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Although only 31 miles long, Maine's Portland-Lewiston Interurban was almost unique in New england for having been built to high speed standards and quipped with deluxe, well appointed cars, characteristics generally found in the Midwest. The handsome wood cars, built in 1912 by the Laconia Car Company, had railroad roofs, paired windows with upper sections of stained glass, main passenger compartments seating 44 passengers on plush transverse seats and smoking compartments seating eight passengers on longitudinal leather seats. The interiors were finished in mahogany with ebony and holly inlay, and the floors were covered with interlocking rubber tile. The big cars were all names after local flowering plants. Ironically, when the line failed in 1933, one of them, No. 10, the Arbutus, was moved to the estate of the daughter of tone of the line's founders in Camp Ellis, only 15 miles from the museum. The car was immediately maintained for several years, but was later destroyed in a World War II scrap drive
Fortunately the body of No. 14, the Narcissus, was still in use as a summer cottage alongside the old right of way of the Androscoggin & Kennebec Railway in Sabattus, near Lewiston. After some years of negotiation, the car was obtained by Seashore after museum volunteers and area trades people built a new cottage for the owner, using materials largely donated by local building supply businesses. Most of its interior woodwork is in good condition and mechanical and electrical components of the correct type are on hand. A set of Baldwin AA motorized trucks from No. 14 were kindly donated to Seashore in 1965 by the Canadian National Railways of a gesture of international good will, involving the governor of Maine and the premier of Ontario. The trucks came from a scrapped car on Ontario's Oshawa Railway.
History from Historic Cars: The National Collection at the Seashore Trolley Museum by Ben Minnich
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