NEWS Nell Lucente

Streetcar restoration
brings the past to life

CLANG, CLANG clang went the trolley, ding, ding, ding
went the bell ... would such songs be made up about the
Skytrain, the automated, conductorless successor to -the

streetcar?

Doubtful. There’s something
romantic about streetcars, with
their fine wood trim, wooden
floors and wicker seats — and the
noises they made.

If you are old enough, you'll
remember streetcar #153. One of
the eight cars of the 150 series in
North Vancouver, the double-
ended #153 went up and down
Lonsdale Avenue unti! 1947,

When the streetcars became ob-
solete many of them were
unceremoniously burned or strip-
ped of their parts by scavengers
and nostalgia buffs.

Streetcar #153 somehow surviv-
ed this carnage and ended up as a
restaurant in the Fraser Valley.
Later it was demoted to the status
of chicken coop, languishing in a
bog for years. When it was
retrieved from its muddy resting
place it was a relic of its former

By BARBARA BLACK
News Reporter

self.

North Shore Museum and Ar-
chives director Bill Baker, ever
vigilant in his search for North
Shore artifacts, managed to pro-
cure the car for the North Shore
Museum along with $25,000 in
funding from the B.C. Heritage
Trust Foundation and $90,000
from the City of North Vancouver
to undertake restoration.

But the task of restoring
without the original plans or many
of the original parts has been a
challenge.

Project manager Bob Booth, of
North Vancouver, painstakingly
measured each nook and cranny
of the streetcar in its derelict con-
dition and, together with old
drawings of similar streetcars drew

up architectural plans.

Carl Andersen, a retired ship’s
joiner and carpenter for the pro-
ject has used these plans to
custom-make some of the parts
which were too far gone to
restore. That has included 62
windows and 12 doors, which
Andersen proudly points out
stacked amidst the wood shavings.

After one year, the project is
almost complete. All that remains
is the puzzle of the marual step
mechanism. ‘The original parts
were completely obliterated,"’ says
Baker, *‘and no one is sure what
it looked like.”

Once that puzzle is solved, the
car will have to be moved from its
present location under the grands-
tand at Mahon Park to have the
trucks or rolling mechanism in-
stalled.

In the end, everyone on the
project would like to see the car
run. ‘*Kids and parents come by
all the time and ask ‘what are you

See Locals
Page 16

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NESTLED UNDER the
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ear, which used to rattle up
and down Lonsdale Avenue.
Bob Booth (left), project

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