Staff Writer

As the modern-day train barrels down the track headed to Boston, half a mile away in the woods of Kennebunkport another track takes visitors back in time.

The Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport is open for the season and celebrating its 70^th anniversary with events all summer long. Kicking off the summer with “Community Appreciation Weekend,” the museum is offering half-price tickets May 23, 24 and 25 for residents of Arundel, Biddeford, Kennebunk, Kennebunkport and Saco and with a special hospitality car running at 1 p.m. each day.   

Mothers accompanied by children were admitted free Sunday to celebrate Mother’s Day, and three generations of mothers – Julie Weissenburger, grandmother Michele Labonte and great-grandmother Dolores Roy of Saco – were treated to a historically informative trip down a three-mile track with Weissenburger’s son, Jack and husband, Michael. Operator Jay McMann and Conductor Clifford Sargent work cooperatively to guide the 1906 trolley cart, originally from Manchester, N.H., down the track, sharing stories along the way.

The care was the second the museum received and is fully restored with its original features including a fare register once used to tally money collected from the conductor and buttons to signify when riders wished to stop. McMann said trolley companies switched to fare boxes after discovering conductors weren’t being completely honest about the number of fares they collected. 

“When they collected a fare they were supposed to hit the register. The money collected was supposed to jive with the register, but it became a one-for-you and two-for-me kind of deal,” he said. 

“The stories and history with each of these cars is just phenomenal,” said museum volunteer Judy Kline.

Volunteers at the museum can share at least one story about cars they have from the earliest form of public transportation.

“This was how people got from point A to point B. It worked well until World War II when automobiles became more affordable and more reliable,” McMann said. 

The Seashore Trolley Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. May 16 and 17, and starting Memorial Day weekend, the museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. For more information, including events scheduled throughout the summer, visit www.trolleymuseum.org. 

Staff writer Emma Bouthillette can be reached at 282-4337 ext. 237.