The National Capital Trolley Museum was founded in 1959 after the abandonment of streetcar service in the District of Columbia had become a certainty. The museum's mission is to preserve and interpret the history of Washington's electric street railways.
The new Visitor Center evokes street car history in some of the design features of the building and the car houses, taking the visitor back into the times when the building, operation, and maintenance of street car systems occupied a substantial portion of the nation's workforce. The Museum Shop and Admissions Kiosk are located just inside the entrance to the Visitor Center. In addition to books, toys, and t-shirts, visitors can also pay for admission and streetcar rides.
Its Main Hall provides several glimpses back into history, about the street car's influence on various local communities, about the ubiquity of the street car in urban environments as portrayed in early movies, and a working model of street cars, automobiles, and pedestrians in Chevy Chase during the 1930's. The Conduit Hall showcases some of the "hardware" associated with street cars and the generation and transmission of electricity to power them. The Street Car Hall exhibits several different street cars from the region and from Europe.
The Museum also offers three levels of street car service on its demonstration railway (maintenance activities and weather conditions determine the service level provided on a given day). Red is an eight-minute ride that leaves the Main Hall every twenty minutes; White is a 15-minute ride that leaves the Main Hall every thirty minutes; and Blue is a 20-minute ride that leaves the Main Hall every forty minutes. The last train at each level leaves a half hour before the museum closes.
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