Trolleybuses in Vancouver
New Flyer E40LFR at Marine Drive Station
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| Operation | |
|---|---|
| Locale | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
| Open | 16 August 1948 |
| Operator(s) |
British Columbia Electric Railway (1948-1962) BC Hydro (1962-1973) Greater Vancouver Transit System (1973-1978) Urban Transit Authority (1978-1982) BC Transit (1982-1999) Coast Mountain Bus Company (since 1999) |
| Infrastructure | |
| Electrification | 600 V DC |
| Website | Coast Mountain Bus Company |
The Vancouver trolley bus system forms part of the public transport network serving Metro Vancouver, in the province of British Columbia, Canada.
In operation since 1948, the system presently comprises 13 routes, and is managed by the Coast Mountain Bus Company, a subsidiary of TransLink. It uses a fleet of 262 trolley buses, of which 74 are articulated vehicles.
Following a formal opening ceremony on 13 August 1948, regular service on Vancouver's first trolley bus routes began on 16 August 1948, operated by the British Columbia Electric Railway (BCER). Two routes opened on that day, 6-Fraser and 15-Cambie, and routes 5-Robson and 8-Davie followed later the same year. All of these first routes had been conversions of streetcar lines except for the Cambie route. Conversion of several more streetcar and motorbus routes quickly followed, and by 1953, the trolley bus system had 16 routes. Three more trolley bus lines were created in 1955, when the last streetcar line, Hastings, closed and was replaced by the 14-Hastings trolley bus route and two branches, routes 16-Renfrew and 24-Nanaimo. This brought the network to what was, for several years, its maximum extent, with 19 routes.
The service was provided by CCF-Brill trolley buses, with 82 of model T44 acquired in 1947 and 1948, and 245 of the larger model T48 (and variants T48A and T48SP) acquired between 1949 and 1954. With the delivery of the last new Brill trolley bus, in January 1954, Vancouver had the largest trolley bus fleet in Canada, 327 units.
The fleet later included 25 1947-built Pullman-Standard trolley buses acquired secondhand from Birmingham, Alabama, which entered service in March 1957. However, drivers considered the Pullmans awkward to operate, and the vehicles were found to be surplus to the company's needs; they were taken out of service in 1960 and scrapped in 1961. In the mid-1970s, the remaining T44-model trolley buses were retired, and in their place 50 new trolley buses were acquired from Flyer Industries. Flyer Model E800's were new vehicles except for the propulsion system, which used recycled General Electric equipment from the earlier Brill T-44's. The Flyer E800s were delivered in late 1975 and 1976. Their use of recycled 1940s electrical equipment resulted in a shorter lifespan, and they were withdrawn in 1985, but around 25 returned to service for Expo 86, and the last few were in occasional service until January 1987.
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Wikipedia