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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.
DISCOVERY OF CENTURY-OLD STREETCAR REMNANTS REAWAKEN HISTORICAL PAST
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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.
DISCOVERY OF CENTURY-OLD STREETCAR REMNANTS REAWAKEN HISTORICAL PAST
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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.
DISCOVERY OF CENTURY-OLD STREETCAR REMNANTS REAWAKEN HISTORICAL PAST
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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
DISCOVERY OF CENTURY-OLD STREETCAR REMNANTS REAWAKEN HISTORICAL PAST
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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.
DISCOVERY OF CENTURY-OLD STREETCAR REMNANTS REAWAKEN HISTORICAL PAST
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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.
DISCOVERY OF CENTURY-OLD STREETCAR REMNANTS REAWAKEN HISTORICAL PAST
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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.
DISCOVERY OF CENTURY-OLD STREETCAR REMNANTS REAWAKEN HISTORICAL PAST
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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.
DISCOVERY OF CENTURY-OLD STREETCAR REMNANTS REAWAKEN HISTORICAL PAST
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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.
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