| Services | Streetcar restoration/rebuilding |
| Website | www.gomacotrolley.com |
The Gomaco Trolley Company is a manufacturer of vintage-style streetcars (alternatively called trolleys in the USA, or trams in much of the world), located in Ida Grove, Iowa, United States. The company has supplied replica-vintage streetcars to several transit systems in the USA, and has also restored and rebuilt authentic vintage streetcars for some systems.
Established in 1982, Gomaco Trolley Company is a division of Gomaco Corporation, a major builder of equipment used in concrete paving. Founded in 1965 by Harold Godbersen, the parent company's name, "Gomaco", is a contraction of the words Godbersen Manufacturing Company.
Gomaco Corporation first branched out into the field of trolley manufacturing in 1982, when it was the successful bidder on a contract to supply two reproductions of "turn-of-the-century"-era trolleys/streetcars for operation on a new line due to be built at the Lowell National Historical Park, in Lowell, Massachusetts. The two cars (1601–2) were replicas of 15-bench, open-sided streetcars built in 1902 by the J. G. Brill Company for the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway. The construction was all-new, except for their trucks, which Gomaco obtained from retired Melbourne, Australia streetcars and refurbished and adapted for use with the cars it was building for Lowell. These first two Gomaco streetcars were delivered in 1983/84. The Lowell streetcar line opened in May 1984, and was well-received, leading to the historical park's placing another order with Gomaco later, for one enclosed car of similar faux-vintage style, which was delivered in 1987 (car 4131).
In the mid-1980s, Gomaco built two more 15-bench, open-style cars. Car 1976 was a conventional streetcar with a trolley pole on its roof, while car 1977 was fitted with an on-board generator, so that it could be operated on existing tracks, on a trial basis, without need for overhead trolley wires. The two cars were demonstrators which the company loaned to a few different operators. Ultimately, car 1977 was acquired by the Platte Valley Trolley, in Denver, Colorado, and—many years later—car 1976 by HART for the 2002-opened TECO Line Streetcar System in Tampa, Florida.
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