The Narragansett Pier Railroad has a long history, but by the 1980s it was approaching the end of the line; freight traffic had almost dried up (there are two businesses in Peace Dale that still get a little freight, but they were the only businesses left even in the 1980s) and the railroad was staggering along trying to make ends meet by doing passenger excursions & selling off bits and pieces of railroad property. It passed through the hands of various owners, each of which tried to keep things going, but the great plague of 2019 shut it down apparently for good.

The towns along the line wanted to rip up the rail and use the ROW for a pathway, but the last owners couldn’t bear the thought of seeing the remains ripped up and offered the line to the Providence & Worcester, which had been buying various shortlines to use as industrial tracks, for payment of back taxes.

The P&W thought this was a marvellous idea, and after a few years of arguing with the local rails-to-trails advocates about it, agreed to take the line and operate it as a rails with trails joint (following the lead of Oregon’s East Portland Traction, which has a MUP along approximately 98% of their truncated East Portland mainline) and paying half the taxes due.

The P&W wanted to string 25kvac overhead over the line (diesel fuel cost plus upkeep of the existing ge 44 ton switcher that was being used was considerably more expensive to operate than electric traction) but that was not greeted with any enthusiasm by the local communities, so (after a few long planning meetings) the railroad and the citizens settled on running it as a trolley line with 600vdc overhead wire.

In 2024 the wire was up, the line was reconstructed, pathed, and electrified (down all the way to Narragansett Pier, despite there being no freight traffic east of Peace Dale), one of the old PVT class 240 locomotives had been rewired to 600 vdc, and the line was back in service, hauling very little freight, but also operating a single trolley car (for tourists and a few commuters) between the NEC at Kingston & the pier at Narragansett Pier.

The P&W doesn’t really expect it to turn a huge profit today, but paying pennies today might get dollars back in the future as the industrial base of the northeast slowly rebounds from the disaster of the second half of the 20th century.