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Prior to 1959, Montreal, Quebec, Canada had an extensive streetcar system. The streetcar network had its beginnings with the horsecar era of the Montreal City Passenger Railway in 1861. The initial line was along Rue Notre Dame (Notre Dame St) from Rue du Havre (Harbor St) to Rue McGill (McGill St).
The City Passenger Railway became the Montreal Street Railway in 1886. The decision to use electricity instead of horses for propulsion was made in 1892. [1] On September 21 of that same year, "The Rocket," Montreal's first electric streetcar made its maiden voyage. By 1894, the remaining horsecar lines had all been converted to accommodate the new electrically powered streetcars. The Montreal Street Railway was known as one of the most innovative and progressive in North America. One of its innovations was the introduction of the "Pay As You Enter" (P.A.Y.E.) system of fare collection in 1905. Prior to that time, conductors would walk through the car collecting fares meaning many passengers probably rode for free on very crowded cars. The P.A.Y.E. system was adopted worldwide by many other transit companies. The company also designed and built two open sightseeing (another two were built later) cars that were in service until the late 1950s. The designs of those sightseeing cars were sold to transit companies in Quebec City, Calgary and Vancouver, who all built their own versions of the car.
The Montreal Park and Island Railway was incorporated by the Legislature of Quebec in 1885 [2] to run railway service in the suburbs of Montreal. They built lines to Lachine, St Laurent and Cartierville, and to Sault-au-Récollet. The company had an agreement with the Montreal Street Railway Co to allow MP&IR cars to run through to terminals in Montreal.
The company was formed on 1893-12-27 and was eventually consolidated with other companies to form the Montreal Tramways Company in 1911 [3]
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In 1911 a new corporate entity, the Montreal Tramways Company was formed consolidating the city streetcar routes of the Montreal Street Railway and the suburban routes of the Montreal Park & Island Railway and the Montreal Terminal Railway. The Montreal Tramways Company would own and operate the transportation system until the system was taken over by the city-owned Montreal Transportation Commission in 1951.
Through the war years (1939 to 1945), Montreal's streetcar system carried huge passenger loads with workers commuting to busy factories supplying the war effort. Every available streetcar was put into service. The company even bought several streetcars from U.S. systems that were converting to buses. Even private automobile owners were taking streetcars as rationing made gasoline and tires difficult to get. Most manufacturing of private automobiles was halted about halfway through the war years so assembly plants could concentrate on military vehicles. The Montreal Tramways Company had its own difficulties in getting material and some maintenance had to be deferred. The heavy wartime traffic and deferred maintenance took its toll. The Montreal Tramways Company faced major challenges at the end of the war.
There was much rehabilitation work that had to be done to the track, the overhead trolley wires and the streetcars themselves. There was also much more competition. Manufacturing of automobiles for the civilian market started up again and after the deprivations of the war, many people began to buy one, including former streetcar passengers. Streetcar passenger numbers were starting to fall. The automobile encouraged the development of new neighborhoods further from the city centre and not served by the company's streetcars. Traffic congestion was becoming a bigger problem, especially in the narrower streets of the older parts of downtown Montreal. The company's 30-year contract with the city was also coming to an end in 1948. For all of these reasons, the company was reluctant to spend money on expansion and modernization. Instead they would sell their assets to a publicly owned transportation authority.
In 1950, legislation was passed to create the city-owned Montreal Transportation Commission, which would be charged with taking over the assets of the Montreal Tramways Company, which it officially did in June 1951. The Commission decided to convert all streetcar lines to buses within 10 years.
To relieve traffic congestion, the newly established Montreal Transportation Commission decided to convert the inner city routes first. Many of Montreal's streetcar routes included running on a portion of Sainte Catherine Street (Rue Sainte-Catherine) downtown. On some downtown sections of this street, there was a headway of 10 seconds or less between streetcars but by the end of August 1956, streetcar service on the street had come to an end. A parade of streetcars and historical equipment was held to commemorate the event. Many of the outlying routes, especially those running on private rights-of-way, lasted the longest. The city's last streetcars operated on August 30, 1959, after which Montreal was served solely by buses until the Metro opened in October 1966. [1] A parade similar to the one in 1956 was held to mark the occasion. A four-route network of electric trolley buses continued operating until 1966 at which point they were converted to Diesel.
