Conduit Hall, between the Main Hall and Street Car Hall, exhibits some of the striking physical components integral to street car operation.
 This exhibit area includes an exciter generator from the Chevy Chase Lake power plant (an image (right) of the power plant can also be seen in the model street car railway just before the entrance to Conduit Hall).
 Across the aisle from the generator is the actual cross section of conduit taken from the streets of Washington DC. This exhibit demonstrates how the plow, suspended from the underside of the street car, rode through a slot in the street to contact the electrical conduits about 2 feet below the street. Also on exhibit is a temporary plow that could be used to provide power to move a streetcar for a short distance.
Not shown here is the plow pit that was found at each location where a street car line crossed the city boundary into the suburbs with overhead lines. An employee of the street car company was in the plow pit day and night, summer and winter, to remove the plow connection to the street car, then climb out of the pit and raise the trolley pole to the overhead wire to send the street car on its way. This feature of street car operations was realitvely rare - only a few other cities, including New York and London - used a similar configuration of underground power in parts of their sytem.
 Other features displayed in this hall include a trolley wheel and a slider - the devices at the top of poles on the roofs of the street cars that contact the live electrial wire overhead and thereby gather electricity from these overhead wires to transmit it to the controller and then to the motors driving the wheels.
 Underneath the trolley wheel and slider is a controller - the electrical system that controlled the speed and direction of the streetcar. This particular controller is almost 100 years old. As the operator moved the handle, he allowed more and more electricity to be sent to the motors driving the wheels of the street car. This controller "Reverse Key" is a "gear shift", the lever on the right. There are three positions for the Reverse Key: neutral, which that locks the controller so that the operating handle cannot be moved and thereby prevents any power from reaching the motors; if this lever pushed towards the wall, the street car will move in reverse; if the lever is pulled back, the street car will move forwards.
Beyond Conduit Hall is Street Car Hall where some of our street cars are on regular display for the public.
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