With one eye on the energy crisis, there is a growing interest in traction transportation these days in many communities. Winnipeg has fairly well decided the cost of returning to the use of electrical power to get people places is too high and we'll stay with the diesel buses until the well runs dry. By that time I won't be here so it is not a personal thing. I just have a fondness for things that run on rails.
With Los Angeles looking at subway transportation and other cities in the world doing the same thing, good old Toronto expanding its trolley fleet with what is known as LRV's virtually noisless, we may get back on the track one of these days.
Ed Broadbent, leader of the New Democrats, in his campaign speeches stumped for an all-electric line from Winnipeg to Thunder Bay. Marvelous idea! Many European cities have the giant electric rail cars and they are returning in some corners of the U.S. And we have much cheaper hydro power than many areas.
It was in 1832 that John Mason demonstrated in New York City that a coach mounted on wheels, drawn by horses over iron rails was a practical means of getting places in growing cities. In no time other cities were putting down track for the new "street railway".
By 1880 there were 100,000 horses and mules pulling 18,000 street cars over 3,000 miles of track in America. The idea soon spread to England and France although London had its first subway or "tube" a century ago.
The first attempt at public transportation in our city was a failure. Walter Bradley in his excellent hisory of transporation in Winnipeg notes that on July 19, 1877 a horse-drawn omnibus operated between the old customs building at Main and McDermot and Point Douglas where the CPR station stands on Higgins Ave. It lasted one day.>
Four years later Winnipeg began sensing the need for public transportation and the leader for the new concept in getting people around was Albert W. Austin. He organized and incorporated a company known as the Winnipeg Street Railway Company and thus the horse cars came to Winnipeg. Mr. Bradley says when stock went on sale on April 28, 1881, it was all subscribed to within an hour.
Albert Austin, son of the founder of the Dominion Bank, was a dreamer and idealist. The city council was aghast when he suggested Winnipeg move to the shores of Lake Winnipeg to get away from the typhus carried in the river water. He was only 23 when he offered that plan in 1880. Winnipeg stayed where it was but he would not be discouraged.
To keep him out of council meetings, the city fathers gave him a franchise to operate public transit and Albert's new company was incorporated May 27, 1882. The council told him to get a mile of track down within six months.
On Oct. 20, the first horse trolley made its trial run. While the car was derailed by a piece of wood on the tracks it was undeniably a success. The could hold 24 seated passengers and another two dozen straphangers. On Oct. 21 regular service began utilizing four cars. When winter arrived, sleighs were used.
WIth 20 horses doing the hauling, the first route was along Main Street from city hall to Fort Garry at Broadway and Main. It was then extended along Main to the CPR tracks. Fares were 10¢ cash or 15 tickets for a dollar. In the winter, sleigh-rides were 5 cents.
The agreement called for not more than 30 minutes between cars. Austin did much better than four cars were in operation you may have had only a five to seven-minute wait. James Wilson was the first driver and the stables were on Assiniboine Avenue between Main and Fort. For many years, public transportation owned a close link with this neighborhood.
Albert Austin's tracks were the only sure method of getting anywhere in the Manitoba gumbo of springtime. He graciously allowed the fire department to use his right-of-way, too, in bad weather but many other people also took advantage of the track which had the ties close together to keep the horses' hooves out of the mud.
In 1883 the tracks ran along Portage Avenue. In 1884, the cars went down Kennedy Street to Broadway and along Main Street to St. John's Avenue. It was the horse cars as much as anything that convinced city council the streets needed paving and on Oct. 7 the city began paving with blocks.
IN 1885 at the Toronto Farm Exposition, a Belgian scientist, Charles J. Van Depole, exhibited a new car run by electricity. James A. Gaboury saw it and asked the inventor to install such a system in his town of Montgomery, Ala. Disbelievers said it couldn't be done but in 1886 the electric trolley was operating. Strangely enough, horse cars were still operating in some Mexican communities in the 1950s.
And in Winnipeg, Albert Austin shouted down the arguments of city council that electric traction ws dangerous and impossible. On Jan. 28, 1891, the first electric car made its debut "in the bush of Fort Rouge" where there apparently was little danger to animals and humans.
I have a picture of one of Albert Austin's horse cars, equipped with runners in the winter months. The sign reads: "Main, Queen, Kennedy Streets." Before you wonder about "Queen," Portage Avenue originally ws known as Queen Street.
I trust city council will consider some plans to observe the centennial of public transit in 1982.