In 1905, the Montreal Street Railway constructed two open-topped sightseeing streetcars locally known as Golden Chariots. Seating was arranged in an ascending configuration (like a theatre's tiered seats) toward the rear to provide a commanding view of the sights. Two more vehicles were constructed in the 1920s. All cars are currently preserved in museums.
Ostensibly for tourists, they were probably always more popular with Montrealers looking for a breezy ride during the hot and humid summers of Montreal.
The cars operated on a 10-mile (16 km) counter-clockwise circuit around the three peaks of Mount Royal via Bleury, Park, Laurier, Côte Ste. Catherine, Bellingham, Maplewood, Decelles, Queen Mary, a private right-of-way between Queen Mary and Côte Saint Luc, Girouard, Sherbrooke, Atwater, St. Luke, Closse, Sainte Catherine, then back to Bleury.
A second Golden Chariot route was established in the late 1940s. That followed a counter-clockwise route along Ste. Catherine, Delorimier, Mount Royal Avenue, Park, Laurier, Côte Ste. Catherine, Bellingham, Maplewood, Decelles, Queen Mary, Côte des Neiges, and back to Ste. Catherine. This second route lasted only a few years being discontinued when streetcar service ended on Côte des Neiges in 1955.
By 1956, the original and remaining Golden Chariot route had to be adjusted as streetcar trackage was reduced. When streetcar service ended on Sherbrooke and Ste. Catherine at the end of August 1956, cars were rerouted. Instead of turning east from Girouard to Sherbrooke, they continued south on Girouard to Upper Lachine Road, then Saint-Antoine to Bleury and Park. They last ran in regular service in the summer of 1957 although they could still be chartered in the summer of 1958. By then, however, the streetcar track network had shrunk even further.
Contrary to popular belief, the Golden Chariots never operated in regular service over Mount Royal, the small 764-foot-high (233 m) mountain that is the city's namesake. It was found that if passengers stood in some areas of the upper tiers of the Golden Chariots, there was not enough of a safety clearance in the tunnel on that line. Therefore, the company only used the Golden Chariots on the spectacular mountain right-of-way for occasional charter trips. The Mount Royal streetcar private right-of-way would later become the Camillien Houde Parkway for automobiles. Service was normally provided by the regular cars of the 11-Mountain route from the east, and the 93-Remembrance route from the west. Both routes met at Summit Loop near today's Beaver Lake (Lac des Castors) Pavilion where Remembrance Road and the Camillien Houde Parkway meet. The 93-Remembrance route was one of the shortest in the city, being only about three-quarters-mile (1.2 km) long from its western terminus at Remembrance and Côte des Neiges Roads. While the 93-Remembrance route was a relatively straight line to Summit Loop, the 11-Mountain route was far more challenging. The route up the east side of the mountain featured sharp curves, grades as steep as 10 percent and a 337-foot (103 m) tunnel. Motormen on this route were specially trained and strict safety procedures were used. The streetcars used on this route were equipped with an auxiliary braking system and powerful handbrakes in addition to their regular equipment. Both the 93-Remembrance and 11-Mountain routes were summer-only services.
There were a number of other unique cars on the system especially in the earlier years. The Montreal Street Railway, and later the Montreal Tramways Company, operated a smaller two-axle vehicle used as a rolling stage for the company's employee band. A prison car with no side windows was used to take miscreants between the downtown courthouse and the outlying Bordeaux Prison before roads were improved. The streetcar fleet also included two funeral cars, the second and larger of which saw heavy use during the influenza epidemic of 1918. They were used to carry caskets to the outlying Hawthorndale Cemetery, which was beyond the reach of good roads at the time. The funeral cars only carried caskets with the mourners having to take regular streetcars.
