Trolley Thursday 1/20/22 - The Edmonton Radial Railway (and the ERRS)

Outside of the cities of Toronto and Montreal in Ontario and Quebec, respectively, the next biggest city as one moves west cross Canada is Edmonton. Lying just southeast of Alberta's central point, Edmonton is the province's capital and home to the famous West Edmonton Mall and Fort Edmonton Park. Edmonton is also a major stop on the famous VIA Rail "Canadian" all-streamliner passenger service. However, unlike that rolling anachronism of 1950s Budd cars, their current light rail system is but a shadow of its former glory. On today's Trolley Thursday, we look back on the original Edmonton Radial Railway and the historical society that takes its name today.

So What Is a Radial Railway?

Your standard "radial railway" car on the Lake Simcoe Line's
last night on March 16, 1930.
(Toronto Railway Museum)

    So, dear riders, by now you would have seen this term keep coming up in our trolley posts: the "radial railway". Sounds imposing, does it not? Maybe sounds obvious to some, who assume that, "of course the name make sense, the lines radiate out from a central point!", but I'm getting ahead of myself. In basic terms, a "radial railway" to Europe and Canada has the same meaning as an "interurban" railway in the United States. Radial railways in Canada were also built to a slightly different purpose than interurbans.  Rather than a cheap way to link two cities together as in the states, radial railways were a natural suburban progression outward to new neighborhoods that sometimes bordered other cities. Among the most notable high-speed radial lines in Toronto was the Metropolitan Line of the Toronto & York Radial Railway around Lake Simcoe, which took riders a little over 93 miles north to Lake Muskoka, one of the longest in Canada.

Interurbans in the Great White North

A Canadian National train pulls into Edmonton's CN depot
at 104 Avenue and 101 Street, 1909.
(City of Edmonton Archives)

    With that clarification out of the way, today's radial railway could fit well within the Metropolitan Line as it was only 56 miles long in total. At the time it was first put to a city ordinance in 1893, the Edmonton Radial Railway (ERR) had only existed on paper and there was no public transit at all through the city. The local Canadian National (CN) line (then the Canadian Northern Railway, Sir William Mackenzie's big ol' railroad of fun) would not be built through the town for another decade, and the population peaked at just 700 people. Edmonton's sleepy trading post days ended in 1897 when it became a starting town for people traveling up to the Klondike Gold Rush, but still the town was without a public transit system. After the completion of the CN line through Alberta in 1905 and being formally declared a "City" in the eyes of the Canadian government, progress flared up and the town began growing again, turning focus back onto the ERR.

A busy day on the intersection of Jasper Avenue and 101 Street
(back when it was called First Street) in 1911.
(Glenbow Archives)

    In 1907, the Edmonton city council approved borrowing $224,000 Canadian (that's $6.3 million Canadian in 2020 dollars) for "the creation of a streetcar system". The Government of Alberta, eager to build up Edmonton as the center of their province, also passed the "Radial Tramway Act" in 1908, permitting Edmonton to construct a railway within an 80-mile radius of City Hall (hence, "radial railway"). The first line was laid later that year along Jasper Avenue, a curving street paralleling the North Saskatchewan River north-to-west and passing through the heart of downtown. Expansion then came swiftly before the railway officially opened, as the city also purchased the Strathcona Radial Tramway across the North Saskatchewan River for $135,000 Canadian ($4 million Canadian in 2020), finalizing the purchase on August 4, 1908. The ERR officially opened on November 9, 1908, with four streetcars running on 13 miles of track.

The Pride of Edmonton

The Cromdale Carbarn and staging yard in 1924, with 
the powerhouse in the center and the carhouse off to the right.
(Glenbow Archives)

    To say that Edmontonians loved their streetcar would be an understatement, as on the first day alone, 3000 people (over three times that of Edmonton's population just a decade prior) jammed themselves into the streetcars to ride. Through the early 1900s, this municipal railway became a stalwart part of the city's life and by 1911, daily ridership soared to 4,784 passengers. At the same time, the city government allowed ERR's workers to unionize under the Amalgamated Association of Street & Electric Railway Employees of America, becoming Local Division No. 589, a rare allowance in those days considering most privately-owned street railways dissuaded unionization. Due to the ERR's rapid growth and importance in Edmonton's daily life, 47 new streetcars were purchased in 1912 to meet the demand of 10 million annual riders, while its Cromdale Carbarn on 80 Street Northwest was refitted to become the railway's official headquarters in what is now the Edmonton Northlands event center and raceway.

