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98-625: The Ontario Legislative Assembly granted the commission authority to operate electric interurban railways in the territory served by the commission in the Hydro-Electric Railway Act, 1914 . Changes in government policy and public sentiment in the 1920s restricted their development, and all such operations ceased in the 1930s (with the exception of the Hamilton Street Railway streetcar system, which continued until 1946). The following properties were operated by

196-516: A streetcar or trolley in the United States) is a type of urban rail transit consisting of either individual railcars or self-propelled multiple unit trains that run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way . The tramlines or tram networks operated as public transport are called tramways or simply trams/streetcars. Because of their close similarities, trams are commonly included in

294-622: A tram engine in the UK) at the head of a line of one or more carriages, similar to a small train. Systems with such steam trams included Christchurch , New Zealand; Sydney, Australia; other city systems in New South Wales ; Munich , Germany (from August 1883 on), British India (from 1885) and the Dublin & Blessington Steam Tramway (from 1888) in Ireland. Steam tramways also were used on

392-520: A Vermont blacksmith, had invented a battery-powered electric motor which he later patented. The following year he used it to operate a small model electric car on a short section of track four feet in diameter. Attempts to use batteries as a source of electricity were made from the 1880s and 1890s, with unsuccessful trials conducted in among other places Bendigo and Adelaide in Australia, and for about 14 years as The Hague accutram of HTM in

490-838: A bus wash facility and offices. In January 2023, HSR posted bid documents; it hopes to open the new facility in 2024 to supplement the overcrowded Mountain Transit Centre. Most bus routes in Hamilton operate all of the week, from early morning to late at a night, or past midnight. Headways mostly range from between 6 and 30 minutes, and most routes being 20 minutes or better on weekdays, usually between 12 and 20 minutes frequencies, depending on time of day. On weekends, frequencies are reduced, and services are usually altered or unavailable on holidays. There are some special bus routes that only operate during certains times of year, enter Burlington, or otherwise operate in different ways from

588-531: A deal had been made and that there would be a return to regular service on November 17, 2023. The new 4-year contract was ratified by Local 107 members on November 23 with 81% voting in favour of the deal that in lieu of a changed wage offer, gave transit workers a one-time payment as well as benefit increases. 15. Enbridge Gas RNG Bus Trial: http://enbridgegas.mediaroom.com/2021-03-04-Enbridge-Gas-Partners-with-City-of-Hamilton-to-Fuel-Ontarios-First-Carbon-Negative-Bus Tram A tram (also known as

686-536: A distance of 4.8 kilometres (3 mi). At the end of horsecar operation, there were 5 horsecar routes, 19 kilometres (12 mi) of track, 45 horsecars, 9 sleighs and 160 horses. Fifteen of the horsecars would be converted into electric streetcars. The horsecar system had three barns: North Barn at Stuart and Bay Streets, East Barn at Sanford Avenue and King Street (built 1890) and South Barn at Herkimer and Locke Streets (built 1891). These three locations would continue to be used after electrification. On June 29, 1892,

784-598: A green roof. HSR connects with GO Transit at Hamilton GO Centre , which serves as the terminus for four HSR routes (1, 2, 3, and 51). The station, located at 36 Hunter Street East, a few blocks south of King and James, is the terminus of the Lakeshore West railway line and express Highway 407 and Queen Elizabeth Way GO Buses. It is also the former home of the main Greyhound Lines bus stop, prior to Greyhound Canada's Canada-wide closure in 2021. It

882-615: A huge amount of electrical power, and Beck saw their development as an opportunity to sell electricity. Beck envisioned that radials would share the right-of-ways of Hydro transmission lines. A provincial radial system would bridge gaps between various separate radial systems such as those in Toronto , Hamilton and the Niagara Peninsula . Beck piloted the Hydro Electric Railway Act of 1914. This repealed

980-635: A result, the King-Barton route was split into the separate King and Barton routes. Trolley bus operation was eventually extended as far east as Donn Avenue in Stoney Creek . Trolley buses operated out of the Sanford facility which used to handle streetcars. Originally designated only by names, as in streetcar days, the three routes were later given numbers, 1 for the King route, 2 for Barton, and 3 for

1078-513: A safe way for cyclists to ascend or descend the mountain, in order to encourage active transportation. Metrolinx , the provincial public transit agency, is planning a 14-kilometre (8.7 mi) light rail line along the Main/King corridor from McMaster University to Eastgate Square . The line will have 17 stops. Previously known as the B-Line, it is one of five BRT/LRT lines originating from

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1176-726: A similar technology, Pirotsky put into service the first public electric tramway in St. Petersburg, which operated only during September 1880. The second demonstration tramway was presented by Siemens & Halske at the 1879 Berlin Industrial Exposition. The first public electric tramway used for permanent service was the Gross-Lichterfelde tramway in Lichterfelde near Berlin in Germany, which opened in 1881. It

