The great Halifax "I remember when" thread

[ghYHZ]

Until Halifax Transit took over in January 1970……Nova Scotia Light and Power provided the transit service on the peninsula using a combination Electric Trolley Coaches and GM Diesels.

20181007070533714_0001 by ghYHZ, on Flickr

Trolley Coaches ran across the MacDonald Bridge to connect with the DTS buses at the Bridge Terminal and Acadian Lines provided frequent suburban service to Bedford, Herring Cove, Leblin Park, Purcell’s Cove and Fairview from a terminal downtown.

This 1960’s Postcard of the Lord Nelson posted by OldDartmouthMark nicely shows the overhead wires that powered the Electric Trolley Coaches. Wires were strung above the street on routes though out the city.

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Source

[ghYHZ]

Here’s a Halifax Transit map from 1971. A year after they took over from Nova Scotia Light and Power.


20181007065859053_0001 by ghYHZ, on Flickr

20181007070252442_0001 by ghYHZ, on Flickr

20181007070424876_0001 by ghYHZ, on Flickr

[ghYHZ]

And speaking of Nova Scotia Light and Power….who ‘Remembers When’ depending on where you lived in the province, you either got your household power from Nova Scotia Light and Power or the Nova Scotia Power ‘Commission’.

Both Tuffs Cove and the old Power Plant on Lower Water Street were NSL&P facilities.

In the early ‘70s…the Government took over NS Light and Power and merged it with NS Power to form the new Nova Scotia Power ‘Corporation’

[OldDartmouthMark]

I recall riding on the trolleycoaches when I was a very young kid. Can recall them stopping every now and then when the pole up to the wires (I'm sure there's a technical name for them) would come off and the driver would have to get out and put it back in place using a long pole designed for that purpose.

Also recall the old Dartmouth Transit buses in their blue and white colour scheme.

There are some good pics on both the Municipal Archives and NS Public Archives sites.

Here's a pic of the Dartmouth bridge terminal from, I'd say, the 1960s:


Near The Nova Scotian hotel


Gottingen St.


Above images from Halifax Municipal Archives

Barrington St.


Quinpool (near Oxford?)


Spring Garden Rd.


Above images from NS Archives

[ghYHZ]

Thanks for that!

[ns_kid]

Thanks, Mark. All of those photos bring back memories. The trolleycoaches (that was NSLP's preferred name for them) were clean and quiet, but a challenge for operators given Halifax's tight turns and steep hills.

When I was a kid, my dad worked in the head offices of NSLP (or "Nova Scotia Light" as he preferred to call it), on the upper floors of the old Capitol Theatre Building. His office looked directly down on the intersection of Barrington Street and Spring Garden Road. I loved to visit his office after hours (riding up in the antique Otis elevator with its manually-operator scissor gate) so I could stand at his window and watch the trolleycoaches navigate the corner. It was not uncommon to see the trolley shoe lose contact with the wire, requiring the operator to get out and reset the pole using the "trolley retriever", the spring loaded cable at the rear of the coach.

With 87 coaches, NSLP had what was said to be the largest all-trolleycoach fleet in North America from 1949 until 1963, when they added 12 GM "New Look" diesel buses. All but six of the trolleycoaches were Brill-designed T-44 and T-44A coaches built new for NSLP by Canadian Car and Foundry in Fort William (Thunder Bay) ON. When Halifax Transit took over on January 1, 1970, they bought only the GMs. NSLP did sell off some of the old coaches to people to use as camps and sheds. (In fact it was to try to avoid that fate that NSLP sadly scrapped all of its old Birney tram cars when it abandoned the street railway in 1949.) One trolleycoach was donated to the Seashore Trolley Museum in Maine but, as far as I know, it was not preserved and when I visited there a few years ago no one could tell me its fate.

There are more great photos of NSLP trolleycoaches here. I recommend Leger and Lawrence's excellent 1994 book Halifax: City of Trolleycoaches to anyone wanting to know more about transit in Halifax during the period.

