" : Styfes and frees) Wallace
THE Ferry-bound No. 2 Lynn Valley car 162 drifts down Grand Boulevard near 15th Street on a hazy June morning in 1946. in the Inset photo two of North Vancouver's
_ 11 streetcars wait momentarily at the Lonsdale Sine’s upper terminus on Windsor Read, May 1946.

By Henry Ewart
Contributing Writer

BEFORE there was a ©
Second Narrows Bridge in
1925 and the Lions Gate
Bridge in
1938, a per-
fect little 10-
mile electric
street railway
system
looked after
the needs of
North
Vancouver
residents, and would contin-
ue to do so competently
until exactly half a century
ago today, April 23, 1947.

Anticipating the arrival of every
ferry from Vancouver, B.C. Electric
Railway’s streetcars hustled from
the farthest reaches of North
Vancouver to the nvin tracks ar the
foot of Lonsdale with a stolid relia-
bility and an ability to deflect even
the most daunting snowfalls.

And when ridership was heavy,
fwo streetcars would run together,
though net coupled; after all, 1] handsome ced street-
cars were available for duty on the three single-track
lines:

@the ovo-mile No. | — Lonsdale;
B the five-mile No. 2 — Lynn Valley,
Band the 34-mile No. 3 — Capilano.

For emergencies, a hulking snow sweeper and a
homely but effective tine maintenance vehicle huddied
together outside the Retle car barn at Third Street and
St. Davids Avenue, where buses rest even today.

Surcetear service officially began in North Vancouver
on Labour Day 1906 on the Lonsdale line, whiek was
complete up the hill only as far as 12th Street.

A week later, on Sept. 10, what would bes,
known as the Capilano line was in operation almast as
far as Feil Avenue, and by the end ef October, Lynn
Valley streetcars reached 15th Street on Grand
Boulevard, and the Lonsdale line reached 2 Ist.

In carly 1907, the Capilano line was extended on
Marine Drive beyond Fell co Mackay Creek.

Though the Lonsdale line had been pushed through
to 25th in 1908, the next significant advance for the
North Shore streetcar system came with the inaugura-
tion of the extension of the Lynn Vadew line in May
1910 from the top of Grand Boulevard along the north
side of Lynn Valley Road for 2% miles to Dempsey
Road.

This forested evtension enabled the Fenn Valley fine
to tunction also as 2 umber and fumber hauler tor
Patterson Lumber Company, as it had already been for
the Diplock-Wright Western sawmill at 17th Street and
Sutherland Avenuc.

During 1911, the Capilano line extension was com-
pleted from Fell and Marine, via Fell, 20th, and 22nd,
to School Street and Bowser Avenuc, very close to the

Henry Ewert

North Vancouver's 10-mile electric streetcar
system consisted of 11 red cars on three single-
track lines: the two-mile No. 1 Lonsdale, the five-
mite No. 2 Lynn Valley, and the three-mile No. 3
Capilano. (Above: News graphic Cathleen Powell)

Until it was condemned and shut down on Oct. 1,
1943, the 450-foot-long, 98-foot-high trestle car-
ried Capilano streetcars across MacKay Creek at
2Gth Street (upper right photo);

The Lonsdale line’s two-man cars congregate on
Dominion Day 1946 at the 16th Street
passing siding (centre right photo);

The clock over the time office of Burrard Ory
Dock reads 2:20 p.m. on a Saturday in July 1946.
The ferry is in, and five streetcars will be off in a

few moments: the two distant cars on the left

track in tandem on the No. 2 - Lynn Valley line,
the nearest car on the left track on the No. 3 -
Capilano tine to its terminus at 20th and Hamilton,
and the two cars on the right-hand track on the
No. 1 - Lonsdale line (lower right photo).

present cast footing of the Upper Levels Highway
bridge acress the Capilano River,

This dehighttully seenic 1.67-mile extension featured
a 450-footlong, 98-foot-high trestle crossing of
Mackay Creek at 20th Street.

In carly 1912 the streetcar system achieved its com-
pleted status with the extension of the Lonsdale line to

See Loss page WV