Montreal also used trolleybuses. [1] Introduced in 1937, they were seen as having some advantages over streetcars. Unlike streetcars, they could load and unload at the curb instead of stopping traffic in the middle of the street. They were still dependent on overhead trolley wires. Their passenger capacity was also less than the larger streetcars. Although all streetcar lines had been converted to buses by 1959, traffic congestion had not improved as hoped. City traffic engineers came up with a plan to turn many major streets into one-way thoroughfares, which would affect several trolley bus routes. Trolley buses by this time had fallen out of favour with transit companies, and new North American equipment was harder to get. Montreal's Brill trolley buses were quickly approaching the end of their economic service lives. As a result of all of these factors, the Commission decided to end trolley bus service in 1966. Two of the four trolley bus routes were converted to diesel buses in April while the last two trolley bus routes were converted to diesel buses in June. Montreal's new subway, the Metro, would open just four months later in October.
In the early days, the Montreal City Passenger Railway used horse-drawn sleighs in the winter and horsecars in the summer. In the muddy seasons in between, omnibuses were used.
With the coming of electric cars in 1892, the Montreal Street Railway and later the Montreal Tramways Co began to buy a variety of electric car types:
In the 1930s, as streetcar lines were being converted to buses, some lines were converted to electric trolley buses. [1] And order for seven AEC 664Ts was placed and, later, 80 of the model T-44 and 25 of the model T-44A were purchased from Canadian Car & Foundry.
In February 2006, Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay suggested the city look into a return of the streetcar into the heart of the city, following a visit to Paris, where new service started in 1992.
In early 2012, the STM announced a plan to convert its entire fleet of buses over to all-electric by 2025. Beginning in 2012, all STM bus purchases will be either hybrids or electrics and, starting in 2011, Montreal will begin testing trolley buses (electric buses powered by overhead wires) on some of the city's busiest routes. [4]
On March 31, 2014, the STM began testing a Chinese BYD prototype all-electric bus on several routes with a plan to have Novabus of St. Eustache, Quebec begin to trial its own version later the same year. The earlier plan to incorporate trolley busses using overhead wires was put on hold for further study.
A tram is a type of urban rail transit consisting of either individual railcars or self-propelled multiple unit trains that run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or tram networks operated as public transport are called tramways or simply trams/streetcars. Because of their close similarities, trams are commonly included in the wider term light rail, which also includes systems separated from other traffic.
The Hamilton Street Railway (HSR) is the public transport agency for Hamilton, Ontario. The name is a legacy of the company's early period, when public transit in Hamilton was primarily served by streetcars. Although streetcars are no longer used in the city today, the HSR operates bus and paratransit services, with a ridership of 21 million passengers a year.
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A horsecar, horse-drawn tram, horse-drawn streetcar (U.S.), or horse-drawn railway (historical), is an animal-powered tram or streetcar.
The Toronto Street Railway (TSR) was the operator of a horse-drawn streetcar system from 1861 to 1891 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its successor, the Toronto Railway Company, inherited the horsecar system and electrified it between 1892 and 1894.
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The Société de transport de Montréal is a public transport agency that operates transit bus and rapid transit services in the urban agglomeration of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Established in 1861 as the "Montreal City Passenger Railway Company", it has grown to comprise four subway lines with a total of 68 stations, as well as 212 bus routes and 23 night routes. The STM was created in 2002 to replace the Société de transport de la communauté urbaine de Montréal. The STM operates the most heavily used urban mass transit system in Canada, and one of the most heavily used rapid transit systems in North America. As of 2019, the average daily ridership is 2,297,600 passengers: 977,400 by bus, 1,306,500 by rapid transit and 13,700 by paratransit service.
As with many large cities, a large number of Boston-area streetcar lines once existed, and many continued operating into the 1950s. However, only a few now remain, namely the four branches of the Green Line and the Ashmont–Mattapan High-Speed Line, with only one running regular service on an undivided street.
