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Matt Cosgro photo, all rights reserved. Used with permission.
During the second decade of the 20th century, due to increasing costs of labor and power, the firm of Stone & Webster, then operating many streetcar systems throughout the country, assigned Charles O. Birney, an engineer on its staff, the task of designing a standardized car which could be produced in quantity at low cost. It was to have a lighter weight than previous cars, for greater power economy and reduced track wear. The result was the Stone & Webster standard car, introduced in 1910, of which No. 434, built in 1914 for the Dallas Railway & Terminal Company of Texas by the American Car Company of St. Louis, is a rare survivor of hundreds built for use on the Stone & Webster properties. Car 434 was donated to Seashore by Dallas Railway in 1954, and came to Maine on a railroad flatcar. These cars had the improved Brill 19-E maximum traction truck, with pony wheels under the platforms and a roof that was a combination of the older monitor and the arch type soon to become popular. Introduced here for the first time in a large production was a lightweight construction in which the outer steel panels furnish a major part of the structural strength of the body.
History from Historic Cars: The National Collection at the Seashore Trolley Museum by Ben Minnich
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