A Stony Creek Trolley Ride at Low Tide

An exhibit ​“End of the Line: Stony Creek Trolleys,” featuring a hand-carved diorama sculptured by former First Selectman Unk DaRos, has been drawing folks from far and wide to this coastline community, a place unique in history and continuity.

DaRos, a Stony Creek mason who served a total of 12 years as the town’s first selectman, was asked to undertake the diorama, in which he put together a scene of a trolley ride in 1927, a scene with three-dimensional figures. He wove the scene together in a miniature replica so that folks could follow the trolley ride.

The diorama is on view at the Stony Creek Museum, the former St. Therese Church, located at 84 Thimble Islands Road, not far from the pink granite quarries and the Thimble Islands, all historical destination points and all a big part of the museum, which celebrates its fifth anniversary this year.

The museum is open weekends, Friday through Sunday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free. The trolley’s history in Stony Creek was the feature exhibit for the museum this year. DaRos was asked to bring the idea to life. He set the scene at low tide for maximum visibility.

He did so from his workshop located across the street from the museum, a shop that in 1852 served as the railroad station. It was used by commuters in Stony Creek to purchase tickets for the old New Haven-New London single track line, a line that later became the old shoreline railroad. DaRos restored the building, with help from Fran Walsh, his second selectman. He does wood carving and stonework there and most recently the diorama.

“I thought I would do a diorama of the thing and what I had planned to do was to have one large trolley model at the station right down here in Stony Creek. It would have been very simple. (The trolley station was originally located at the war memorial in the center of Stony Creek.)

On The Trolley Route

He thought about one large trolley model for a short time. Then he decided, ​“Why don’t we just do the whole town,” meaning Stony Creek, he added, not all of Branford.

Stony Creek was the last stop on the Branford/Stony Creek trolley line, a ride that took travelers from New Haven to East Haven to Short Beach, passing Double Beach, Lanphiers Cove, and the Branford Harbor. The trolley stopped in Indian Neck, Pine Orchard, and Stony Creek, ending its run at Flying Point Road.

According to Stony Creek chronicler John Kirby, trolley service was provided from 1900 to and from New Haven to the East Haven Green. Another line connected service to Short Beach and onto the Branford Green.

In 1907 service from the Branford Green to Stony Creek opened with trolley traffic peaking in 1923. By 1927 the last ​“open” trolley car was run on the Branford Line, and by 1937 the Stony Creek line was closed because the automobile had taken over. Soon buses replaced trolleys.

The diorama is not to scale. ​“If I did it to scale it would probably be 20 feet long. ​“So I shrunk it up. It is two feet by eight feet,” DaRos said.

People in Branford rode the trolley back and forth all the time, DaRos said. It stopped in the center of Branford and ended its ride in the center of New Haven. It also traveled through North Branford. Here is an open trolley car.

“A lot of people did it for the trip,” he said, a 14.5 mile trip that in 1907 could take 1 hour and 18 minutes from Stony Creek to New Haven. Often, DaRos said, ​“There was an ice cream parlor nearby and people got off, got their ice cream, and came back on.”

The trolley actually traveled along small roads beyond Thimble Island Road in Stony Creek and went through the woods.

When the trolley was abandoned, the town took the land and made it Thimble Island Road, which in those days was Main Street, DaRos said.

The cost of the trolley was cheap, about 3 cents a mile. People depended upon it for their transportation. You could leave Stony Creek at 7:16 a.m., arrive at Main and Montowese in the heart of Branford at 7:40 a.m. and get to the last stop at Church and Chapel Streets in New Haven by 8:20 a.m. And you didn’t have to find a parking space.

Trolleys were efficient,” he said. ​“I think you probably ought to go back to it. It was a very efficient way of moving people around.”

Creating a Diorama at Low Tide

How did you decide what materials to use to create the diorama? The Eagle asked.

“I figured I would start off with a table top of sorts. So I put a full sheet of plywood down and then I sketched it out on rule of building paper. I did the coastal ride around and I laid it on the paper and tried to adjust it to scale so I could get most everything in there. It was impossible to do to scale but I figured I could put the prominent features in along with natural features.” That included the coastline and some of the hills.

“For me this was the critical part of it. I laid it out and then I cut another sheet of plywood to follow that so that it was now elevated. And then I calculated it out to be about half tide to low tide on the coastline.”

He wanted to show some of the rocks that wouldn’t normally be seen at high tide. So low tide was important in the creation of the diorama.

“I traveled it and walked that thing half dozen times so I had it in my head before I actually did it. Then I sketched it out on a paper, and put it on top. These are all hand carved, the contours. Once I got that all done, I made the trolley bed itself. The only thing I didn’t do was the tracks themselves. I bought those.

“I knew it was important to make a trolley trestle so I made a trestle. Then I thought it being a museum and being that people might identify with landmarks, I dated it at least 1928. I had an aerial photograph of 1935. I did it because this church was built in 1927, and it is now the museum.

So I adjusted everything to say to the visitors, ​“You are here.” 

He described the hotels of the period; the Bayview was one, especially popular in the summer, and there was the Puppet House, now the Legacy Theatre. Everything was busy once summer arrived, he said.

“And the trolley became a huge part of that…”

It took DaRos 10 weeks to produce the diorama. Putting in all the trees and bushes had to be done one piece at time. ​“It took days and days,” he said.

When he began he thought of putting in four or five landmark buildings. He ended up putting in 35. 

Did you learn anything new about the place where you grew up? The Eagle asked. He said he learned a lot about the trolley routes, which varied depending upon the company that ran them. There is now a trolley barn in Guilford and the Shoreline Trolley Museum in East Haven. The museum provides trolley service from East Haven to Short Beach along the Farm River, a great ride. 

Mainly DaRos put himself back in time, from somewhere in 1928 to 1935, ​“somewhere in there. I think I came pretty close. The kids get a kick out of it.” A couple of classes visited the museum recently. ​“They weren’t so much interested in the history as they were in how it came to be.”

Now you know. 

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