discovery of century-old streetcar remnants reawaken historical past

Discovery of century-old streetcar remnants reawaken historical past Chelsea Scherer Dec. 1, 2015

In a public meeting before construction began, local residents of Kitchener -

Waterloo warned city officials of the numerous old streetcar remnants scattered

throughout the city that would likely be dug up by their crews. Considering the

advance to be a rumour, the Region of Waterloo began phase one of the light rail

transit (LRT) system in early 2015.

ION, the LRT plan by GrandLinq, has taken the Region more than ten years to

devise. Set to start service in late 2017, the LRT will span between the Tri-City area:

Located approximately 100 kilometres west of Toronto, Kitchener was once known as Berlin. It began with the settling of hundreds of German Mennonite farming families from Pennsylvania in 1804 because they wanted to move to an area were they could practice their beliefs without persecution. By 1871, Berlin had a population of more than 3,400 residents and soon after became home to hundreds more settling from Germany. Courtesy of Eric Saunderson.

DISCOVERY OF CENTURY-OLD STREETCAR REMNANTS REAWAKEN HISTORICAL PAST

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Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge, over two stages of development. The plan was

constructed in part of the Regional Growth Management Strategy that expects more

than 200,000 new residents to move to the Tri-City area within the next 20 years.

The jumpstart on LRT construction will better ease the transition of the added

traffic congestion and accessibility issues – something the cities have already

struggled to deal with due to recent growth.

On December 8, 2014, The Record reported that ION workers had found pipes,

wires, and a concrete foundation of a building nobody had expected to find near

Cambridge. The removal of these materials delayed project construction, adding

more costs.

Soon after, on March 27, 2015, The Record reported that during construction

of the new LRT system downtown Kitchener, more remnants were discovered, just

as the residents had predicted. This time, they uncovered rotten woo d ties that

Courtesy of Eric Saunderson.


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belonged to a century-old streetcar line. By the end of the week, construction

workers had found a total of 30 ties along King Street, one of the downtown core’s

most prominent streets. The discovery sheds light on what was once a poorly

functioning transit system that ran from 1888 to 1946 between Kitchener (then

Berlin) and Waterloo.

Toronto, a home to more than 2.6 million people, has hundreds of thousands of

its residents and visitors riding the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) every day.

Despite that Toronto streetcars began running more than a century ago, they still

prove to be a viable – and slow – means of transportation, capable of handling the

city’s traffic. During the time Toronto began exploring streetcar options, Berlin

(Kitchener) was also establishing their own transit system. Considering that Berlin’s

population was much smaller than Toronto’s at that time, it’s a wonder why

Toronto, along with a number of other growing cities had streetcars that survived,

while Berlin’s didn’t. Berlin’s streetcar ran for about 58 years before shutting down

to make room for the arrival of the shiny new trolley buses.

But the transition didn’t go as smooth as the city would have liked. Three

nights before the trolley inauguration, an aggressive snowstorm unexpectedly hit

Berlin, covering it in ice. Two weeks prior, the Kitchener Daily Record (later The

Record), the main daily in Berlin in 1946, made several reports of a possible winter

storm that would hit southern Ontario. But in each case, the article ended with

predictions that the storm would likely miss Berlin, resulting in the city having a

relatively mild December.


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Leading up to the storm – December 1946

On December 11, a small section in the Kitchener Daily Record reported a

telegram from Toronto about a storm that was moving east through the Prairie

Provinces. Although it was expected to hit Ontario, it was predicted to stay North of

Lake Superior and the only effect on southern Ontario would be increased wind

velocity. A day later, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), the company that was

responsible for transit, announced that the city was to inaugurate the new trolley

coach system on New Year’s Day if it was deemed possible by the administrative and

technical staff. A.W. Bromley, PUC chief engineer noted that the overhead wires

Two streetcars and two horse coaches on King Street West, Berlin, 1907. Courtesy of the Kitchener Public Library.


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needed for the new system was to be installed and ready to use by December 28 –

adding that the power situation may be a bit slow at first while they combine both

the trolley coaches and buses on King Street. PUC also stated that starting January 1,

there would be a total of six coaches – although they had hoped for eight. Bromley

said the streetcars were in bad condition and required some form of repair when

they broke down almost everyday on King Street, causing a momentary pause in the

whole system. This was the main reason why the PUC wanted to scrap streetcars.

