Founded in October 1940, it is the nation's oldest incorporated organization dedicated to the preservation of the trolley era. As a nonprofit institution, its educational and historical aim is the establishment of a full scale operating street and interurban railroad system with the appropriate accessory equipment and buildings, to recreate an important phase of New England's business and social life from 1890 to 1945. The Association owns over 70 pieces of rolling stock dating back to 1869, consisting of passenger and freight street cars, interurban cars, elevated railway cars, service cars, locomotives, passenger and freight railroad cars, and a variety of other rail equipment.

The right of way is a 3.2-mile portion of the original Rockville branch of the Hartford and Springfield Street Railway Company. Void of all track, the property was purchased when the organization was formed in 1940. The museum's main line extends about 1.5 miles in the Connecticut countryside, and currently ends at Wells Road. The museum's future plans include extending the right of way another 1.5 miles, rebuilding a bridge across the Scantic River, and reconstructing Piney Ridge Park.

Piney Ridge Park was an amusement park, built by the Hartford and Springfield Railway, as a way to generate money, a typical practice of many trolley companies to generate revenues on the weekends. The parks were located in remote scenic locations only accessible by the street railway that constructed the park. Therefore the trolley company would make profits with fares as well as admissions, rides, and concessions. Piney Ridge was created in the early 1910s and later closed in the early 1920s. The park was small compared to other parks created by street railways, but they did have a carousel, a dance hall, baseball field, concession areas, a roller skating rink, and many recreational activities.

Sources