1274-411: A single fare. Children ages 0 to 5 years old can ride fare-free when travelling with an accompanying paying adult. Children ages 6 to 12 and Hamilton senior residents aged 80 and over can ride fare-free only when travelling with a valid Presto card, for those who do not have a Presto card, they are required to pay a regular fare. HSR bus drivers and mechanics (800 employees as of 2019) are members of

1372-508: A subsidiary of HSR. HSR and CCL were purchased by the city of Hamilton in 1960. CCL was sold to Trentway-Wagar in 1993. In 1977, the Hamilton-Wentworth Region assumed ownership of HSR. In 2001, regional amalgamation placed ownership back with the city of Hamilton. The HSR operated horsecars from 1874 to 1892. In May 1874, the first horsecar ran south on James Street, then east on King Street to Wellington Street,

1470-571: A two-track interurban freight station was on that street's west side. In 1924, buses of Dominion Power subsidiaries started using the terminal, but loaded on Main Street. After interurbans were abandoned, the passenger station was renovated for buses. The station closed in 1955, and was later demolished. Today, its site is occupied by Terminal Towers. Trolley buses were used by the HSR from 1950 to 1992. The trolley bus system opened on December 10, 1950, and

1568-946: A well-known tourist attraction . A single cable line also survives in Wellington (rebuilt in 1979 as a funicular but still called the " Wellington Cable Car "). Another system, with two separate cable lines and a shared power station in the middle, operates from the Welsh town of Llandudno up to the top of the Great Orme hill in North Wales , UK. Hastings and some other tramways, for example Stockholms Spårvägar in Sweden and some lines in Karachi , used petrol trams. Galveston Island Trolley in Texas operated diesel trams due to

1666-620: Is also the former Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo Railway (TH&B) passenger station, and there is a small museum above the public concourse. HSR routes 2 and 4 also connect with GO at Barton Street & Nash Road in East Hamilton, where a GO bus travels between there and the Burlington GO Station. At the Mountain Transit Centre transfer point (served by route 27) and a contract with Blue Line Taxi,

1764-586: Is still in operation in modernised form. The earliest tram system in Canada was built by John Joseph Wright , brother of the famous mining entrepreneur Whitaker Wright , in Toronto in 1883, introducing electric trams in 1892. In the US, multiple experimental electric trams were exhibited at the 1884 World Cotton Centennial World's Fair in New Orleans, Louisiana , but they were not deemed good enough to replace

1862-473: Is the public transport agency for Hamilton, Ontario . The name is a legacy of the company's early period, when public transit in Hamilton was primarily served by streetcars . Although streetcars are no longer used in the city today, the HSR operates bus and paratransit services, with a ridership of 21 million passengers a year. On March 29, 1873, the HSR was established after Ontario passed An Act to incorporate "The Hamilton Street Railway Company." It

1960-734: Is the sole survivor of the fleet). In Italy, in Trieste , the Trieste–Opicina tramway was opened in 1902, with the steepest section of the route being negotiated with the help of a funicular and its cables. Cable cars suffered from high infrastructure costs, since an expensive system of cables , pulleys , stationary engines and lengthy underground vault structures beneath the rails had to be provided. They also required physical strength and skill to operate, and alert operators to avoid obstructions and other cable cars. The cable had to be disconnected ("dropped") at designated locations to allow

2058-524: The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 107. The local does not represent those working on city's paratransit service, Disabled and Aged Regional Transportation System (DARTS), which is a separate, non-profit charitable organization that contracts with HSR. After regular collective bargaining talks broke down, ATU Local 107 workers went on strike at 12 am on November 9, 2023. The union cited wage increases that did not keep up with

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2156-575: The BLAST network proposal, and the only one in active planning. As of 2023 , the operator of the future line is unknown and might not be HSR. For example, Keolis will operate and maintain the Hurontario LRT , another Metrolinx project, even though the local public transit operator in Mississauga is MiWay . In 2023, a concept plan to prepare the bus routes in the city for the addition of

2254-713: The Bleecker Street Line until its closure in 1917. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , had its Sarah Street line drawn by horses until 1923. The last regular mule-drawn cars in the US ran in Sulphur Rock, Arkansas , until 1926 and were commemorated by a U.S. postage stamp issued in 1983. The last mule tram service in Mexico City ended in 1932, and a mule tram in Celaya, Mexico , survived until 1954. The last horse-drawn tram to be withdrawn from public service in

2352-635: The Hamilton LRT project was presented. This plan was intended to feed LRT ridership, and the HSR will use this operations plan when the LRT is operational. HSR routes from downtown to the Mountain (21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 33, and 35) currently use the Frank A. Cooke Transit Terminal (former MacNab Transit Terminal), while several lower city routes (4, 6, 7, 8 and 9) have an on-street terminal layover at