[rabbileblanc]

We lived in New Glasgow in the 1950s but used to make several trips to Halifax, at least a full day's drive back then. Coming into Halifax was always along the Bedford shore road, we knew we were getting close when we first smelt the Moir's Chocolate Factory just after leaving Bedford
To get a Ross one had to take a small ferry from downtown Halifax.
On the outskirts of Halifax was a relatively new Simpsons Store. This was a stop we had to make as I was purchasing my first ViewMaster along with three sets of slides.
We did visit Dartmouth to go and see the final departure of the magnificent Lusitania as she was to be scrapped .
There was more, but memory escapes at the moment

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by rabbileblanc

We lived in New Glasgow in the 1950s but used to make several trips to Halifax, at least a full day's drive back then. Coming into Halifax was always along the Bedford shore road, we knew we were getting close when we first smelt the Moir's Chocolate Factory just after leaving Bedford
To get a Ross one had to take a small ferry from downtown Halifax.
On the outskirts of Halifax was a relatively new Simpsons Store. This was a stop we had to make as I was purchasing my first ViewMaster along with three sets of slides.
We did visit Dartmouth to go and see the final departure of the magnificent Lusitania as she was to be scrapped .
There was more, but memory escapes at the moment

Interesting post. I have memories of traveling along the old Route 2 before the 102 was built, but it was so long ago. I recall that the traffic would be jammed on Friday afternoons for everyone getting out of town for the weekend. Also recall the train tracks which pretty much followed the road (they still do) and being thrilled if I happened to be lucky enough to see a train go by, or even better if we paced it for awhile before it lost us.

I also have fond memories of going to the Simpsons store - the original one with the old elevators and vacuum tubes through which orders were submitted to the stock rooms upstairs. I believe the new store had been built by that time and you could access it by escalator, but it didn't have the charm of the old store in my eyes.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by ns_kid

Thanks, Mark. All of those photos bring back memories. The trolleycoaches (that was NSLP's preferred name for them) were clean and quiet, but a challenge for operators given Halifax's tight turns and steep hills.

When I was a kid, my dad worked in the head offices of NSLP (or "Nova Scotia Light" as he preferred to call it), on the upper floors of the old Capitol Theatre Building. His office looked directly down on the intersection of Barrington Street and Spring Garden Road. I loved to visit his office after hours (riding up in the antique Otis elevator with its manually-operator scissor gate) so I could stand at his window and watch the trolleycoaches navigate the corner. It was not uncommon to see the trolley shoe lose contact with the wire, requiring the operator to get out and reset the pole using the "trolley retriever", the spring loaded cable at the rear of the coach.

With 87 coaches, NSLP had what was said to be the largest all-trolleycoach fleet in North America from 1949 until 1963, when they added 12 GM "New Look" diesel buses. All but six of the trolleycoaches were Brill-designed T-44 and T-44A coaches built new for NSLP by Canadian Car and Foundry in Fort William (Thunder Bay) ON. When Halifax Transit took over on January 1, 1970, they bought only the GMs. NSLP did sell off some of the old coaches to people to use as camps and sheds. (In fact it was to try to avoid that fate that NSLP sadly scrapped all of its old Birney tram cars when it abandoned the street railway in 1949.) One trolleycoach was donated to the Seashore Trolley Museum in Maine but, as far as I know, it was not preserved and when I visited there a few years ago no one could tell me its fate.

There are more great photos of NSLP trolleycoaches here. I recommend Leger and Lawrence's excellent 1994 book Halifax: City of Trolleycoaches to anyone wanting to know more about transit in Halifax during the period.

I just reread your post when this thread popped back up to the top and I started thinking of the old trolleycoaches that were turned into storage that I recall seeing.

Two specifically come to mind:
1) Years ago I had to go to Conrad's gravel pit in Dartmouth to pick up a load of crushed stone, and I recall seeing one in the yard, surprisingly. I'm assuming they must have used it for storage at one time.

Don't remember its exact location, but I think it's in the middle of this shot from Google Maps...



2) There used to be one beside one of the homes on Highway 2, just off exit 7 of the 102. I believe it's long gone now, but it was in the general area of this link: https://goo.gl/maps/Y7nbWdTnjWYD3tC29


Regarding the one at Seashore, I did find a couple of pics on the net, at this link: http://www.sfu.ca/person/dearmond/ph...fax.photos.htm

The first shot looks like it was taken years ago (web page was last updated in 2011):


The second photo is the same unit (based on identical front panel damage) shot apparently some years later and does not look good:


Given my experience with the antique car hobby, a restoration of a rare vehicle such as this, which has deteriorated so badly would be extremely labour intensive, and parts would be virtually impossible to find. Based on that, I would say the chances of its survival would be very small, unfortunately.