Every time a breakdown occurred, all available buses had to be thrown into the

breach, despite not having enough to fill the need. PUC chairman Harry Graber

suggested they get the trolley coaches into operation as soon as possible because

the citizens wanted to start using them.

According to David A. Wyatt, the information services and technologies

administrator at The University of Manitoba, many of Canada’s street railways that

operated through the start of the twentieth century up until the Second World War

experienced heavy used with little maintenance. By the end of the war, streetcars

were faced with undertaking extensive repair and renewal programs, or changing to

less expensive technology. Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto pursued renewal – which

only Toronto carried through on – while the rest later chose to change to electric

methods or motorbus technologies. Wyatt’s database, All-Time List of Canadian

Transit Systems contains the transit history for major Canadian cities with

Kitchener-Waterloo being one of them.

On December 20, more streetcar breakdowns were reported, causing some

short circuits and delays for putting up the new trolley wire system. On the


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following day, the snowfall finally came. Coating the city in a blanket of snow,

streetcars and buses found considerable difficulty keeping on schedule. The

sweepers were out pushing snow out of the streets and salting streetcar tracks.

Large numbers of Christmas shoppers were delayed and all available buses were in

use.

On Christmas Eve, the PUC announced the arrival of the last of the trolley

coaches and that all plans were complete for the new transportation system opening

ceremony on the afternoon of January 1. After in inauguration, free rides would be

offered until 4 p.m. These trolley coaches were “the newest and finest in urban

A group of people boarding a streetcar on the corner of Yonge Street and King Street West, Kitchener, 1940. Courtesy of the Kitchener Public Library.


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electric transportation,” as the Kitchener Daily Record put it. Room for 44

passengers and standing room for 44 more, the trackless electric coaches were

equipped with well-upholstered seats, shatterproof glass windows, and low steps

for rapid entry and exit.

The old streetcars were to operate for their last time on New Year’s Eve, while

gasoline buses take over for the remaining hours until the unveiling of the trollies.

The PUC wanted to extend the invite to members of Toronto’s TTC, Montreal’s

Metro, and to the Canadian Car & Foundry Co., Ltd., which manufactured the new

coaches, but since it was a holiday, it was deemed unfair to have them travel far

distances. The PUC initially wanted to hold the ceremony after New Year’s Day, but

due to the frequent breakdowns, their arms were twisted into bumping the date

sooner. Not to mention, the PUC would avoid paying January’s insurance for the

streetcars, even if they had only ran for one day.

On December 27, many of the PUC’s long-time employees retired or were

designated to move to other departments in the new-year. Many of them had served

for the PUC anywhere from 25 to 35 years. Many of the older employees wanted to

relocate to other positions because they didn’t want to have to learn the new

system. This opened up 25 new job positions for men to operate the new trolleys

starting January 1. The news was relatively hopeful at this point. No one had

expected that by morning, Berlin would surrender to a two-day snowstorm that

would ultimately put their streetcars to rest.


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The final voyage

No telephone calls were being made. No telegrams came in. Telephone wires

swung back and forth in desolate streets blocked by fallen trees. No one was going

anywhere today. The ice storm paralyzed Berlin over night, turning it into an empty

landscape that was eerily quiet. The silence was only broken by tree limbs coated in

ice, snapping and falling to the ground. A streetcar conductor was the only reported

person injured from the storm. Suffering leg injuries late in the night, he was struck

by a car while attempting to prevent traffic from running into fallen wires. Streetcar

service was stopped shortly before midnight as a result of three trolley wire breaks.

The official turning on of the Niagara Hydro Electric Power on King Street, Berlin on October 11, 1910. The population of Berlin expanded to more than 15,000 residents the next year. Courtesy of the Kitchener Public Library.


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The PUC repair crew worked all night to keep up with the number of breaks, but by

the time the wires had been repaired, they were so coated with ice that it was

impossible to run streetcar power through them. Each streetcar was then manually

pushed into their car barn, the last one entering at 7 a.m. The streetcars were later

scrapped by M. Brown & Son in May 1947.