2450-933: The Lamm fireless engines then propelling the St. Charles Avenue Streetcar in that city. The first commercial installation of an electric streetcar in the United States was built in 1884 in Cleveland, Ohio , and operated for a period of one year by the East Cleveland Street Railway Company. The first city-wide electric streetcar system was implemented in 1886 in Montgomery, Alabama , by the Capital City Street Railway Company, and ran for 50 years. In 1888,

2548-715: The Richmond Union Passenger Railway began to operate trams in Richmond, Virginia , that Frank J. Sprague had built. Sprague later developed multiple unit control, first demonstrated in Chicago in 1897, allowing multiple cars to be coupled together and operated by a single motorman. This gave rise to the modern subway train. Following the improvement of an overhead "trolley" system on streetcars for collecting electricity from overhead wires by Sprague, electric tram systems were rapidly adopted across

2646-542: The Royal Botanical Gardens during the summer months. HSR fares can be paid with exact cash (no change given), Presto card or the mobile Presto e-tickets app. Starting in 2023, riders could tap their credit or debit card on the Presto reader to pay the cash fare amount. A single-ride fare provides a 2 hour transfer window which allows customers to get on and off HSR buses as many times as they want on

2744-713: The Thunder Bay trolley bus system (closed in 1972 ), purchased by HSR for the parts. In the mid-1980s, the older Flyer trolley buses were nearing the end of their useful life, given that their electrical equipment had been recycled from 1950 trolley buses. HSR noted that new diesel buses were cheaper to buy than new trolley buses. However, in November 1986, the city council and Hamilton–Wentworth Regional Council both voted in favour of retaining trolley bus operation and endorsing buying new trolley buses, and small investments in new infrastructure were still being made, such as

2842-683: The Toronto Transit Commission since 1989–90 and were in storage in Toronto after the 1993 closure of the trolley bus system there. However, after HSR concluded that the Edmonton vehicles would require costly modifications for Hamilton, the regional council voted on March 1, 1994 to make the system's closure permanent. HSR is proposing to build a new garage at the site of the former Wentworth Street Transit Centre. The garage would hold 200 natural-gas buses and have 30 repair bays,

2940-824: The West Midlands Metro in Birmingham , England adopted battery-powered trams on sections through the city centre close to Grade I listed Birmingham Town Hall . Paris and Berne (Switzerland) operated trams that were powered by compressed air using the Mekarski system . Trials on street tramways in Britain, including by the North Metropolitan Tramway Company between Kings Cross and Holloway, London (1883), achieved acceptable results but were found not to be economic because of

3038-1241: The 1850s, after which the "animal railway" became an increasingly common feature in the larger towns. The first permanent tram line in continental Europe was opened in Paris in 1855 by Alphonse Loubat who had previously worked on American streetcar lines. The tram was developed in numerous cities of Europe (some of the most extensive systems were found in Berlin, Budapest , Birmingham , Saint Petersburg , Lisbon , London , Manchester , Paris , Kyiv ). The first tram in South America opened in 1858 in Santiago, Chile . The first trams in Australia opened in 1860 in Sydney . Africa's first tram service started in Alexandria on 8 January 1863. The first trams in Asia opened in 1869 in Batavia (Jakarta), Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) . Limitations of horsecars included

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3136-713: The 1894-built horse tram at Victor Harbor in South Australia . New horse-drawn systems have been established at the Hokkaidō Museum in Japan and also in Disneyland . A horse-tram route in Polish gmina Mrozy , first built in 1902, was reopened in 2012. The first mechanical trams were powered by steam . Generally, there were two types of steam tram. The first and most common had a small steam locomotive (called

3234-420: The 1980s. The history of passenger trams, streetcars and trolley systems, began in the early nineteenth century. It can be divided into several distinct periods defined by the principal means of power used. Precursors to the tramway included the wooden or stone wagonways that were used in central Europe to transport mine carts with unflanged wheels since the 1500s, and the paved limestone trackways designed by

3332-481: The Australian state of Queensland between 1909 and 1939. Stockholm , Sweden, had a steam tram line at the island of Södermalm between 1887 and 1901. Tram engines usually had modifications to make them suitable for street running in residential areas. The wheels, and other moving parts of the machinery, were usually enclosed for safety reasons and to make the engines quieter. Measures were often taken to prevent

3430-570: The Barton route was December 30, 1992, when only a single trolley bus (No. 7815) was in service. At the time, the regional council was still planning to purchase new trolleybuses for routes 1 and 2, and HSR issued a draft specification for new trolley buses in April 1993, and subsequently, considered purchasing or leasing 40 trolley buses from the Edmonton trolley bus system that had been on loan to