The Market Street Railway Company was a commercial streetcar and bus operator in San Francisco. The company was named after the famous Market Street of that city, which formed the core of its transportation network. Over the years, the company was also known as the Market Street Railroad Company, the Market Street Cable Railway Company and the United Railroads of San Francisco. Once the largest transit operator in the city, the company folded in 1944 and its assets and services were acquired by the city-owned San Francisco Municipal Railway. Many of the former routes continue to exist into the 2020s, but served by buses.
The Denver Tramway, operating in Denver, Colorado, was a streetcar system incorporated in 1886. The tramway was unusual for a number of reasons: the term "tramway" is generally not used in the United States, and it is not known why the company was named as such. The track was 3 ft 6 in narrow gauge, an unusual gauge in the United States, but in general use by railways in Japan, southern Africa, New Zealand, and Queensland, Australia.
Streetcars were part of the public transit service in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the first third of the 20th century, and returned to this role in the year 2000.
The Kitchener Public Utilities Commission was the municipal public utilities commission for the city of Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, as well as the surrounding area. Its former office in downtown Kitchener, constructed in 1931 in Beaux-Arts style, has been designated under the Ontario Heritage Act as both historically and architecturally significant, and is one of the Kitchener's few surviving historic public buildings.
Streetcars or trolley(car)s were once the chief mode of public transit in hundreds of North American cities and towns. Most of the original urban streetcar systems were either dismantled in the mid-20th century or converted to other modes of operation, such as light rail. Today, only Toronto still operates a streetcar network essentially unchanged in layout and mode of operation.
The Third Avenue Railway System (TARS), founded 1852, was a streetcar system serving the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx along with lower Westchester County. For a brief period of time, TARS also operated the Steinway Lines in Long Island City.
The Montreal and Southern Counties Railway Company was an electric interurban streetcar line that served communities between Montreal and Granby from 1909 until 1956. A second branch served the city of Longueuil. Operated by the Canadian National Railway (CN), the M&SCRC ran trams on tracks in the street in Montreal and closer South Shore communities, and on separate right of way in rural areas.
Ottawa Electric Railway Company was a streetcar public transit system in the city of Ottawa, Canada, part of the electric railway streetcars that operated between 1891 and 1959. Ottawa once had tracks through downtown on Rideau Street, Sparks Street and others, and extended outside of the downtown core to provide services that helped form communities such as Westboro, Old Ottawa South and The Glebe. Prior to this, starting in 1866, public transportation was provided by Ottawa City Passenger Railway Company, a horse-drawn tram service. The O.E.R. was taken over by the Ottawa Transportation Commission in 1948, which was itself succeeded by OC Transpo in 1973.
Streetcars operated by the Cincinnati Street Railway were the main form of public transportation in Cincinnati, Ohio, at the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century. The first electric streetcars began operation in 1889, and at its maximum, the streetcar system had 222 miles (357 km) of track and carried more than 100 million passengers per year. A very unusual feature of the system was that cars on some of its routes traveled via inclined railways to serve areas on hills near downtown. With the advent of inexpensive automobiles and improved roads, transit ridership declined in the 20th century and the streetcar system closed in 1951. Construction of a new streetcar system, now known as the Connector, began in 2012. Consisting initially of a single route, the new system opened on September 9, 2016.
Beginning operation in 1861, the Yonge streetcar line was the first streetcar line in Toronto and the first in Canada. It started off as a horsecar line and closed in 1954 operating two-unit trains of Peter Witt motors pulling a trailer. Under the Toronto Transportation Commission, the Yonge line was the busiest and most congested streetcar line in the city leading to its replacement in 1954 by the Yonge Subway line, also Toronto's first and the first in Canada.
The United Electric Railways Company (UER) was the Providence-based operator of the system of interurban streetcars, trolleybuses, and trolley freight in the state of Rhode Island in the early- to mid-twentieth century.
The Quebec City tramway (1865–1948) was a streetcar system that started operations in 1865 with horsecars, electrified in 1897 and ceased operation in 1948. This former system is distinct from the proposed light-rail line, known as the Quebec City Tramway.
