Edmonton Transit: 95th Street

We’re standing on 95th, a tattered paper in one hand and camera long past its prime in the other. This can only mean one thing – that’s it time for another BIGDoer.com Then & Now, this one touching on a theme we really like, an ordinary street scene. Printed on that page, it’s a poorly reproduced photo (the tired old laser needs a new drum) showing an Edmonton Transit bus, random cars, a few houses and nothing much else.

By all accounts it’s a pretty mundane view* and now we’ll try to duplicate it.

First, it’s the thank you portion of the show. Today we’re speaking of the Motor Bus Society, who’ve allowed us to pull from the vast Gerry Squier collection for this series. He had a thing for transit buses and over many decades travelled the continent to photograph them. Hopefully we can honour this legacy while using a number of his images as T&N fodder.

Then: The setting is the McCauley and Boyle Street neighbourhoods, a bit northeast of downtown Edmonton and the time appears to be the early 1980s. No information in that regard accompanied the photo, but putting detective skills to work (something we like anyway), we can roughly determine when.

The cars are 1970s models, but we know the bus joined the Edmonton Transit fleet in 1982, so that helps establish a starting date. It looks relativity newish, but maybe they keep a clean fleet in that city, so that’s not really much help here.

Examining the photo under high magnification shows the gas prices at the Turbo station in back. Remember that firm? They were everywhere and now relegated to history. Anyway, the cost per litre (39 cents for regular) puts us around 1983-1984-ish and perhaps no later. So let’s say early ’80s and be done with it. Okay, it’s not quite forty years difference, but close enough.

What a different time it was back then.

The vehicles in the old photo include a mid-1970s Dodge van and in behind, what appears to be a Ford LTD of the same era. All the big sedans of that time seemed to look the same (to us), so we’re not completely sure on that one. Further back, it’s a mid-’70s Camaro (in brown too, a thing at time) and more distant, by the gas station (perhaps hard to see), a 1970s-1980s International Cargostar vocational truck. I think I see a Ford pickup too, off in the distance, but given how we had to scale the photo, means you won’t.

The bus is number #144, one of a hundred GMC New Look (aka Fishbowl) trolleybuses built in the early 1980s. These were a common model all over North America, but Edmonton had the only electric versions. GMC supplied the body and chassis, with another firm adapting them for this use.

Edmonton’s trolleybus system began in the late 1930s and lasted into 2009. Many big cites in Canada had these types of buses, but today only Vancouver’s is still running (and shows no signs of ending). The Fishbowl trolleys ran right to the bitter end here in Edmonton, including #144 which was only retired mere months before the final shutdown. A few of these buses have be acquired by museums, but this particular one went to the scrapyard.

There’s a bunch of houses off to the left, from the 1910s-1920s period best we can tell, and one will help us connected the two eras. See it? Most of the others are gone today, with the gentrification monster making inroads into this mature neighbourhood. It always happens.

The LRT tracks seen in the foreground were put in during the late 1970s and just to the left, off camera, they head underground on their way into downtown. Note how the overhead trolley and LRT wires cross in the old photo. It looks complicated and we suspect this a trouble spot (for “dewirements” perhaps), but we could be wrong.

A third track is seen in the old photo (visible behind that person) and was Canadian National’s line into the city core. Gone by the early 1990s, it allowed, for one, passenger trains (Canadian National and after the late 1970s, Via Rail’s) access to the downtown station.

Now: There has been change, but it’s not all that dramatic and overall the scene looks much as it did. There’s several things to tie one era to the other – that house, the city works department truck wash building (tan coloured today) and the old gas station (now with a blue roof), presently an independent car service centre. For some reason, we didn’t take a photo of this last building, but then again that’s typical of scatter-brained us.

The trolleybus infrastructure is long gone and that’s perhaps the most obvious difference. No wires above. Their diesel brethren continue on the job and the bus seen today is a 2009 Flyer D40LFR (#4770). Edmonton Transit has a good number of these and the earlier (and similar looking) D40LF model, hundred and hundreds in fact. Both this bus and the electric one captured long ago are on the #5 Westmount Route.

An earlier #5 (Flyer XD40 #7013 from 2018 – this model a successor to the D40LFR) passed as we arrived, but we had yet to fully prep for the shoot. Sizing up the scene and lining the subject in the camera takes some effort. No worries, as it’s a busy route and another bus came along shortly after anyway. We were ready!

How pleasing it is that this one matched up so well, including the bus. We got that close and thank goodness for a rapid fire shutter. I knew we’d put it to use one day! These then and nows will never align perfectly, but this one came pretty close.

It makes us all giddy knowing we’re standing right where the original photographer did long ago. Call it strange, but there’s a connection made, that otherwise would be missing had we not put the effort forward. We wonder who that person is in the old photo (left side) and what became of them, but then our minds always races when looking at vintage street scenes. We think who, what, why and so on, each and every time.

*If one were to ignore the fact the bus is a trolleybus…not like you see them everyday.

Know more: (new windows): Motor Bus Society (who allowed use of the old photo) and Edmonton Transit Trolleybuses.

There’s always more fresh content on the way, so drop by often!

They’re saying…

”Always something to peak my curious nature…!” Deborah Pearen.

More transit themed (but in Cowtown)…
Calgary Then & Now: Ogden Bus Loop – Our stupid obsessions.
CTS then and now – MacDonald Bridge.
Calgary Transit then and now – 17th Ave SW – Another trolleybus!

Something to say and no one to say it to? Go here: contact us!

Date of Adventure: May, 2021.
Location: Edmonton, AB.
Article references and thanks: Motor Bus Society – Gerry Squier Collection, Canadian Public Transit Discussion Board Wiki and TrolleyBuses.net.

Edmonton Transit: 95th Street, forty years apart.

While setting up, this one passes.

This house appears in both photos…

…As does this “wash facility”.