3528-516: The Belt Line where no loops were required. In 1927, turning loops were added at the outer ends of the Aberdeen and Westdale lines. Bus service was introduced in 1926 along Cannon Street. The first contraction of the streetcar system was the closure of the single-track line to Bartonville, replaced by buses in 1929. The first major streetcar abandonment was along York Street on 1939. By 1940,

3626-462: The British newspaper Newcastle Daily Chronicle reported that, "A large number of London's discarded horse tramcars have been sent to Lincolnshire where they are used as sleeping rooms for potato pickers ". Horses continued to be used for light shunting well into the 20th century, and many large metropolitan lines lasted into the early 20th century. New York City had a regular horsecar service on

3724-505: The Cannon route. The fleet originally consisted of 50 Canadian Car – Brill vehicles, which by 1973 were replaced by 40 Flyer E700 trolley buses built in 1972–73. Sixteen Flyer E800A vehicles were added in 1978–79. All 56 Flyer trolley buses used some electrical components, such as motors, from retired Brill trolley buses, but that in the E800s came not from HSR Brills but from Brills of

3822-477: The Entertainment Centre, and work is progressing on further extensions. Sydney re-introduced trams (or light rail) on 31 August 1997. A completely new system, known as G:link , was introduced on the Gold Coast, Queensland , on 20 July 2014. The Newcastle Light Rail opened in February 2019, while the Canberra light rail opened on 20 April 2019. This is the first time that there have been trams in Canberra, even though Walter Burley Griffin 's 1914–1920 plans for

3920-407: The HSR also connects with other areas in the northwest portion of the former Glanbrook . In addition, the HSR is connected with Burlington Transit , as one route (11 Parkdale) travels into Burlington via Burlington Beach, 18 Waterdown connects with BT at Aldershot GO Station , and BT Route 1 enters downtown Hamilton from Plains Road West . Also '9 Rock Gardens' travels into Burlington going into

4018-416: The HSR but for many of their years of operation had the same parent company, Dominion Power and Transmission Company. In order to access downtown Hamilton, the interurbans shared some trackage with the HSR. From 1907, interurban cars ran out of a Hamilton Terminal Station located between Main and King Streets East at Catherine Street. The passenger terminal with several tracks was east of Catherine Street and

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4116-513: The HSR operated the following seven routes: After Canada Coach Lines purchased HSR in 1946, it announced the abandonment of streetcar service. Consequently, service was abandoned on Aberdeen Avenue in 1947, to Westdale in 1949 and on Burlington Street in 1950. The final abandonment was the Belt Line with April 5, 1951 being its last day of service, but with a ceremonial last run on the following day. Hamilton had four interurban lines originating from downtown Hamilton. These lines were not part of

4214-460: The Hydro-Electric Railways: With the exception of the Guelph Radial Railway, Ontario Hydro managed radial lines owned by municipalities. In 1912, Adam Beck , founder and chairman of Ontario Hydro, began to promote the creation and operation of electric interurban railways in the territory served by the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario. The Hydro-Electric Railways were a vehicle to promote his vision for radials. Electric railways consumed

4312-416: The Irish coach builder John Stephenson , in New York City which began service in the year 1832. The New York and Harlem Railroad's Fourth Avenue Line ran along the Bowery and Fourth Avenue in New York City. It was followed in 1835 by the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad in New Orleans, Louisiana , which still operates as the St. Charles Streetcar Line . Other American cities did not follow until

4410-430: The Netherlands. The first trams in Bendigo, Australia, in 1892, were battery-powered, but within as little as three months they were replaced with horse-drawn trams. In New York City some minor lines also used storage batteries. Then, more recently during the 1950s, a longer battery-operated tramway line ran from Milan to Bergamo . In China there is a Nanjing battery Tram line and has been running since 2014. In 2019,

4508-436: The North Sydney line from 1886 to 1900, and the King Street line from 1892 to 1905. In Dresden , Germany, in 1901 an elevated suspended cable car following the Eugen Langen one-railed floating tram system started operating. Cable cars operated on Highgate Hill in North London and Kennington to Brixton Hill in South London. They also worked around "Upper Douglas" in the Isle of Man from 1897 to 1929 (cable car 72/73

4606-463: The Romans for heavy horse and ox-drawn transportation. By the 1700s, paved plateways with cast iron rails were introduced in England for transporting coal, stone or iron ore from the mines to the urban factories and docks. The world's first passenger train or tram was the Swansea and Mumbles Railway , in Wales , UK. The British Parliament passed the Mumbles Railway Act in 1804, and horse-drawn service started in 1807. The service closed in 1827, but

