From our trolley collection of postcards, books and maps…
APRIL, 1943
STREET RAILWAYS OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY
By Ray Sawyer and Alfred Eagen. Adams, Mass… The Berkshire Street Railway Company had its humble beginnings when the Hoosuc Valley Street Railway was proposed in 1885. Promoted by the Haines Bros. of Sandy Hill, N. Y., the road secured its charter April 7, 1886. Completed between Adams and Zylonite in August of 1886 the line began operations with five bob-tailed horse cars of the strictly “one-man” variety, passengers placing their fares in a box. In May 1888, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company seeking outlets for its newly developed tractor motor, purchased the Hoosac Valley with the intention of making it an experimental electric railway. The deal was consummated in 1887 and by the spring of 1889 the line had been equipped with 7 electric cars each having a 10 horsepower motor. To furnish power a generating station was built at Zylonite. At this time there were only four electric roads in the country, Washington, DC, Richmond, VA, Ansonia, CT and Crescent Beach, MA, another was in the process of construction between Troy and Albany.

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