Down in Fall River there is a place called Battleship Cove which has five National Historic Landmarks: Battleship USS Massachusetts, Destroyer USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., Submarine USS Lionfish, and PT Boats 617 and 796 PLUS a historic PTC carousel. 

We decided to do all of the attractions and headed there for a day trip. We hit up the carousel first so that we could check it off our list. It was another Philadelphia Toboggan Company (PTC) ride, this one was #54. Earlier in the summer we had ridden the PTC carousel in Hull which is #85.

PTC numbered each carousel as it left the factory, which makes it easy for carousel buffs to refer to the rides and track the pieces. To make things a bit more complicated (and why not take something as easy as a numerical counting system make it difficult?), PTC would assign machines new numbers if they came back to the shop to be restored. There are currently twenty-nine remaining PTC carousels, of the seventy-four that were built and the eighty-nine that are currently listed. Three of the remaining PTC carousels are here in Massachusetts, which has been fun for us. After this ride we will have one more to ride in Holyoke.

The earlier PTC carousels were built on-demand, later they would pull from a stock of already carved pieces. As PTC evolved as a business they eventually stopped producing menagerie and focused solely on horses. All three of the Massachusetts PTC carousels are from the end of their production and all of them are solely made of horses. I hadn't known this when we went to Hull, so I was interested in making note of this aspect on our trip to Fall River.

This trip didn't disappoint. The carousel is located in a two-story pavilion with the carousel on the second storey. We made our way up and had the whole place to ourselves for just three dollars total (Rory and Brynn were free). We found some horses with swords and armour which was exciting for Will and hopped aboard! It was a fun ride and when we were finished we checked out the sites from the big bay windows. The mugginess had made them a little fogged up, but we could see the battleships - our next stop. Carousel ride, check!

Eight down, 14 to go.