4704-413: The Second Street Cable Railroad, which operated from 1885 to 1889, and the Temple Street Cable Railway, which operated from 1886 to 1898. From 1885 to 1940, the city of Melbourne , Victoria, Australia operated one of the largest cable systems in the world, at its peak running 592 trams on 75 kilometres (47 mi) of track. There were also two isolated cable lines in Sydney , New South Wales, Australia;

4802-562: The UK at Lytham St Annes , Trafford Park , Manchester (1897–1908) and Neath , Wales (1896–1920). Comparatively little has been published about gas trams. However, research on the subject was carried out for an article in the October 2011 edition of "The Times", the historical journal of the Australian Association of Timetable Collectors, later renamed the Australian Timetable Association. The world's first electric tram line operated in Sestroretsk near Saint Petersburg invented and tested by inventor Fyodor Pirotsky in 1875. Later, using

4900-410: The UK took passengers from Fintona railway station to Fintona Junction one mile away on the main Omagh to Enniskillen railway in Northern Ireland. The tram made its last journey on 30 September 1957 when the Omagh to Enniskillen line closed. The "van" is preserved at the Ulster Transport Museum . Horse-drawn trams still operate on the 1876-built Douglas Bay Horse Tramway on the Isle of Man , and at

4998-508: The advantages over earlier forms of transit was the low rolling resistance of metal wheels on steel rails, allowing the trams to haul a greater load for a given effort. Another factor which contributed to the rise of trams was the high total cost of ownership of horses. Electric trams largely replaced animal power in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Improvements in other vehicles such as buses led to decline of trams in early to mid 20th century. However, trams have seen resurgence since

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5096-446: The bus to get up and down Hamilton Mountain for free. This program was made permanent in 2018 and has since been expanded to include more stops. Participating bus stops are located along major roads at the base and crest of the escarpment. People with bicycles load them onto the bus' front rack, and when boarding, tell the bus operator they are riding under Mountain Climber for free. The routes are very limited in length, and provide

5194-460: The busiest tram line in Europe, with a tram running once per minute at rush hour. Bucharest and Belgrade ran a regular service from 1894. Ljubljana introduced its tram system in 1901 – it closed in 1958. Oslo had the first tramway in Scandinavia , starting operation on 2 March 1894. The first electric tramway in Australia was a Sprague system demonstrated at the 1888 Melbourne Centennial Exhibition in Melbourne ; afterwards, this

5292-439: The capital then in the planning stage did propose a Canberra tram system. In Japan, the Kyoto Electric railroad was the first tram system, starting operation in 1895. By 1932, the network had grown to 82 railway companies in 65 cities, with a total network length of 1,479 km (919 mi). By the 1960s the tram had generally died out in Japan. Two rare but significant alternatives were conduit current collection , which

5390-458: The car up the hill at a steady pace, unlike a low-powered steam or horse-drawn car. Cable cars do have wheel brakes and track brakes , but the cable also helps restrain the car to going downhill at a constant speed. Performance in steep terrain partially explains the survival of cable cars in San Francisco. The San Francisco cable cars , though significantly reduced in number, continue to provide regular transportation service, in addition to being

5488-402: The cars to coast by inertia, for example when crossing another cable line. The cable then had to be "picked up" to resume progress, the whole operation requiring precise timing to avoid damage to the cable and the grip mechanism. Breaks and frays in the cable, which occurred frequently, required the complete cessation of services over a cable route while the cable was repaired. Due to overall wear,

5586-497: The city via the waterfront. There were objections to the radials crossing the grounds of the Canadian National Exhibition and fears of a detrimental impact on waterfront economic development. In January 1923, voters rejected the radial proposal. Despite the decline of the interurban industry, Beck continued his advocacy for radials until his death in 1925 which ended Ontario Hydro's efforts to promote radials. Hamilton Street Railway The Hamilton Street Railway ( HSR )

5684-409: The city's hurricane-prone location, which would have resulted in frequent damage to an electrical supply system. Although Portland, Victoria promotes its tourist tram as being a cable car it actually operates using a diesel motor. The tram, which runs on a circular route around the town of Portland, uses dummies and salons formerly used on the Melbourne cable tramway system and since restored. In

5782-416: The combined coal consumption of the stationary compressor and the onboard steam boiler. The Trieste–Opicina tramway in Trieste operates a hybrid funicular tramway system. Conventional electric trams are operated in street running and on reserved track for most of their route. However, on one steep segment of track, they are assisted by cable tractors, which push the trams uphill and act as brakes for

5880-526: The construction of a new turnaround loop for trolley buses at Eastgate Square mall, which came into use in September 1986. However, temporary substitutions of diesel buses for trolley buses became increasingly common in the late 1980s. Diesel buses temporarily replaced trolley buses on routes 1–King and 3-Cannon in May 1989 because of road construction projects, with trolley buses returning to both routes in November 1989. However, both routes were again dieselized in early January 1990 for what would ultimately be

