Rare trolley from Knoebels finds new home at museum

Aug. 27—It's a piece of Pennsylvania history through and through.

Built in Philadelphia, a 1906 trolley car that carried coal miners before hosting campers at Knoebels Amusement Resort — where it survived the 1972 Agnes storm — now has a new home at a museum dedicated to preserving the state's rail transit heritage.

The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum (PTM) in Washington, south of Pittsburgh, has acquired the body of Shamokin & Mount Carmel car 33, which for generations was a fixture at Knoebels in Elysburg.

"We've loved having the trolley in our park for guests to enjoy in a variety of ways," said Rick Knoebel, Fourth generation Knoebel family member and co-owner. "We're sad to see this rich piece of history leave Knoebels, but we know it will be in great hands with the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum."

After a cross-Commonwealth journey, car 33 was delivered to PTM by Brownlee Trucking, Inc. on Aug. 16.

"It's in remarkable shape given its age and how long it's been out there," said PTM Executive Director/CEO Scott Becker, who added that the trolley will help represent Pennsylvania's smaller communities in the museum's collection.

"You know, we're really excited because most of the cars we have are from big cities," Becker said.

While Philadelphia and Pittsburgh still operate trolleys — and cars from those areas make up a significant part of the museum's roster — electric railways connected people and places all across the state in the early 20th century, including rural areas.

Car 33 was built by the J.G. Brill Co. of Philadelphia for the Shamokin & Mt. Carmel Electric Railway Co., which served anthracite coal communities in Northumberland County. One of the car's assignments was to shuttle coal miners during shift changes at the mines.

"And that's another story we like to tell, because coal mining is big in our part of the state, and of course it was big in Eastern Pennsylvania," Becker said.

He has been reading up on the history of the line in connection with the new arrival. To use a phrased loved and hated by coal region folks, it was hardscrabble to say the least, which saw strife between the union and management and at least one incident where a masked man tried to hold up a passing trolley.

"It was a tough place," Becker said. "The conductors actually carried pistols."

By the 1930s, however, the Great Depression and the popularity of motor vehicles hit America's trolley companies hard, and many smaller lines, such as the Shamokin & Mount Carmel, abandoned rail operations.

Newer cars that still had some value might be sold to systems that were looking to continue operating, but many were stripped of running gear and the bodies burned, with any salvageable metal separated out at the end.

Car 33 was one of those that met a different fate. In some cases the bodies were sold for use as sheds, chicken coops, cottages (like Wilkes-Barre car 790 that is being restored locally) or diners.

Rick Knoebel said he believes the carbody was sitting in a yard or field in the Shamokin area when his grandfather purchased it around the 1940s to use as a cottage for campers at the family's amusement park, formerly known as Knoebels Grove.

"My dad remembers that he was about nine or so when he saw the trolley on the back of a flatbed truck coming into the park," Knoebel told the Times Leader.

"We had a number of novelty cottages, like a schoolhouse and a covered wagon, which we still have," he added.

At Knoebels the car had large painted letters on the side reading "Toonerville 33," which referred to a popular newspaper cartoon feature by Fontaine Fox called "Toonerville Folks," which ran from 1908 to 1955 and was known for its quirky little country trolley.

The body still sports a sink and toilet from its days as a cabin, according to a release from PTM, which will initially restore and display this car as a cabin to tell the story about how trolley cars lived on after they were no longer used as transit vehicles.

PTM also will work to find replacement mechanical equipment and running gear, which were removed when it became a cabin, so the car can eventually become operational on the museum's trolley line.

After its use as a cabin the car was later moved under a park pavilion for use by a woodcarver — Knoebel said that may have taken place in the 1980s — and that is where it remained until earlier this year, when it was put in storage to make way for a project dear to his heart.

The park needed a space to relocate its sensory room, which is a quiet place for neurodivergent guests, "and the place where the trolley had been was one of the quietest places we could find," said Knoebel. "I have a daughter who has autism, so it was a special thing for me."

Knoebels approached the Electric City Trolley Museum, in Scranton, to ask if they would be interested in the car. ECTM did not have room, but quickly made connections with PTM.

"They asked us if we'd be interested and I said absolutely," Becker said. "So I called Rick Knoebel and he was very nice. I sent him some information and he said 'let me talk to the family.' They really liked what we were doing, and got back to us and said 'yes, we'd love you to have the car.'"

The museum operates a 2-mile long electric railway and has over 50 trolleys — mostly from Pennsylvania, but the collection also includes vehicles from neighboring Ohio as well as a New Orleans car. The fleet ranges from a horse-drawn 19th century Pittsburgh car to streamlined vehicles built after World War II.

Still, specimens like Shamokin & Mount Carmel 33 — early 1900s cars from the heyday of trolleys in America — don't turn up as frequently as they once did, let alone as structurally sound as this car is.

"We knew we had to move on this," Becker said. "So the wheels kind of got into motion pretty fast."

Knoebel said it was bittersweet to see the car leave the park, which has been family operated since 1926, but it was the right move.

"Were we sad? A little bit? Yeah. There was a sense of loss to a certain extent," he said. "But it's going to a place where it can be enjoyed by a new generation, a new audience."

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Pennsylvania Trolley Museum: www.patrolley.org

Knoebels Amusement Resort: www.knoebels.com