With gas prices keeping many of us close to home, here's an idea for a day trip that takes you back in history.

For just a few dollars, you can ride a trolley car that covers some of the same route that it did a hundred years ago.

Trolley number 10 is a survivor.

These days it has a good life here at the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum.

But just 10 years ago, the car was being used a chicken coop in somebody's backyard.

The restoration of number 10--- built in Springfield in 1896-- gave birth to the museum.

The trolley runs on a surviving section of the original track that connected the Boston & Maine Railroad in Shelburne Falls with the mills along the line to Colrain.

David Goff at the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum says, "This is the actual trolley that ran across the bridge of flowers, which is the flower bridge in Shelburne Falls."

Goff explained that Number 10 and cars like it carried passengers and freight, like cotton bales, fresh milk and cider vinegar.

And now it carries visitors to the museum, many of them boarding at the Salmon Falls end of the ride, a few steps from downtown Shelburne Falls.

Goff said, "We have a tremendous amount of families with young children come here, because young kids have a short attention span obviously, and you can come here, spend a half hour, and mom and dad can enjoy the rest of the village and what it has to offer."

Besides the trolley, the museum offers rides on a pump car--- it works just like one you've seen in the old westerns.

A ride on the trolley cost $2.50 for adults and $1.25 for children. The Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum is open Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

For more information, log onto www.sftm.org.

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