The Vancouver trolley bus system forms part of the TransLink public transport network serving Metro Vancouver in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Opened in 1948, the system was originally owned and operated by the British Columbia Electric Railway. By 1954, Vancouver had the largest trolley bus fleet in Canada, with 327 units, and the fleet grew to an all-time peak of 352 in early 1957. There were 19 routes by 1955 and a peak of 20 by the second quarter of 1957. The last route to open in the 1950s was the only express trolley bus service that ever existed in Canada. Several, mostly short, extensions to the system were constructed in the 1980s and later.
The trolley bus 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. It has the second-largest trolley bus fleet in Canada and the U.S.
History
Following a formal opening ceremony on 13 August 1948,Kelly and Francis, p. 102. regular service on Vancouver's first trolley bus routes began on 16 August 1948,Murray, Alan (2000). World Trolleybus Encyclopaedia, pp. 78, 148. Yateley, Hampshire, UK: Trolleybooks. . 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.Sebree, Mac; and Ward, Paul (1974). The Trolley Coach in North America, pp. 338–342. Los Angeles: Interurbans. LCCN 74-20367. All of these first routes had been conversions of streetcar lines except for the Cambie route. Conversion of several more streetcar and motor bus 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. In May 1957, BCER introduced an express trolley bus route, 34 Hastings Express (which had first been created as a diesel bus route, one year earlier), which was the only express trolley bus service in Canada. For that service, a section of East Hastings Street, between Main Street and Kootenay Loop, was equipped with two additional sets of overhead wires for use by express trips only, and trolley buses ran non-stop in both directions along that section. The addition of route 34 brought the network to what was, for several years, its maximum extent, with the following 21 routes (all of which were designated by route names, rather than destinations, and numbers):
3 Main 4 W. Fourth 5 Robson 6 Fraser 7 Dunbar 8 Davie 9 Broadway
10 Tenth 11 Stanley Park 12 Powell 14 Hastings 15 Cambie 16 Renfrew 17 Oak
18 Arbutus 19 Kingsway 20 Granville 24 Nanaimo 25 Victoria 34 Hastings Express 41 41st Avenue
The service was provided by CCF–Brill trolley buses, with 82 model T44 vehicles 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 at 327 units.Kelly and Francis, p. 103. The fleet later included 25 1947-built Pullman-Standard trolley buses acquired secondhand from Birmingham, Alabama, which entered service in March 1957.Kelly and Francis, p. 106. 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. The BC government nationalized BCER in August 1961, replacing it with a new crown corporation named BC Hydro.
1970s to 1990s
In November 1974, trolley buses began operating along the new Granville Mall in downtown Vancouver, after a section of Granville Street was converted into a bus- and pedestrian-only street. During the work to convert the street to a transit mall, all trolley bus routes had been detoured via Seymour, Howe, and Richards streets.
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. Vancouver's Flyer model E800s were new vehicles except for the propulsion system, which used recycled General Electric equipmentMcIntyre, Angus (January–February 1999). "Vancouver Celebrates 50 Years". Trolleybus Magazine No. 223, pp. 3–5. National Trolleybus Association (UK). . from the earlier Brill T-44s. 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,Trolleybus Magazine No. 142 (July–August 1985), p. 89. but around 25 returned to service for Expo 86,Trolleybus Magazine No. 148 (July–August 1986), p. 92. . and the last few were in occasional service until January 1987.
In the early 1980s, the system acquired 245 new Flyer E901A/E902 trolley buses."Vancouver Brill Farewell". Trolleybus Magazine No. 134 (March–April 1984), p. 41. These began to enter service in mid-1982, gradually replacing the CCF–Brill vehicles. The last use of a Brill trolley bus in service occurred on 25 March 1984.Trolleybus Magazine No. 135 (May–June 1984), p. 69. After withdrawal of the last E800s, in early 1987, Flyer E901A/E902 vehicles made up the whole of the Vancouver trolley bus fleet for almost 20 years. E902 No. 2937 was irreparably damaged by an electrical fire in 1987, reducing the total number of trolley buses to 244.Trolleybus Magazine No. 191 (September–October 1993), p. 131.
