Conestoga Traction Company

Conestoga Traction, later Conestoga Transportation Company, was a classic country interurban that operated seven routes radiating spoke-like from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to numerous neighboring towns and farm villages. It ran side-of-road trolleys through Amish farm country east to Coatesville and Strasburg/Quarryville, south to Pequea, west to Columbia/Marietta and Elizabethtown, north to Manheim/Lititz, and northeast to Ephrata/Adamstown/Terre Hill. CT also transported farm freight, such as milk and produce, in its little cars.

Conestoga Traction began operations in 1899. CTs rural trolley system provided reliable and relatively fast transportation between many southeastern Pennsylvania farm towns in the days when people traveled in horse drawn buggies and freight traveled in horse-drawn wagons on narrow wandering dusty roads in summer or rutted deep mud roads in winter. In 1924, when business and profits were still good, Conestoga Traction updated its aging wood trolleys with a purchase of all steel small interurban trolley cars from Cincinnati Car Company. Farm freight and dairy pickups would occur with stops at farm gates using trolleys called "combines" designed to carry passengers in one section and freight in another. With its connections with neighboring Hershey Transit, CT shipped fresh uncooled Amish farm milk to the Hershey Company for immediate use in chocolate production. Hershey Transit permitted trolleys from the neighboring connecting lines, including Conestoga Traction, onto its rails to carry summer crowds to the Hershey Park for the amusement rides and to picnic. Picnic specials ran into the 1930s.