Song # 12: Electric Road
Hey, did you know there used to be an electric trolley running between the towns of Colrain and Shelburne Falls in Western Massachusetts?
The Shelburne Falls and Colrain Street Railway operated from late 1896 to late 1927 and carried freight and passengers through what was known as “Colrain City” down to Foundry Village, Griswoldville, Lyonsville, Adamsville, Shattuckville, Elm Groove and other hamlets before reaching Shelburne Falls. At the South end of the 7 mile line, at the Buckland station across the Deerfield River from Shelburne Falls, you could connect with the Boston and Maine Railroad and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad.
“In 1927, faced with mounting debt, the SF&C ceased operation and was sold at foreclosure. The line was scrapped in 1928. The only surviving equipment of the SF&C is the 32’9” eight-wheel Combination Baggage-Passenger car #10, manufactured by the Wason company of Springfield, MA in 1896. The car has been fully restored to operating condition and today resides at the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum at the site of the old Buckland depot where it is used for recreational rides in the same freight yard where passengers, apples, mail, milk and other freight were loaded and unloaded one hundred years ago.” (Wikipedia)
I didn’t know about any of this until Piti Theatre was hired a few years ago to do a residency with the 3rd graders at Colrain Central School. Working with a local Colrain historian, Piti Director Jonathan Mirin wrote a beautiful mini-musical about Colrain history featuring songs about the trolley, the local rivers, and children working in the mills.
For more information about Colrain’s “Electric Road” and the rural landscape/society it ran through, check out this interesting article in the Greenfield Recorder.
That must have been one gorgeous train ride!
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Electric Road by Jon Mirin and Carrie Ferguson
Recorded and Mixed by Tommy Byrnes at Sovereignty Music Services
Mastered by Angelo Quaglia at Northfire Music Studio
Hey hey look at them go
They’re gonna make an electric road
Hey hey what do you know
Trolley’s gonna carry all of our loads
Put on the milk and the mail
Put on the apples and head down the trail
It’s a beautiful day
We don’t have to walk we can ride the whole way!
Hey hey when we grow old
Will we still ride the electric road
Hey hey what do you know
Don’t need a car to go faster than slow
Get your family and friends
We’ve got people to see and letters to send
Get on the trolley go to town
Hear the trolley makin’ it’s sound
Ding ding, the conductor rings
Click clack, roll down the track
Ding ding, the conductor rings
Click clack, roll down the track
Get your family and friends
We’ve got people to see and letters to send
Get on the trolley go to town
Hear the trolley makin’ it’s sound
Ding ding, the conductor rings
Click clack, roll down the track
Ding ding, the conductor rings
Click clack, roll down the track
Put on the milk and the mail
Put on the apples and head down the trail
It’s a beautiful day
We don’t have to walk we can ride the whole way!
Hey hey when we grow old
Will we still ride the electric road
Hey hey what do you know
Don’t need a car to go faster than slow
Hey hey when we grow old
Will we still ride the electric road
Hey hey when we grow old
Will we still ride the electric road
Catch and Release 