Rhode Island Company

I'm always on the lookout for decent rosters and equipment history paperwork on electric railways about which I don't know much. This past weekend I picked up an old Branford publication which was essentially a roster of the Rhode Island Company, the street railway in Providence. I was able to correct several records in the list, as there are four cars preserved that are ex-Rhode Island Company. The book pointed out that RICo was only the street railway company from 1902 to 1919; after that time it was United Electric Railways while before 1902 it was the Union Railroad and possibly some other predecessor companies. The germane thing is that RICo 61 at Branford, the only pre-1902 car preserved from Providence, was indeed built for Union Railroad.

Of the four preserved Providence cars, two (the aforementioned single-trucker and the "emergency car" pictured above) are at Branford; a snow plow is at Seashore; and as of only a few years ago, a standard double-truck deck-roof car is owned by an antique automobile restorer in Providence. This car, UER 1068, had its body completely restored around 2006-2008 but to my knowledge it has just been sitting at the owner's garage since then. Hopefully the restoration was done correctly (no 2x4 framing, etc); it would be nice to see that car end up at a trolley museum and run again someday.