5978-430: The downhill run. For safety, the cable tractors are always deployed on the downhill side of the tram vehicle. Similar systems were used elsewhere in the past, notably on the Queen Anne Counterbalance in Seattle and the Darling Street wharf line in Sydney. In the mid-20th century many tram systems were disbanded, replaced by buses, trolleybuses , automobiles or rapid transit . The General Motors streetcar conspiracy

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6076-446: The engines from emitting visible smoke or steam. Usually the engines used coke rather than coal as fuel to avoid emitting smoke; condensers or superheating were used to avoid emitting visible steam. A major drawback of this style of tram was the limited space for the engine, so that these trams were usually underpowered. Steam trams faded out around the 1890s to 1900s, being replaced by electric trams. Another motive system for trams

6174-429: The entire length of cable (typically several kilometres) had to be replaced on a regular schedule. After the development of reliable electrically powered trams, the costly high-maintenance cable car systems were rapidly replaced in most locations. Cable cars remained especially effective in hilly cities, since their nondriven wheels did not lose traction as they climbed or descended a steep hill. The moving cable pulled

6272-439: The fact that any given animal could only work so many hours on a given day, had to be housed, groomed, fed and cared for day in and day out, and produced prodigious amounts of manure, which the streetcar company was charged with storing and then disposing. Since a typical horse pulled a streetcar for about a dozen miles a day and worked for four or five hours, many systems needed ten or more horses in stable for each horsecar. In 1905

6370-440: The first electric streetcars went into operation. In 1895, York Street was mostly double-tracked. In 1896, the first streetcar loop was constructed at Guise Street at the north end of James Street. In 1904, HSR provided rush-hour service north from Barton Street over the tracks of the Hamilton Radial Electric Railway (HRER) along Birch Avenue. In 1907, the 2.3-kilometre (1.4 mi), single-track, side-of-road Bartonville line

6468-545: The intersection of Main and James Streets. Route 34 has a layover location on Main at MacNab. On September 4, 2022, the City of Hamilton renamed the MacNab Transit Terminal to Frank A. Cooke Transit Terminal to honour an employee of the HSR that retired as a general manager and died at the age of 100. The terminal is located at 1 MacNab Street South and was opened in 2011. It serves 10 bus routes with 7,250 weekly arrivals and departures in 2022. The wheelchair accessible terminal has heated platforms, bus shelters, public washrooms and

6566-457: The last day of trolley bus service was December 30, 1992. On December 10, 1950, the first Hamilton trolley buses went into service on the 6.6-kilometre (4.1 mi) Cannon route, replacing a busy bus route. In October 1951, several months after the termination of streetcar service, a second trolley bus route went into service as the 13.8-kilometre (8.6 mi) King-Barton route. In 1956, the city introduced one-way streets in downtown Hamilton; as

6664-482: The last time. Only route 2–Barton then remained in operation with trolley buses. At the time the King and Cannon routes were dieselized, the city moved trolley bus operations to a new bus garage at 330 Wentworth Street North which did not have trolley wires. This was possible because all but one of HSR's 16 newer trolley buses (model E800A) had been retrofitted in 1989–90 with a small auxiliary diesel engine for off-wire movements. The last day for trolley bus operation on

6762-444: The late 19th and early 20th centuries a number of systems in various parts of the world employed trams powered by gas, naphtha gas or coal gas in particular. Gas trams are known to have operated between Alphington and Clifton Hill in the northern suburbs of Melbourne , Australia (1886–1888); in Berlin and Dresden , Germany; in Estonia (1921–1951); between Jelenia Góra , Cieplice , and Sobieszów in Poland (from 1897); and in

6860-402: The late 19th and early 20th centuries. There was one particular hazard associated with trams powered from a trolley pole off an overhead line on the early electrified systems. Since the tram relies on contact with the rails for the current return path, a problem arises if the tram is derailed or (more usually) if it halts on a section of track that has been heavily sanded by a previous tram, and

6958-449: The majority of routes. Introduced in 1998 as a two-year pilot project, Trans-Cab is a shared-ride taxi service between HSR and specific local taxi providers, currently offered in portions of Glanbrook and Stoney Creek . Accessible Transportation Services (ATS) is the section that administers a variety of accessible services on behalf of the City In 2017, HSR launched a program called "Mountain Climber," that allows cyclists ride on

7056-534: The necessity of overhead wire and a trolley pole for street cars and railways. While at the University of Denver he conducted experiments which established that multiple unit powered cars were a better way to operate trains and trolleys. Electric tramways spread to many European cities in the 1890s, such as: Sarajevo built a citywide system of electric trams in 1895. Budapest established its tramway system in 1887, and its ring line has grown to be