[Keith P.]

I remember seeing one of the old NSLP Brill trolleys in a lot on Hwy 14 some distance outside of Windsor maybe 10-15 years ago. It is always jarring to see something like that which you associate with the city out in the middle of nowhere.

[ns_kid]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

The second photo is the same unit (based on identical front panel damage) shot apparently some years later and does not look good:


Given my experience with the antique car hobby, a restoration of a rare vehicle such as this, which has deteriorated so badly would be extremely labour intensive, and parts would be virtually impossible to find. Based on that, I would say the chances of its survival would be very small, unfortunately.

Thanks for sharing that Mark. It would be interesting to know how long ago that second pic was taken. It looks like the unit is long past salvation even there. Though, as we know, a committed restorer can work miracles with much less. But it would be a very expensive labour of love.

I remember thinking a few years back that, for someone with that money and skill, a restoration of that old trolley coach would have been a fitting project to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the transit service in 2016. (The Halifax street railway 🚃 when inaugurated in 1866 was the fourth transit system in Canada, after Toronto, Montreal and — by just a few weeks— Quebec City.) But that was a pipe dream and, in any case, Metro Transit let the anniversary slide by without acknowledgement.

We had a discussion in the Old Halifax thread about restoration and the failure of the old Scotian Railway Museum back in the 80s. The Seashore Museum has been more successful but it appears they may have suffered from a ‘save everything’ ethos that has compromised many such collections in North America. Well-intentioned people hate to see historic pieces lost so hold on to them even though they don’t have the resources to preserve and protect them properly. It’s a shame but it’s reality nonetheless.

[OldDartmouthMark]

While looking for other info, I stumbled upon this little gem on NS Power's website:
ComingToHalifax.pdf

Note that the pdf linked above is of better quality. I converted the pdf to jpegs and posted below for ease of those viewing through phones or ipads and the like, but some sharpness and colour quality was lost in the conversion:

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by ns_kid

Thanks for sharing that Mark. It would be interesting to know how long ago that second pic was taken. It looks like the unit is long past salvation even there. Though, as we know, a committed restorer can work miracles with much less. But it would be a very expensive labour of love.

I remember thinking a few years back that, for someone with that money and skill, a restoration of that old trolley coach would have been a fitting project to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the transit service in 2016. (The Halifax street railway 🚃 when inaugurated in 1866 was the fourth transit system in Canada, after Toronto, Montreal and — by just a few weeks— Quebec City.) But that was a pipe dream and, in any case, Metro Transit let the anniversary slide by without acknowledgement.

We had a discussion in the Old Halifax thread about restoration and the failure of the old Scotian Railway Museum back in the 80s. The Seashore Museum has been more successful but it appears they may have suffered from a ‘save everything’ ethos that has compromised many such collections in North America. Well-intentioned people hate to see historic pieces lost so hold on to them even though they don’t have the resources to preserve and protect them properly. It’s a shame but it’s reality nonetheless.

You're right, I shouldn't undersell the ability to bring that piece back, if it were in the hands of a dedicated and capable (and well-equipped) team. There have been vehicles in a much greater state of decay that have been restored (typically at significant financial/time expenditure) in the past. And now the situation has improved with 3D printing technology allowing previously unavailable parts to be scanned or 3D modeled, and recreated in some cases.

I would wonder if NS Power had ever considered finding and restoring one of these coaches - it would be an interesting display piece for them, and they certainly would have the resources available to them (as my latest power bill will attest). It's a nice thought, but not likely to happen unless spearheaded by some anniversary or other milestone as you mentioned.

I can empathize with organizations such as the Seashore Museum - storage and preservation of such large items creates (expensive) challenges, and as mentioned, restoration even more. However, I expect their situation is that if they don't retain and attempt to preserve them, there is probably nobody else who is willing and able, so the only chance for survival of the artifact is for them to hold on to it and hope for the best.

I often thought that this would be a great life's work for a lottery winner, but alas I am still lacking the lottery win that would be the jumping off point...

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by ns_kid

Thanks for sharing that Mark. It would be interesting to know how long ago that second pic was taken. It looks like the unit is long past salvation even there. Though, as we know, a committed restorer can work miracles with much less. But it would be a very expensive labour of love.

