Trip Report - Branford Electric Railway

This past weekend I was in Connecticut on business, and Saturday evening I was able to pay a brief visit to the Branford Electric Railway Association, aka Shore Line Trolley Museum. BERA is one of the older trolley museums in the country, founded eight years before IRM, and has a collection of electric railway equipment only slightly smaller than ours. I was given a tour of their shop by Jeff Hakner, who is also an IRM member, and got to see what current projects are being worked on. Above, Johnstown Traction 356 is pictured on Branford's unusual above-ground inspection pit, made necessary by the museum's coastal location only a few feet above sea level. This car is having one end rebuilt. Below, a pair of Brill 177 trucks from Korea that are seeing heavy reconstruction work by Branford shop forces is shown. These trucks will go under their Atlanta streetcar. Their volunteers are also doing major structural repair to an 1888 Brooklyn elevated car, and are finishing up an in-house refurbishing of a traction motor for one of their subway cars. Their shop has some enviable facilities including a 600v DC oven for baking armatures, an armature dipping tank, and a Niles wheel lathe.