VANCOUVER

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INSET: DOWNTOWN VANCOUVER

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ROUTES

Operator: British Columbia Electric Railway Company (BCER)

URBAN STREETCAR ROUTES (VANCOUVER)

1	18th & Commercial - Commercial - Venables - Clarke - Hastings & Clarke
3	50th & Main - Main - Hastings - Richards (back: Cambie) - Robson
14	Robson - Richards (back: Granville) - Hastings - Kootenay Loop

INTERURBAN ROUTES

A1	Hastings & Carrall - Central Park (Burnaby) - New Westminster
A2	Hastings & Carrall - Burnaby Lake - New Westminster
A4	Marpole - Richmond - Steveston
A5	Marpole - New Westminster

The following routes ceased operation between 1952 and 1955:

• A1: 14 July 1954.
• A2: 22 Oct. 1953.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SYSTEM

NETWORK LENGTH

• Vancouver streetcar lines: ? km.
• Interurban lines: ? km.



HISTORY

• Vancouver streetcars: (electric) 28 June 1890 - 21 Apr. 1955.
• North Vancouver streetcars: (electric) 1 Sept. 1906 - 23 Apr. 1947.
• Interurban trams: (electric) 3 June 1891 - 28 Feb. 1958.
• SkyTrain (automated LRT): 3 Jan. 1986 - today.
• Canada Line (Metro): 17 Aug. 2009 - today.

GAUGE

• Vancouver and North Vancouver streetcars: 1453 mm.
• SkyTrain / Canada Line: 1435 mm.

TRAM PRESERVATION

The Transit Museum Society runs vintage interurban streetcars between Granville Island and Science World on weekends and holidays during the summer months. A demonstration service by modern trams from Europe was run on the same line during the 2010 Winter Olympics held in Vancouver.

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SOURCES

PRINT

• Cockle, D. "Tram-train community rail for Fraser Valley", Tramways & Urban Transit, Dec. 2010 (73: 876), p.465-466.
• Conn, H. & Ewert, H. Vancouver's glory years: Public transit 1890-1915. North Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 2003.
• "End of city trams in Vancouver" (news item), The Modern Tramway, July 1955 (18:211), p.142.
• Ewert, H. The perfect little street car system. North Vancouver: North Vancouver Museum and Archives Commission, 2000.
• Ewert, H. The story of the B.C. Electric Railway Company. North Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 1986.
• Guide to Vancouver. Vancouver: British Columbia Electric Railway Company (BCER), 1930.
• Kelly, B. & Francis, D. Transit in British Columbia: The first hundred years. Madeira Park (B.C.): Harbour Publishing, 1990.
• Simons, V. "Vancouver prepares for the Winter Olympics", Tramways & Urban Transit, Jan. 2010 (73: 865), p.11-13.
• Transit System Map of Vancouver, B.C. [Vancouver]: Challengers Cartographers, 1949, 1952 and 1954.

WIKIS

• British Columbia Electric Railway (BCER)
• Canada Line
• Evergreen Line
• SkyTrain (Vancouver)
• TransLink (Vancouver)
• Transportation in Vancouver
• Vancouver Downtown Historic Railway

WEB SITES

• A brief history of transit in Victoria and the Lower Mainland
• Canadian Street Railways
• City of Vancouver Downtown Streetcar Project
• The History of Metropolitan Vancouver
• History of the B.C. Electric Railway Company
• TransLink