The storm was so bad it hit Toronto the same night and caused numerous

rural towns that surrounded Berlin to be out of power – some for more than 24

hours. Local farmers and agricultural representatives worried about the damage to

the crops and trees. Over the next two days, neighbours helped the PUC and the city

to clean the streets, but there was still a silver lining in the situation. Due to the

storm limiting streetcar operation, the maintenance crews were able to complete

the final connecting links for the new trolley system – something the PUC had

promised to complete even before the storm had occurred.

Little is known about what ran in the news on January 1, 1947, due to the fact

that there are no archived copies of the Kitchener Daily Record for that day. Luckily,

January 2 was archived and reported on the inauguration that took place the day

prior. Ten city ex-mayors attended the trolley opening cerebration along with more

than 2,000 residents that showed up for the unveiling, lining up to get their free ride

on the new trolley coaches. “There’s just one thing missing,” George Gordon, veteran

PUC member and former mayor of Berlin was reported saying in the Kitchener Daily

Record. “And that’s a new subway.” The ceremony marked the beginning of a new

transportation era for Kitchener. Toronto also upgraded to electric trollies that

same year, while Montreal had already begun using them in 1939.


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From horse cars to trolley coaches

Not a lot is known about how the first transit systems in the late 1880’s was

bought to life because newspapers at the time were only in German. The earliest

date that the Waterloo Historical Society can confirm is that the first horse car

railway opened in 1888. Wyatt says Berlin, like other communities in that era, built

streetcar systems not as public enterprises but as for-profit privately-owned

businesses. The systems were built because investors believed they could make

money by operating streetcars. Through various name changes of the transit system

due to different ownership, and the name change of the city from Berlin to

A horse pulling a man on a sled on King Street downtown Berlin, 1910. Courtesy of the Kitchener Public Library.


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Kitchener, the streetcar played an integral role in shaping local history. Opening

with one horse car on a single line of track, the transportation system would go on

to carry approximately 1,200,000 passengers a month by the time the streetcar

ended.

There’s no update about whether or not the discovered streetcar ties will be

placed in a local museum. Kimberly Moser, Rapid Transit Community Relations

manager for the Region of Waterloo said the removed railroad ties are currently

being held at the North Dumfries yard until the Region of Waterloo knows what they

want to do with them. The waste yard is located 6.5 kilometres southwest of

downtown Cambridge. Eric Saunderson, senior project manager of construction for

the Region of Waterloo added saying that the ties are in poor condition and will be a

challenge to salvage because they were embedded in concrete. Saunderson

anticipates that more ties will be discovered when King Street in uptown Waterloo

is reconstructed between 2017 and 2018.


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Additional photos and facts – 1889 to 1940

The first streetcars and horse cars were mainly made of wood. A Berlin & Waterloo Street Railway horse car, Berlin, 1889. Courtesy of the Kitchener Public Library.

A Berlin & Waterloo Street Railway streetcar, Berlin, 1890. In 1895, the horse car line went electric by Ezra Breithaupt, who died nearly two years later in an explosion at the old Berlin Gas Works, of which he was a manager. Courtesy of the Kitchener Public Library.


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A Berlin & Waterloo Street Railway streetcar, Berlin, 1900. Courtesy of the Kitchener Public Library.

A Berlin & Waterloo Street Railway streetcar on King Street, Berlin, 1905. A year later, the Berlin Town Council instituted a move to take over the street railway. It was officially purchased on May 1, 1907 for $83,200. Courtesy of the Kitchener Public Library.


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A Berlin & Waterloo Street Railway streetcar on King Street, Berlin, 1905. Courtesy of the Kitchener Public Library.

A Berlin & Waterloo Street Railway streetcar, Berlin, 1906. Courtesy of the Kitchener Public Library.


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A Berlin & Waterloo Street Railway streetcar, Berlin, 1913. During the First World War (1914-1918), an anti-German sentiment arose from Berliners. Churches switched to English services and in 1916, after debate, the city’s name was changed to Kitchener. Even a few manufacturing plants in the area sent troops overseas with gear that read “Made in Berlin,” which then the Canadian forces refused to wear because they didn’t trust the origin of the clothing. Courtesy of the Kitchener Public Library.

discovery of century-old streetcar remnants reawaken historical past

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