7154-533: The oldest operating electric tramway in the world. Also in 1883, Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram was opened near Vienna in Austria. It was the first tram in the world in regular service that was run with electricity served by an overhead line with pantograph current collectors . The Blackpool Tramway was opened in Blackpool, UK on 29 September 1885 using conduit collection along Blackpool Promenade. This system

7252-637: The poor paving of the streets in American cities which made them unsuitable for horsebuses , which were then common on the well-paved streets of European cities. Running the horsecars on rails allowed for a much smoother ride. There are records of a street railway running in Baltimore as early as 1828, however the first authenticated streetcar in America, was the New York and Harlem Railroad developed by

7350-458: The rate of inflation in a handout given to passengers in the days proceeding the job action . The strike came as the city was preparing and hosting festivities for the 110th Grey Cup , for which HSR had been planning to run a shuttle service for fans. The transit union said that any shuttle service would be considered as using scab labour and would be targeted by picket lines. In the early hours of November 16, Mayor Andrea Horwath announced that

7448-456: The requirement that municipalities bear all costs of radial construction, but allowed Ontario Hydro to develop co-operative agreements between Hydro and municipalities for radial construction. Only projects with the potential to be self-supporting would be considered, and municipalities would bear any deficits. With the new Canadian National Railways consuming considerable taxpayer money, critics feared costs to build radials could escalate. There

7546-584: The site continued to be used streetcar storage. In 1910, the Sanford Barn was opened near north-west corner of King and Sanford Streets, across the street from the East Barn. In 1928, new shops were opened near the East Barn to maintain streetcars and interurban cars. In 1929, the North Barn closed. The HSR had a mixed fleet of single-end and double-end streetcars. Single-end streetcars were used on

7644-542: The suburban tramway lines around Milan and Padua ; the last Gamba de Legn ("Peg-Leg") tramway ran on the Milan- Magenta -Castano Primo route in late 1957. The other style of steam tram had the steam engine in the body of the tram, referred to as a tram engine (UK) or steam dummy (US). The most notable system to adopt such trams was in Paris. French-designed steam trams also operated in Rockhampton , in

7742-558: The tracks. Siemens later designed his own version of overhead current collection, called the bow collector . One of the first systems to use it was in Thorold, Ontario , opened in 1887, and it was considered quite successful. While this line proved quite versatile as one of the earliest fully functional electric streetcar installations, it required horse-drawn support while climbing the Niagara Escarpment and for two months of

7840-416: The tram and completing the earth return circuit with their body could receive a serious electric shock. If "grounded", the driver was required to jump off the tram (avoiding simultaneous contact with the tram and the ground) and pull down the trolley pole, before allowing passengers off the tram. Unless derailed, the tram could usually be recovered by running water down the running rails from a point higher than

7938-466: The tram loses electrical contact with the rails. In this event, the underframe of the tram, by virtue of a circuit path through ancillary loads (such as interior lighting), is live at the full supply voltage, typically 600 volts DC. In British terminology, such a tram was said to be 'grounded'—not to be confused with the US English use of the term, which means the exact opposite. Any person stepping off

8036-427: The tram, the water providing a conducting bridge between the tram and the rails. With improved technology, this ceased to be an problem. In the 2000s, several companies introduced catenary-free designs: Alstom's Citadis line uses a third rail, Bombardier's PRIMOVE LRV is charged by contactless induction plates embedded in the trackway and CAF URBOS tram uses ultracaps technology As early as 1834, Thomas Davenport ,

8134-804: The wider term light rail , which also includes systems separated from other traffic. Tram vehicles are usually lighter and shorter than main line and rapid transit trains. Most trams use electrical power, usually fed by a pantograph sliding on an overhead line ; older systems may use a trolley pole or a bow collector . In some cases, a contact shoe on a third rail is used. If necessary, they may have dual power systems—electricity in city streets and diesel in more rural environments. Occasionally, trams also carry freight . Some trams, known as tram-trains , may have segments that run on mainline railway tracks, similar to interurban systems. The differences between these modes of rail transport are often indistinct, and systems may combine multiple features. One of

8232-409: The winter when hydroelectricity was not available. It continued in service in its original form into the 1950s. Sidney Howe Short designed and produced the first electric motor that operated a streetcar without gears. The motor had its armature direct-connected to the streetcar 's axle for the driving force. Short pioneered "use of a conduit system of concealed feed" thereby eliminating

8330-532: The world's first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle tramcar at an assembly facility in Qingdao . The chief engineer of the CSR subsidiary CSR Sifang Co Ltd. , Liang Jianying, said that the company is studying how to reduce the running costs of the tram. Trams have been used for two main purposes: for carrying passengers and for carrying cargo. There are several types of passenger tram: There are two main types of tramways,

8428-401: The world. Earlier electric trains proved difficult or unreliable and experienced limited success until the second half of the 1880s, when new types of current collectors were developed. Siemens' line, for example, provided power through a live rail and a return rail, like a model train , limiting the voltage that could be used, and delivering electric shocks to people and animals crossing