St. Louis "Turtleback" No. 42 at work at Fort Edmonton Park,
wearing a Blue-White Route dash sign.
(Fort Edmonton Park)

    Despite a brief strike from September 1-11, 1917, over new labor agreements, the ERR never faltered in its service through World War I. With the city expanding more than ever through the Roaring Twenties, the ERR also reached its zenith. By 1929, it had served about 14.1 million passengers in a city that was now 74,000 citizens strong. By the next year, the city's six different lines reached a combined 48 miles in length. Unlike most cities all over the world back then, the ERR used colors and color combinations to identify each line using Red, White, Green, and Blue. Each single-color line covered a straightforward distance across the city, such as the Red Line's "ring route" service between 95th Street and 101 Street or the Blue Line's 112 Avenue South-to-North Edmonton line. When routes were combined, such as the Blue & White route from 112 Avenue to 80 Street, then colors were similarly combined. By 1932, only one route (the Green Line from 124 Street to 142 Street via 102 Avenue) was abandoned due to being bustituted.

A historic map of the Edmonton Radial Railway's reach.
A larger, more legible version can be found here.

Notable Streetcars

Your standard Edmonton Radial Railway fleet at the Fort Edmonton Park carbarn, featuring (from left):
Preston No. 1 from 1908, St. Louis No. 42 from 1912, and Ottawa No. 80 from 1930.
(Edmonton Radial Railway Society)

Edmonton Radial Railway No. 1 in original configuration
at Jasper Avenue, 1908.
(Camrose Museum)

    Between 1908 and 1930, the Edmonton Radial Railway rostered 84 different streetcars (numbered more-or-less in sequence). These cars were primarily built by the Ottawa Car Company of Southern Ontario and the Preston Car Company of Preston, Ontario. The first cars, Nos. 1-6, were built in 1908 and opened the railway over time, with the first delivered being No. 2. These were rather small double-truck streetcars with clerestory roofs, heavily resembling a larger version of the Brill Semi-Convertible streetcar. Later in 1912, these cars were rebuilt to single-ended operation as more single-direction loop lines were added. Car No. 7, another Ottawa product, was the only single-truck car to ever run in Edmonton. The next few cars came out of order from both Preston and Ottawa, with Nos. 10-16 (even numbers) arriving from Preston in 1909, then Nos. 15, 17, and 18-21 from Ottawa the next year, and finally Nos. 8, 9, 11, 13, 22, and 23 from Ottawa again in 1911. Why they were out of order I don't know, but the third order of cars were also the first purpose-built for the railway with single ends.

Edmonton Radial Railway No. 7, the only single-truck car on the system.
(Steve Peters)

This picture shows the cars built by Ottawa in 1911, single-ended duplicates of the 1909 Prestons.
Note the short length and the clerestory "monitor" roof.
(Edmonton Radial Railway Society)

A builder's photo of the steel Ottawa cars from 1930.
Trucks were supplied by the Canadian Car Company, and it
does look a little Peter Witt-ish, doesn't it?
(Edmonton Radial Railway Society)

    Other highlights to the roster came in 1912 when the ERR placed an order for 15 cars (Nos. 32-46) from the St. Louis Car Company of St. Louis, Missouri, USA, the only cars from a source outside Canada. These cars were similar in design to the Stone & Webster "turtleback" cars used by their transit enterprises, and were much smaller and shorter compared to their larger interurban-style rostermates. By the next year, the ERR put money down on 28 cars from Preston (Nos. 47-74) which was the largest class of cars ever ordered by the company. After another batch from Preston in 1914, streetcar purchasing paused until 1930, when 5 final cars (Nos. 80-84) were delivered to Edmonton from Ottawa. By this time, ERR's streetcars were constructed of steel instead of wood and were still single-ended cars, even if their designs were originally double-ended. These cars were rebuilt over their working lives, but the most unique was Preston No. 14 from 1909, which was converted into a "library car" in 1941, delivering books to residents in remote neighborhoods.