In April 1983, route 34 Hastings Express was converted to diesel buses, endingfor a timethe only express trolley bus service in Canada. The change was a result of route 34's through-routing partnerthe route with which it was linked in downtownbeing changed from the Arbutus route (then still numbered 18) to route 10 Tenth/UBC,Trolleybus Magazine No. 132 (November 1983), p. 143. National Trolleybus Association (UK). . which had been converted to diesel buses in 1968 upon being extended to the University of British Columbia (UBC) because there were no overhead wires to UBC at that time. Use of the "express wires" thereby ended, except by trolley buses heading to the garage from Kootenay Loop. In September 1988, when the opening of an extension of the overhead wires to UBC enabled route 10 Tenth to be reconverted to trolley buses, the Hastings Express servicerenumbered from 34 to 10 in 1986also became trolley bus-operated again, after a 5.5-year absence.Trolleybus Magazine No. 159 (May–June 1988), p. 63.Trolleybus Magazine No. 162 (November–December 1988), pp. 136–137. Express trolley bus service ended for a second time on 12 April 1997, with that half of route 10 replaced by new express bus routes running beyond Kootenay Loop, the end of the wires. Although no longer scheduled for use, the express wires were kept in place and would see occasional use by very late-running trolleys on route 14 Hastings attempting to regain lost time.Trolleybus Magazine No. 214 (July–August 1997), p. 100.Trolleybus Magazine No. 298 (July–August 2011), pp. 87–88. (On the now-closed Edmonton trolley bus system, two sets of express wires were installed in 1983 on a section of 102 Avenue and Stony Plain Road, for a planned conversion of bus route 10 to trolley buses, but that conversion never took place and the express wires were never brought into scheduled use; Vancouver's express trolley bus service remained unique in Canada.)Trolleybus Magazine No. 214 (July–August 1997), p. 98–99.Bramley, Rod (July–August 2009). "Edmonton Council Votes to Close System". Trolleybus Magazine No. 286, pp. 74–82. National Trolleybus Association (UK). .
Several extensions to the system were constructed and opened in 1986, in connection with the opening of the SkyTrain rapid transit system. Most were short diversions of routes at their outer ends, to terminate at new SkyTrain stations, including Nanaimo station, 29th Avenue station and Joyce station, but the extension of route 19 Kingsway to Metrotown was long and was the first extension of Vancouver's trolley bus system outside the city of Vancouver, into Burnaby.Kelly and Francis, p. 110–111. An extension from Blanca Street to UBC opened in September 1988, bringing trolley bus service back to routes 10 and the Hastings Express.
2000 to present In September 2003, trolley bus route 19 Kingsway was extended to a new terminus within Stanley Park, using of new wires.Trolleybus Magazine No. 231 (May–June 2000), p. 63. National Trolleybus Association.Trolleybus Magazine No. 253 (January–February 2004), p. 19. National Trolleybus Association. Earlier, starting in 1950, route 11 Stanley Park was a trolley bus route, but the terminus known by that name was located outside the park, in an off-street turning loop off of Georgia Street at Chilco Street, overlooking Lost Lagoon. Route 11 became through-routed with route 19 Kingsway in 1986 and was renumbered 19.Trolleybus Magazine No. 166 (July–August 1989), p. 95. In December 1993, route 19 was cut back to Burrard Street in downtown on weekdays (with a diesel shuttle covering the section to Stanley Park loop) and converted to diesel buses on weekends, after the unsignalized left turn into the terminal loop was deemed to be too hazardous in weekday traffic conditions.Trolleybus Magazine No. 194 (March–April 1994), p. 47. The old loop continued to be used by diesel buses on weekends, and its trolley wires also remained in place for some years and were occasionally used by trolley buses during special events, such as a 1998 excursion marking the system's 50th anniversary, but in 2002, the loop was closed even for motor buses and removed. The 2003 extension brought trolley buses back to the section of Georgia Street to, and now past, the location of the former loop and into Stanley Park, to a bus loop constructed around 2002.
From 2005 to 2009, the fleet was renewed again. New Flyer Industries in Winnipeg won the contract for the supply of the new vehicles, with electrical equipment by the German company Vossloh Kiepe. Aside from a prototype received in 2005, delivery of the new trolley buses began in August 2006, and they began to enter service on 5 October 2006. The last day of service for the Flyer E901A/E902 vehicles was 18 April 2008.Trolleybus Magazine No. 280 (July–August 2008), pp. 86–88. In December 2008, 80 of the old Flyers were sold to the Mendoza trolley bus system in Argentina. Vancouver now had a fleet of 262 low-floor trolley buses, supplied under the New Flyer contract between 2005 and the end of 2009.
With the opening of the SkyTrain's Canada Line, routes 3 Main, 10 Granville, and 17 Oak were extended to Marine Drive station on 7 September 2009, using new overhead wires installed along a section of Marine Drive between Oak Street and Main Street.Trolleybus Magazine No. 289 (January–February 2010), pp. 12, 15. Prior to this change, routes 10 and 17 had terminated at Marpole Loop and route 3 at Main and Marine.Trolleybus Magazine No. 286 (July–August 2009), p. 89. (The three routes were later temporarily cut back to their former terminals during construction of a large housing and commercial complex at Marine Drive station, from February 2013 for route 10, from April 2014 for the others, until April 2015.)Trolleybus Magazine No. 309 (May–June 2013), p. 76.Trolleybus Magazine No. 315 (May–June 2014), p. 72.Trolleybus Magazine No. 322 (July–August 2015), p. 115.