Freight Motor Car No. 5, a wood-construction
trolley car built in 1920, was retired in 1955 after serving
the Thurmont-Frederick and the Frederick-Hagerstown routes
as both a passenger and freight car.
The current owners of the trolley, Rockhill
Trolley Museum in south central Pennsylvania, contacted
Richard Benjamin, president of the Hagerstown and Frederick
Railway Historical Society, about taking the trolley.
Benjamin, in turn, contacted the town of Thurmont’s
Historical Society to see if they wanted the trolley back.
Historical Society president John Kinnaird
said in an interview with The Dispatch that the
trolley no longer has the undercarriage but the car itself
is intact.
No. 5 is a motor freight car about 45
feet long. In its day it had an engine that could pull
other cars behind it. It ran on the Frederick rail lines
from Thurmont to Lewistown and Yellow Springs into Frederick
by Rosemont Avenue with a stop at Hood College, Kinnaird
said.
The trolley stopped carrying passengers
around 1952 and ran freight for the next three years until
it was put out of service. It then spent many years serving
as a farm shed before going to the museum.
Renovations will be needed, but it’s
too soon to tell what will need to be done or how much
that will cost, Kinnaird said. The immediate concern is
getting it to Thurmont and that is being arranged by Benjamin.
Benjamin, who also owns the Frederick
store Hobbytown USA, said he plans to finance the move
of the trolley to Thurmont, to the tune of about $5,000.
“We wanted to preserve it and couldn’t afford
to (restore) it,” he said.
Kinnaird is grateful for Benjamin’s
passion for these vehicles and his work to get the car
back to Thurmont. And he is already toying with a number
of ideas for the trolley car.
Placing it at the entrance to the carnival
grounds would make a great location for many activities
in town that are located on the grounds, but there are
other possibilities, he said.
“It will be displayed in Thurmont,
but what we do with it is the question. It could be a
train museum, art gallery, used for meetings … We
could make it a useable item that will fit hand in glove
with our Main Street project,” Kinnaird said.
Thurmont was recently awarded the Main
Street designation by the State of Maryland. It is a designation
held by only three other communities in the county and
about 18 total in the state.
Towns accepted into the program are eligible
for multiple services designed to bolster business in
the community, maintain the integrity of the historic
and downtown area, as well as promote tourism.
