An electrifying development
As early as 1875 St. Catharines had a horse-powered street railway that ran from downtown along St. Paul Street and Queenston to where Oakdale Avenue begins today.
It’s not known exactly what happened to that first street car company, but a new street car service was in 1879, presided over by the enterprising Dr. Lucius Oille, a physician and former mayor. That new trolley service began running on Nov. 1, 1879, following the same route as the earlier system. In the following year it was extended out to Thorold.
That extension of service to Thorold opened up a much more challenging stretch of track — “the most crooked and hardest line to operate they had ever looked at” according to some observers. The section from the Queenston- Oakdale corner out to Merritton was marked by challenging stretches of hills and curve, and then beyond Merritton the trolleys had to contend with the escarpment. Overall the track climbed some 287 feet between downtown and Thorold. Even in good weather passengers sometimes had to get out and walk alongside the cars as the horses contended with particularly steep grades.
But in the late 1880s came the electrification of the system. Much work had to be done in erecting poles and stringing electrical power lines along the system’s entire six mile length. But the Street Railway obtained all of the permissions and approvals, got power from a generator near Lock 12 of the Second Canal in Merritton, and changed that electrical power into traction power using the Van Depoele system, invented by Belgian-born engineer Charles Joseph Van Depoele and by 1886 already powering street cars in Windsor and a handful of other North American cities.
After a trial run on October 5, 1887, the newly electrified St. Catharines, Merritton and Thorold Street Railway began regular trolley service between St. Catharines, Merritton and Thorold on October 10, 1887 – 130 years ago next Tuesday.
The accompanying drawing shows two cars of the new electric railway on Ontario Street (in front of the St. Catharines Club) during the winter of 1887. Both are simply old horse cars, the one on the right having been modified to use the Van Depoele system, drawing its power from the wires high above the tracks. It’s towing the other old horse car — an arrangement used when there was a high volume of traffic — say, on market days.
With many changes of ownership, car styles, power plant and rail network, St. Catharines’ electricpowered street railway passenger service continued until the last regular run to Port Dalhousie on February 28, 1950.
And today? The buses of the St. Catharines Transit Commission (formed in 1961) now provide the services once performed by our electrified street railway system.
Dennis Gannon is a member of the Historical Society of St. Catharines. He can be reached at gannond2002@yahoo.com