The J.G. Brill Collection of 4,515 original photographs (no negatives) has been transferred on long-term deposit to the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in Arden, Pa. This collection consists primarily of builder's images of Brill subsidiary companies including Kuhlman, Danville, Wason and Canadian Brill; it does not include any Brill holdings from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The collection was acquired by our institution from the New York Chapter NRHS around 1992; previously it may have been culled from the Brill holdings at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and deaccessioned in the 1940s. It was reinventoried and rehoused in acid-free negative envelopes by RR Museum volunteers from 1998-2000. An item-level finding aid was created for the collection last year. Since the RR Museum's primary mission is to tell the story of railroading in Pennsylvania (as opposed to traction and trolley systems), we felt it was in our best interest to place the collection with an institution devoted to preserving traction history in Pennsylvania and one which could provide ready access and archival facilities to care for such a collection. We are very pleased that Arden will be caring for the collection, and please direct all future research queries to them.

K.R. Bell
Railroad Museum of PA

http://rrmuseumpa.org
c-kbell@state.pa.us

The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum thanks the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania State Archives for putting this very important traction photo collection on deposit in our archives. We also thank the RR Museum of Pennsylvania staff for providing it to us in excellent condtion, fully sorted and cataloged. Our archives staff plans to have this collection accessible for photo reproductions after June 30, 2002. Please direct questions to J.G. Brill Collection,
Pennsylvania Trolley Museum Archives, One Museum Road, Washington, PA 15301-6133. Eventually, it is planned to have a special web page for this collection on the Museum's website.

The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum is located near Washington, PA, about 30 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. It has a collection of 45 streetcars, interurbans, and trolley freight equipment, primarilly from the Keystone State. It is the only trolley museum built to Pennsylvania Broad Gauge (5ft 2 1/2inches)and operates a two mile demonstration trolley line. The Museum is in the midst of an ambitious three phased development plan that will eventually house its entire trolley collection and provide many more exhibits for its visitors. The Museum is open weekends 11-5 April-December and 7 days a week Memorial Day-Labor Day. For further information call 724-228-9256 or toll free at 877-728-7655. Email at ptm@pa-trolley.org.

Pennsylvania Trolley Museum
ptm@pa-trolley.org

Scott,

That is asignificant step forward. We at the Western Railway Museum will be in contact. There are a number of those builders photos that are of interest to us. American car was the builder of several of our cars.

TM

ted_miles@NPS.gov