History

The Montgomery County Rapid Transit Company was somewhat late in starting trolley service. The company was incorporated in 1902, with trolleys running to Worcester five years later in 1907. Miles from the nearest railroad, this trolley brought convenient transportation to a lightly populated, agricultural landscape.

Click here for a wonderfully descriptive 1908 article about the trolley line that appeared in the Philadelphia Record newspaper, published in an effort to attract investors in 1908.

The Reading Eagle newspaper printed this piece about opening day:

Fireworks at Opening of Trolley Road.

Norristown: The Trooper & Souderton trolley road was opened from Trooper to Center Point, a distance of seven miles. The first car was loaded with officials, newspaper men, a brass band and fireworks and was in charge of George Hoeger, President of the company, and Supt. Frank Roop.

Farmers and their families gathered along the tracks and cheered as the car passed with a pyrotechnic display, such as had never been seen before in the Skippack region. The new line will reach Norristown through a traffic agreement with the Schuylkill Valley Traction Company.

At Skippack the road will branch, one branch going to Souderton and the other to Sumneytown and Pennsburg to connect with the road to Allentown.

Reading Eagle - July 22, 1907

Trolleys finally reached Harleysville in 1912.

Called the "Wogglebug" by locals, it was never a particularly successful trolley line, in part because the line was never completed. Intended to link Norristown with Souderton, about twelve miles of tracks were constructed, with service reaching no farther than Harleysville. Some construction was done north from Harleysville in 1916, but this was never completed. Proposed branches from Skippack to Pennsburg, and from Harlesyville to Kulpsville were never built.

The small towns of Center Point, Skippack and Lederach were simply not populous enough to generate sufficient traffic to make the line profitable. Rumors of imminent abandonment of trolley service began circulating in early 1922. A January 26, 1922 article in the Reading Eagle pointed out that "persons residing along the trolley line would be placed under a serious handicap should the trolley road be discontinued, as they have no other means of reaching Norristown unless they use autos."

This schedule shows that by 1923, after receivership the company name had been changed to Skippack & Perkiomen Transit Company. Less than a dozen round trips were scheduled over the line on weekdays. Click on the schedules to see larger views.

The last trolley car ran on June 7, 1925.

After abandonment, bus service was implemented, as evidenced by this 1926 newspaper article about an accident involving a Skippack & Perkiomen bus. It is not likely that the bus service lasted more than a few years.

BUS RIDERS INJURED BY A WOMAN DRIVER

Norristown, Nov. 18. -- Six passengers were cut and bruised when a motor bus owned by the Skippack and Perkiomen Company collided with an automobile driven by an unknown woman at Airy Street and Haws Avenue while the bus was on the way from Harleysville to Norristown and was within a few blocks of its destination at the Court House. The injured were: Mrs. Emma Fitzebarkes, Norristown; Mary Elizabeth Beadle, Norristown, R. D. 2; Charlotte Owens, Germantown Pike; Florence Fetterman, Worcester; Mrs. R. Harrington, Manayunk; and Miss Hilda Charles, Norristown.

There were 26 passengers in the bus, which was driven by Raymond Beaver, of Lederach. The front was torn off and it was almost over-turned. The woman driver of the other car disappeared. The bus was filled with commuters picked up in the villages between Harleysville and Norristown. Herbert L. Shontz is owner of the service, which replaced the trolley cars abandoned about a year ago. The bus company has offered a reward of $1,000 for the woman driver's arrest.

Reading Eagle, November 18, 1926

Remnants

Click on these recent (2004) photos for larger views:

In Fairview Village:

In Center Point (Worcester):

In Evansburg State Park (east of Skippack):

Conclusion

As development continues to pour more and more automobiles onto suburban roads, traffic congestion wastes more of our time. If we live in or near Worcester, chances are we get around in our cars. There's simply no choice. The better quality-of-life alternative of leaving the car at home (or parked at a station) and riding the trolley to work or school or shopping just doesn't exist. Any more.

Seeing these concrete remnants of a long-lost trolley system might remind us of the choices we've lost.

--Mike Szilagyi