Seashore Trolley Museum

The Seashore Trolley Museum, located in Kennebunkport, Maine, United States, is the world's oldest and largest museum of mass transit vehicles. While the main focus of the collection is trolley cars (trams), it also includes rapid transit trains, trolley buses, and motor buses. The Seashore Trolley Museum is owned and operated by the New England Electric Railway Historical Society (NEERHS), Of the museum's collection of more than 250 vehicles, 10 trolley and railroad cars that historically operated in Maine were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, as Maine Trolley Cars.

The events that led to the formation of the museum started in 1939, when a group of railfans learned that the Biddeford and Saco Railroad was purchasing motor buses to replace its fleet of trolley cars. More and more trolley companies were doing this as the technology of buses had developed to the point that they were reliable and economical.

The rail fans decided to find out if they could purchase a trolley to preserve it for posterity. The railroad was willing to sell them a car (#31, a 12 bench open trolley) for $150. However, it would have to be moved to another location due to local ordinances that prohibited retired trolleys from being used as houses, even though this was not the rail fans' intention.

Theodore Santarelli was one of the founders and the true father of the museum. He graduated from Harvard University and led the museum until he died in 1987.

A plot of land, part of a farm, was rented on Log Cabin Road in Kennebunkport, and the trolley was moved to it.

At about the same time, another group of rail fans purchased a trolley from the Manchester and Nashua Street Railway. The two groups merged, and the Nashua trolley was brought to the Log Cabin Road site.

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