Edmonton Car No. 33 from St. Louis Car Company, in color,
showing the familiar detached-cab "turtleback" shape.
(CTV News Edmonton) 

With Pride comes the Fall

"Edmonton Streetcar 80 on the blue-and-white route poses for the photographer
on May 27, 1947 alongside Brill trolley coach No. 142 on Jasper Avenue and 97 Street."
(Provincial Pictures of Alberta, Edmonton Radial Railway Society)

    The ERR suffered greatly through the Great Depression, as the economic downturn made it hard for the city to justify maintaining what was once the "Pride of Edmonton" to a decent standard. The influx of riders in World War II with the implementation of gasoline rationing further pushed the system to its limit and hastened its deterioration. By the end of the war, the city council and the Government of Alberta were faced with a quandary: either they spend the enormous-but-long-term investment to repair the streetcar lines and order new cars, or they take the short-term investment option and purchase new trolley buses. Of course, the council went with the latter option and in 1946, the ERR changed its name to the Edmonton Transportation Service, then the Edmonton Transit System in 1947 (sometimes you just need time to choose a good name). Trolley-bustitutions continued until the end of the decade, by which the only remaining routes were the Blue Line and sections of the White Line connected as the Blue-White Line, reducing total trackage to just 17 miles.

Edmonton Car No. 1 is seen on the Blue-and-White Line on Jasper Avenue
between 100 and 99 Streets, July 7, 1949.
(Foster M. Palmer, ERRS)

    On September 1, 1951, a very tired, battered, and exhausted ERR No. 1 carried then-Edmonton mayor Sidney Parsons and other dignitaries across the High Level Bridge from Strathcona to Edmonton in a ceremonial last run. By the time it rolled into the Cromdale Carbarn, a long and storied chapter of Edmonton's history had come to an end. Edmonton's trolleybus took to the streets soon after as the streetcars and infrastructure were disposed of in ceremonial fashion. After all, can't have pride without the fall.

A Society is Born

Edmonton No. 1, now 100 years old, sits at Churchill Square
to celebrate Transit Centennial Week in September 2008.
(Hans Ruffel, ERRS)

    However, that wasn't the end of ERR No. 1's story. After being stored at the Cromdale Carbarn, the little car watched as its kin and rostermates were scrapped, while it alone stood outside against time, the elements, and persistent vandalism. In 1964, mercy was shown upon the little car as it was partially restored over three years to be showcased in the 1967 Centennial Parade.  No. 1 then underwent a decade-long restoration to return to as-close an operation condition as it could get. Everything, from controller boxes to traction motors, was rebuilt and reworked for a modern age (minus the trolley wire). In 1979, with Edmonton's 75th anniversary in full swing on Thanksgiving weekend, the little No. 1 moved on its own power for the first time in almost thirty years (with the help of a diesel generator) across the High Level Bridge. Just like seventy years ago, people also piled into the little car to ride a piece of re-appreciated history, and it is here that the Edmonton Radial Railway Society (ERRS) was formed early the next year.

Construction of the Ford Edmonton Park Carbarn occurs in the early 1980s.
The carbody in front is most likely Edmonton No. 13, which is still under restoration.
(ERRS)

    The formation of the ERRS coincided with the development of Fort Edmonton Park, the largest living history museum in Canada and one of the largest in the world. As the park intended to showcase all aspects of Edmonton history from the earliest frontier days until the "Metropolitan Era" of the 1920s, of course a trolley line was in the planning books connecting the "Municipal Era" of 1905 with the 1920s. 

