Skip to content

Have you seen Street Car 160?

Letters
Streetcar
BCER North Vancouver Streetcar 160

Editor:

In my research of the legacy of the British Columbia Electric Railway (BCER), I have learned from Henry Ewert, a retired high school teacher and BCER historian and author (The Story of the British Columbia Electric Railway Company, Whitecap Books, 1986), that “at least seven of the North Vancouver street cars were purchased privately and shipped to Ruskin Hideout Auto Camp becoming self-contained housekeeping cabins beside the Stave River.”

They were “purchased by H.P. (Henry) Blanchard as the following seven North Vancouver street cars (150, 151, 154, 157,160, 161 and 162), were hauled by flat bed truck to Ruskin, and set up, with brick chimneys attached, as the Ruskin Hideout Auto Camp. Their trucks and miscellaneous equipment were taken to B.C. Electric Kitsilano shop.”

However, after the auto camp closed down in 1950-51, Street Car 160 (photo above) ended up in the Gibsons area, along McNair Forest Service Road, I have been told.

As part of a PowerPoint Presentation I am creating on the legacy of the old BCER, I am looking for any elderly forest workers who might remember seeing Street Car 160 and can tell me what happened to it.

Anyone wishing to let me know can contact me at: fraservalleyheritageresearch@gmail.com of 604-200-0625

Graham Evan MacDonell, principal researcher, Fraser Valley Heritage Research Services, Abbotsford