The last interurban run between Marpole and Steveston - 28 Feb 1958 Brian Kent.

28 February 2013

This Day in History:  28 Feb 1958

Steveston British Columbia - Fifty-five years ago, the last interurban tram ran between Marpole and Steveston. After nearly seven decades of rail-based public transit, buses had taken over.
 
"The streetcars had already quit in April 1955," notes transit expert Henry Ewert, who has written four books on B.C.'s streetcars. "But the interurban service kept going between Marpole and Steveston until the Oak Street Bridge was finished. When the bridge was open, a bus loop was put on the Richmond side, and that spelled the end of the interurban line."
 
Ewert was among the many streetcar fans that turned out for one last ride on the trolley, which was started by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1903 and then leased to the B.C. Electric Railway in 1905.
 
"It was called the "Sockeye Special", because it went out to the canneries in Steveston", says Ewert. "When the interurban started operating from downtown Vancouver, the Arbutus corridor, right out to Steveston, it was 14 and a half miles long."
 
The Arbutus-Steveston tram was called the Lulu Island line and was one of several interurban lines in the Lower Mainland. They were called interurbans because they ran between cities.
 
There were two lines that ran from Vancouver to New Westminster through Burnaby, the Central Park line and the Burnaby Lake line, a route that ran from New West to Marpole, and a line that went from New West to Chilliwack. SkyTrain's Expo Line more or less follows the Central Park interurban route.
 
What happened to the trams when they stopped running? They were taken to the BC Electric yards by the Burrard Bridge and burnt.
 
"They burned about 400 streetcars and interurbans there," Ewert laments. "They stripped the interurbans and streetcars of all their metal, took the trucks and wheels off, and so on, anything they could reuse. Then they got ropes and pulled the streetcar or interurban over on its side, and lit it aflame. They had a system for doing this, a little bit of gas, very rudimentary, and bang! it was gone. In about 10 minutes, the whole thing was ashes."
 
John MacKie.

Vancouver Island
British Columbia
Canada