Vancouver Downtown Historic Railway
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Vancouver Downtown Historic Railway | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Tram car 1207 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Overview | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Type | Heritage streetcar, seasonal | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Operation | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Opened | July 29, 1998 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Operator(s) | Transit Museum Society | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technical | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Track gauge | 1,435 mm (4 ft 81⁄2 in) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Vancouver Downtown Historic Railway is a heritage streetcar line that runs between Granville Island and Science World in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It operates only on weekends and holidays, from May to mid-October, and is aimed primarily at tourists. Two restored interurban streetcars are used on the line, which uses a former freight railway right-of-way.
The line and cars are owned by the City of Vancouver, and they are restored, maintained and operated by volunteers from the Transit Museum Society.
Service was inaugurated on July 29, 1998 and was considered to be a demonstration project for a modern downtown streetcar system that the city plans to develop.[1] It has continued to operate almost every summer since then, as an excursion-oriented historic streetcar line.
Currently, the line runs from Granville Island to a stop near Science World and Main Street-Science World SkyTrain station. The proposal for a modern line would extend the existing line through Chinatown and Gastown to Waterfront Station, and eventually to Stanley Park. There would be a separate line into Yaletown with longer term potential for a number of other lines.
During January to March 2010, a free demonstration service called the "Olympic Line" (named for the 2010 Winter Olympics which takes place in February 2010) will run on the Downtown Historic Railway, using two modern Bombardier Flexity Outlook streetcars borrowed from the Brussels tramway. The City of Vancouver and the administrators of Granville Island are paying for associated upgrades to the infrastructure.[2]
Contents |
[edit] Fleet of railcars
| Make/Model | Description | Fleet size | Year built | Year retired | Notes |
| built in New Westminster, British Columbia | Interurban car | 3 - only 1207 remains | 1905 | ||
| St. Louis Car Company | Tram | 1 - 1231 | 1912 |
The fleet also includes an ex-Brussels PCC streetcar, painted red and cream.
The line's operator, the Transit Museum Society, also owns a large fleet of vintage buses and trolley coaches.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Ward, Doug (1998-7-30). "Electric streetcar launches revival of historic service". The Vancouver Sun.
- ^ "Vancouver's 2010 Streetcar". Bombardier. http://www2.bombardier.com/vancouver/index.html. Retrieved 2009-06-10. "Connecting Granville Island, a key entertainment centre for the 2010 Winter Games, and the Olympic and Paralympic Village Vancouver, the Olympic Line streetcar service will extend Vancouver’s regional transit network along False Creek during 60 days of celebration before and during the 2010 Winter Games."