A one-kilometer track was constructed along with a new carbarn to house No. 1, and its journeys at that point were always accompanied by a diesel generator until a proper overhead could be built. The ERRS also began sourcing other surviving streetcars at this time, such as saving St. Louis "turtleback" No. 42 from its second life as a Sylvan Lake Cottage and Ottawa Car No. 80, the only surviving, steel-bodied car that was being used as a farm building in Fort St. John. Along with seven other cars (Nos. 13, 31, 33, 38, 53, 65, and 73), all are lovingly preserved or in the process of being restored at Fort Edmonton Park. 

Edmonton No. 42 passes a replica of the historic Hotel Selkirk on 1920 Street,
what was once originally located in the core of downtown Edmonton.
Unlike most replica buildings, it also functions as an actual hotel.
(Trip.com)

Ex-Nankai Electric Railway No. 247 crosses the High Level Bridge
on a sunny day in September 2007.
(Bill Burris)

    However, that wasn't the end of the ERRS. Far from them to be stuck on a 1-kilometer park line, they had bigger plans. During the 1995 Edmonton International Fringe Festival for arts and theater, the ERRS was given the opportunity to run an ex-Nankai Electric Railway streetcar (from Osaka, Japan) across the High Level Bridge between Strathcona and the 109th Street tunnel. As with little No. 1, ex-Nankai No. 247 used a diesel generator to power itself back and forth along the bridge, but the operation was again such a success that by 1997, streetcar service between Strathcona and Grandon returned and a new terminal was built out to 100 Avenue and Jasper in 2005. This line is the usual haunt of Edmonton No. 33, now restored as a double-ended two-man streetcar after 17 years of work. It seems that with all the pride Edmontonians had in their streetcar, it could never truly be gotten rid of.

To the Future

The new Edmonton LRT, featuring their second-generation
Siemens SD-160 cars in front of the High Level Bridge.
(iStock)

    And finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention Edmonton's current light rail system, the Edmonton Light Rail Transit (or LRT). Despite being an all-bus town, considerations were drawn up for a new light rail system in 1962 by Canadian Bechtel Limited. After ten years of studies and development, construction began in 1974 on the new system with a relatively small budget of 65 million. Upon first opening, Edmonton's LRT was not only the first Western Canadian rapid transit system, but also made Edmonton the first city in North America with a population less one million (445,000 people by 1974) to operate a transit system. Considerations and inspirations for the city came from a variety of places, including the MBTA Green Line in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, but the LRT also remained a modern system unto itself. 

The future map of the Edmonton LRT with new lines and extensions shown.
The only current routes are the Red and Blue lines.
(Transit Maps)

The Churchill Connector under construction.
(Matthew Boonstra)

    After 1983, it became the first transit system with full disabled persons access at every station, and in copying the Europeans the LRT adopted automated "proof of payment" systems in 1980 to eliminate manned fare collection. Despite being less than half of the original size of the ERR, only 15.1 miles long between Clareview and Century Park, the Edmonton LRT has its eyes currently set on expanding ever further, with five different extensions guaranteeing almost 31 miles of new track set over several stages between 2022 and 2040. The longest, the "Valley Line", runs a combined 17 miles from 102 street to Mill Woods, a community southeast of Edmonton with a large Indian population, a mall, and sparse transit connection. Only time will tell if the LRT can regain the pride the ERR once had, because it's all uphill from here.

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, and watch your step as you alight on the platform. My resources today included the Edmonton Radial Railway Society, the Fort Edmonton Park, a Skyrise Cities article on Edmonton's streetcars, my friend Huddleston who actually lives somewhere in Alberta, and the photo credits under each caption. The trolley gifs in our posts are made by myself and can be found under “Motorman Reymond’s Railroad Gif Carhouse”. On Tuesday, we cross over into the last uncharted province as we look at the British Columbia Electric Railway! For now, you can follow myself or my editor on Twitter, buy a shirt or sticker from our Redbubble stand, or purchase my editor's self-developed board game! It's like Ticket to Ride, but cooler! (and you get to support him through it!) Until next time, ride safe!