A Blaine resident first brought this trolley to the attention of The Northern Light on Friday, April 20. Photo by Jeremy Schwartz


After a bit of Internet research and a few phone calls, the identity of the antique-looking trolley sitting outside a gas station in Blaine has been revealed.

A Blaine resident first brought the trolley to my attention on Friday, April 20. He thought it might have been an exhibit of some sort, recalling the days when Blaine actually had a trolley running through its streets. He told me it was parked at the Shell gas station on D Street, so I went to take a look.

I arrived to find no one milling around the trolley, as would be expected for an exhibit of some type. No one even seemed to be glancing at the trolley, as if it didn’t look out of place.

A closer examination of the trolley only deepened the mystery (for me at least). Based on the trolley’s markings, it appeared to be operated by a company called MV Transportation, out of California. It also had temporary license plates from Nevada; approximately 1,200 miles away.

I learned from communications with the nice people at MV Transportation, specifically public affairs specialist Cristina Russell, that MV never owned the vehicle but operated it under contract with a California-based transit company. MV Transportation contracts its drivers to transit companies across the country.

As far as Russell was able to tell, the California company sold the trolley in a 2009 to a specialty vehicle dealer based in Nevada called Specialty Vehicles. Specialty Vehicles is now brokering a sale to a new owner in Canada, and the trolley appears to be waiting import.

 

I’ve left a message with a representative from Specialty Vehicles to see if I can find out anything more. Barring more life history about the trolley itself, the mystery appears to be solved.