Museum visit: National Capital Trolley Museum

I was on vacation all last week and capped off my trip with a visit to the National Capital Trolley Museum in Wheaton, MD. Many thanks to Eric Madison and Alex Dvoynoy for showing me around the museum! NCTM will soon be moving to a new location perhaps a quarter mile from its current site for a unique reason: its current home is being obliterated by a planned expressway! The lemonade being made out of this lemon is that grants have been obtained to construct a beautiful all-new steel-and-masonry carbarn (already done), visitors center (construction begun) and car repair shop (to be built). The current visitors center (see below right for a photo of one of the displays, in this case a controller that visitors can operate) and carbarn will disappear and all displays and rolling stock will go to the new facilities.

The highlight of my trip was a chance to operate a 1971 PCC car from the Netherlands, shown below left with one of Washington's unusual dispatcher's towers. It was only slightly different than operating the 309!