8526-682: Was a case study of the decline of trams in the United States. In the 21st century, trams have been re-introduced in cities where they had been closed down for decades (such as Tramlink in London), or kept in heritage use (such as Spårväg City in Stockholm). Most trams made since the 1990s (such as the Bombardier Flexity series and Alstom Citadis ) are articulated low-floor trams with features such as regenerative braking . In March 2015, China South Rail Corporation (CSR) demonstrated

8624-551: Was also a boost in automobile and truck traffic after World War I. The 1919 provincial election brought into power the United Farmers of Ontario party which was extremely skeptical of Beck's plan. In 1921, Premier Charles Drury announced that the province would not guarantee radial bonds, thus killing the radial scheme. In 1922, Beck made a proposal to the City of Toronto to build a high-speed, 4- or 6-track radial entrance to

8722-491: Was built by Werner von Siemens who contacted Pirotsky. This was the world's first commercially successful electric tram. It drew current from the rails at first, with overhead wire being installed in 1883. In Britain, Volk's Electric Railway was opened in 1883 in Brighton. This two kilometer line along the seafront, re-gauged to 2 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 825 mm ) in 1884, remains in service as

8820-400: Was built east from Sherman Avenue along King Street East to Strongman Road. Barton Street was double-tracked in 1911. Tracks were extended east along Burlington Street from James Street (1910 and 1913), linking to the double-track HRER line at Birch Avenue. By 1916, tracks had been extended east on Barton Street, north and south on Kennilworth Avenue and west on Main Street; an enlarged Belt Line

8918-627: Was created in October 1916 using the new double track and became the city's busiest streetcar line. By 1923, the tracks had been extended west along King Street to Cline Avenue in Westdale . After the Hamilton and Dundas Street Railway ceased operation in 1923, HSR took over a portion of its line along Aberdeen Avenue to Longwood Road. In 1908, the South Barn was destroyed by fire after which

9016-487: Was installed as a commercial venture operating between the outer Melbourne suburb of Box Hill and the then tourist-oriented country town Doncaster from 1889 to 1896. Electric systems were also built in Adelaide , Ballarat , Bendigo , Brisbane , Fremantle , Geelong , Hobart , Kalgoorlie , Launceston , Leonora , Newcastle , Perth , and Sydney . By the 1970s, the only full tramway system remaining in Australia

9114-496: Was owned by Lyman Moore and operated as a private business under a city franchise. In 1899, HSR was bought out by the Hamilton Cataract, Power, Light and Traction Company, later known as Dominion Power and Transmission Company. In April 1930, HSR was acquired by Ontario Hydro . Provincial ownership ended in 1946 when HSR became a subsidiary of Canada Coach Lines. Through a corporate reorganization in 1954, CCL became

9212-566: Was restarted in 1860, again using horses. It was worked by steam from 1877, and then, from 1929, by very large (106-seat) electric tramcars, until closure in 1960. The Swansea and Mumbles Railway was something of a one-off however, and no street tramway appeared in Britain until 1860 when one was built in Birkenhead by the American George Francis Train . Street railways developed in America before Europe, due to

9310-628: Was tested in San Francisco , in 1873. Part of its success is attributed to the development of an effective and reliable cable grip mechanism, to grab and release the moving cable without damage. The second city to operate cable trams was Dunedin , from 1881 to 1957. The most extensive cable system in the US was built in Chicago in stages between 1859 and 1892. New York City developed multiple cable car lines, that operated from 1883 to 1909. Los Angeles also had several cable car lines, including

9408-635: Was the Melbourne tram system. However, there were also a few single lines remaining elsewhere: the Glenelg tram line , connecting Adelaide to the beachside suburb of Glenelg , and tourist trams in the Victorian Goldfields cities of Bendigo and Ballarat. In recent years the Melbourne system, generally recognised as the largest urban tram network in the world, has been considerably modernised and expanded. The Adelaide line has been extended to

9506-411: Was the cable car, which was pulled along a fixed track by a moving steel cable, the cable usually running in a slot below the street level. The power to move the cable was normally provided at a "powerhouse" site a distance away from the actual vehicle. The London and Blackwall Railway , which opened for passengers in east London, England, in 1840 used such a system. The first practical cable car line

9604-878: Was widely used in London, Washington, D.C., and New York City, and the surface contact collection method, used in Wolverhampton (the Lorain system), Torquay and Hastings in the UK (the Dolter stud system), and in Bordeaux , France (the ground-level power supply system). The convenience and economy of electricity resulted in its rapid adoption once the technical problems of production and transmission of electricity were solved. Electric trams largely replaced animal power and other forms of motive power including cable and steam, in

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