Connecticut Company 1468

The Connecticut Company was formed in 1907 by consolidating operating companies in about eight cities in various parts of the state, including Torrington, Hartford, Middletown, Meriden, New Haven, New London, Norwich and Putnam . In addition, another large operator, the Connecticut Railway and Light Co., serving Stamford, Norwalk, Bridgeport, Ansonia-Derby, New Britain and Waterbury was leased. These fourteen cities formed the basis for thirteen operating divisions, each of which maintained its own roster of cars. In 1915, the company renumbered all of its cars into a single sequence. Cars from a single order assigned to various divisions were kept together numerically, with a few minor exceptions. For that reason, each of Seashore’s Connecticut Co. cars has had two numbers. No. 1468 was part of the large order placed with Osgood-Bradley in 1910 and 1911. This car started out in a 29 car group assigned to Waterbury, and numbered from 129 to 185, odd numbers only. This particular car carried No. 165. The series became 1449 to 1477 in the great renumbering of 1915, and the first 10 cars were rebuilt to closed cars, called Converters, in the 1920s. Most of the remainder, including No. 1468, were moved to New Haven for Yale Bowl service. The Osgood-Bradley cars were noticeably weaker than the earlier cars and developed sags under the heavy Yale Bowl loads. Long after the Connecticut Co. withdrew open cars, such as No. 1468, from regular service, the company used them in New Haven to shuttle football fans between the railroad station and he Yale Bowl on game days. The open cars also continued operating on excursions to the local beaches and on charter service including fan trips. The Yale service (along with the extra space to store the cars at the James Street Car Barn upper level) is, however, the reason these cars were not scrapped in the 1930s or earlier when many other systems scrapped their open cars. The last Yale Bowl open cars ran in the 1947 football season, and all New Haven streetcar service ended in 1948. A number of these open cars, as well as closed cars, were donated to museums. The Connecticut Company donated four open cars (615, 838, 1253 and 1468) and closed car No. 1160 to Seashore in 1948. The museum initially moved (under their own power) two of these cars (1468 & 838) to store them at the newly established Branford Electric Railway Association's museum before movement to Kennebunkport. The others were moved directly to Maine. Seashore also helped to move other open cars to the Connecticut Electric Railway Association in East Windsor CT. After a fire at the museum destroyed No. 1253, Seashore acquired former Connecticut Co. No. 1391, thus maintaining a fleet of four New Haven open cars. No. 1468 was moved to Maine in 1948 and was one of the first of the Connecticut opens to operate at Seashore. One of our long term volunteers (Donald Curry) relates that he learned how to operate a trolley using this car in the early days of the Museum.