Widespread availability of electricity in developed countries is today taken for granted, but this technology was the 1880s equivalent of the digital and computer-driven revolution a century later. It allowed fast electric transit vehicles to replace horse-drawn vehicles, moving people much more quickly through rapidly-growing cities. At first, the streetcars travelled on steel rails, but trolley coaches soon began to displace the trams since the powerful rubber-tired buses could more readily manoeuvre through increasingly-congested streets crowded with automobile traffic. Every major city in Canada added fleets of the new electric coaches, which, thanks to their quiet powerful electric motors, could climb hills and accelerate much faster than the slower, weaker engines of any petrol-fuelled motor-buses of the day. These efficient trolley coach lines ran in Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Cornwall, Toronto, Hamilton, Kitchener, Windsor, Port Arthur-Fort William, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton, and are still operating in Vancouver. Fascinating photos of each city's system show the coaches, passengers, and in-street running, with surrounding homes, theatres, stores and commercial buildings providing historical reference points for those interested in transportation, Canadiana, and nostalgic home-town views. For equipment and transit enthusiasts, the author has compiled complete system equipment rosters, with vehicle specifications and illustrations, along with a listing of preserved equipment. There's a chapter for each city's system, plus a history of the trolley coach in Canada, and of all nine coach manufacturers. Wire maps (to show the streets on which they ran) are included for every city.
About the Author: Tom Schwarzkopf is a teacher, writer (both of award-winning children's books and historical transport histories), professor, and playwright. He lives in Ottawa.