I remember thinking a few years back that, for someone with that money and skill, a restoration of that old trolley coach would have been a fitting project to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the transit service in 2016. (The Halifax street railway 🚃 when inaugurated in 1866 was the fourth transit system in Canada, after Toronto, Montreal and — by just a few weeks— Quebec City.) But that was a pipe dream and, in any case, Metro Transit let the anniversary slide by without acknowledgement.

We had a discussion in the Old Halifax thread about restoration and the failure of the old Scotian Railway Museum back in the 80s. The Seashore Museum has been more successful but it appears they may have suffered from a ‘save everything’ ethos that has compromised many such collections in North America. Well-intentioned people hate to see historic pieces lost so hold on to them even though they don’t have the resources to preserve and protect them properly. It’s a shame but it’s reality nonetheless.

Looking at the photo again, it appears that somebody tried to pull it out using the towing loops above the front bumper, and the frame structure it is attached to let go (probably from rust degradation). If that's the case it was in worse shape than its exterior skin (which appears to be mostly aluminum) projects.

[ghYHZ]

Halifax International Airport - 1960

Click on the link on the left of this link for the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Journal for December 1960 and scroll to .PDF page 43 (issue page 508)

https://dalspace.library.dal.ca//handle/10222/74720

There’s floor plans and photos of the new Halifax International Airport that opened in 1960. The article also shows the new airports that had recently opened in Montreal and Ottawa…..which looks very similar to Halifax but in a ‘V’ configuration.

And “I Remember When” Mon and Dad would take us out to the airport just to watch planes on a Sunday afternoon. You could sit out on the Garden Patio where there was only a 3’ fence separating you from the ramp and the whine of a Viscount’s Rolls-Royce Dart Turboprops or the smell of kerosene from those new DC-9s! You could also pay your 10 cents at a turnstile and climb the stairs up to the Observation Deck

[ghYHZ]

The new airport was a ‘Greenfield Project’…… runways, taxiway, hangers…..not just a new Terminal Building. Prior to the opening....…Trans-Canada Air Lines and other commercial flights had used Shearwater Airport.

Here’s a Brochure from when the Airport opened:







And the new Airport was originally known as ‘Kelly Lake International Airport’

[Summerville]

The 1000 kw "new substation" was located on Connally Street and has since been turned into a residence. I always wondered what its origin was.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@44.64859...7i13312!8i6656

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Summerville

The 1000 kw "new substation" was located on Connally Street and has since been turned into a residence. I always wondered what its origin was.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@44.64859...7i13312!8i6656

Thanks for that - I wasn't aware that it was there. What a cool re-use for that building!

I checked out the earlier street views and in the 2012 and earlier it had more of the original configuration of the building before that big addition was put on the end...

https://goo.gl/maps/UF6Z7sjpTSUeKDmA7

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by ghYHZ

Halifax International Airport - 1960

Click on the link on the left of this link for the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Journal for December 1960 and scroll to .PDF page 43 (issue page 508)

https://dalspace.library.dal.ca//handle/10222/74720

There’s floor plans and photos of the new Halifax International Airport that opened in 1960. The article also shows the new airports that had recently opened in Montreal and Ottawa…..which looks very similar to Halifax but in a ‘V’ configuration.

And “I Remember When” Mon and Dad would take us out to the airport just to watch planes on a Sunday afternoon. You could sit out on the Garden Patio where there was only a 3’ fence separating you from the ramp and the whine of a Viscount’s Rolls-Royce Dart Turboprops or the smell of kerosene from those new DC-9s! You could also pay your 10 cents at a turnstile and climb the stairs up to the Observation Deck

Great post!

My 'I Remember When' moment was also going to the airport as an 'outing' to watch the planes (ah, the simpler times...), but my favourite part was to play the helicopter game in the airport - the helicopter flew around on an arm in a large plexiglas globe, and the object was to fly the helicopter around and land on specified targets - IIRC, each target successfully landed on would turn on a light. Can recall trying to best my older brother at the game but he was always better than me...

[ghYHZ]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Great post!

My 'I Remember When' moment was also going to the airport as an 'outing' to watch the planes (ah, the simpler times...), but my favourite part was to play the helicopter game in the airport - ...........

I remember that! Thanks for jogging the memory!