Secondarily acquired by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority, or SEPTA, it provided 59 years of service before nudged into the museum’s growing collection.
Its largest car is the “Independence Hall” Liberty liner. Spanning 156 feet in length, the permanently-attached, quad-car interurban, designed by the St. Louis Car Company in 1941, features eight, 125-hp articulated traction motors, and served the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad’s North Shore Line along with its identical twin, attaining 90-mph speeds on the windy city-Milwaukee sector. Both were designated “Electroliners.”
Subsequently bought by the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company after the twin city link had been discontinued in 1963, the refurbished interurbans, named “Independence Hall” and “Valley Forge” Liberty Liners, entered service on its relatively short, 14-mile Norristown Line, for whose curves and hills it was less than optimal, although its passenger-popular tavern car sold alcoholic beverages, snacks, and meals during the trip.
Acquired by the Rockhill Trolley Museum after it was offered for sale in 1981, it appears similar, although for larger, then the only rapid transit car in its collection, Philadelphia Subway Number 1009.
Manufactured itself by the J. G. Brill Car Company in 1936, it saw initial deployment on the Delaware River Bridge Commission’s Benjamin Franklin Bridge Line, shuttling passengers between Philadelphia and Camden. Its City of Brotherly Love service was retained with the Broad Street Subway, which subsequently purchased it and operated it until 1984, at which time it was replaced by state-of-the-art Japanese cars and donated to the museum.
Track-plying maintenance vehicles also take their place in the collection. Philadelphia and Western Railroad plow Number 10, for instance, a “sheer plow” produced by the Wason Manufacturing Company in 1915, canted snow to either side of the track. Bought from SEPTA in 1988, it is the last snowplow trolley to have been used by any US transit system, although it is employed by the museum for the same track-clearing purposes.
Actual car maintenance and restoration can be viewed on shop and car barn tours, while six departures offer trolley ride opportunities on the 1.5-mile Shade Gap Branch of the East Broad Top Railroad, with which it closely coordinates, to Blacklog Narrows, passing the remains of the original iron furnaces, which are now reduced to skeletal brick walls and coke oven ruins. A single ticket accesses unlimited rides for the day, which take about an hour for the three-mile round-trip. Like the East Broad Top Railroad itself, which the trolleys usually meet upon return, the Rockhill Trolley Museum, open on weekends between June and October, schedules several seasonal trips, including those highlighting trolley equipment, fall spectaculars, and Pumpkin Patch, Polar Bear Express, and Santa runs. Its gift shop features a rail-related photographic collection.
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