Talk:British Columbia Electric Railway

Untitled
BC Electric was NOT a Crown corporation, but a privately-owned company headquartered in London, England... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.83.208.107 (talk) 05:13, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Using the BC Hydro page it looks like it only became a crown in the later part of it's existence http://www.bchydro.com/about/company_information/history.html. --M@sk (talk) 02:14, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Only at the very end, and it was big politics; nationalization is one of those issues that distinguish Social Credit from other conservative parties ("conservative" in BC is a term which includes both current and historical Liberal Parties....). No doubt this article could use a fuller corporate history; so I added WP:Companies.  The proper title is teh British Columbia Electric Railway Company (BCERC), and if I'm not mistaken by the end of the affair teh power company was a separate subsidiary the British Columbia Electric Company (BCEC); I actually have a pic available of tow BCE Co. engineers in teh company vehicle atop Lajoie Dam, showing the old thunderbird logo, but didnt' consider it appropriate here as t his article is clearly intended for the railway operations, not the power generation aspect of the company (which ultimately was more important, and is now BC Hydro....).Skookum1 (talk) 18:09, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

BCE / BC Electric Company
I just made the BC Electric Company redirect and pointed it here, but held back from creating British Columbia Electric Company, which was the power-generating subsidiary of the railway company, so no rename is needed later; I don't have any documents to start it with; sketchy materials might be had on the BC Hydro site but no doubt there's some political/journalistic accounts online somewhere; I'll alert WP:Energy to the needed article, likewise WP:Companies.Skookum1 (talk) 00:11, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Really useful resource
I happened to find this report on BCER's rail services v. jitneys from 1917 which looks to have all kinds of useful detail/information. The title is Report of Dr. Adam Shortt, commissioner investigating the economic conditions and operations of the British Columbia Electric Railway Company and subsidiary companies, and to decide definitely as to the possibility of street car service being maintained in competition with the jitneys..Skookum1 (talk) 13:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Further useful resources are this webpage: which contains quite a bit of content from Ewart's book (not his article), which is not currently listed as a reference, I will add this when I can find it, including all of the maps. It should be possible to construct complete route maps from these. The Buzzer (online) also has a very good more recent article here /, finally there is some amazing color footage of the Lulu Island line from 1949 on YouTube now at  Kpgokeef (talk) 14:33, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

map of line should use real station names, not modern municipal names
I've amended the line-template, partly because "Salish Sea" is a recentism and the more accurate Georgia Strait is the temporal frame of reference for this line, but raised the issue no the template talkpage that it should display the actual station names, not the general and vague modern municipal lines; Abbotsford was not amalgamated for years; its stations including Mount Lehman, Matsqui, Huntingdon, Vedder Mountain etc.....similarly within Langley and Surrey t he actual route did not have those station-names alone; a real map would be far better, of course.Skookum1 (talk) 13:38, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree, a real map would be great. I'm not an expert at making nice SVG graphics. Here is my attempt at an accurate representation of the interurban routes (and Vancouver, North Van and New West streetcars) on Sharemap.org. http://sharemap.org/public/BCER_Network#!flash . After doing this, quite crudely, I discovered http://cermc.webs.com/ that has a truly amazing map of all electric railways in Canada in kmz format. Kpgokeef (talk) 16:39, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

crossing of the Fraser?
Seems to me New Westminster Bridge needs amending; didn't the BCER use it also? don't recall there being another bridge...and the interurban ran from downtown Vancouver to downtown Chilliwack without a ferry, no?Skookum1 (talk) 13:39, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * the linked pic from BC Archives = or linked somewhere if not here - showing the BCER station at the New West side of the bridge is that of the CPR station there; maybe it doubled as the BCER station? Only so much room at the foot of the bluff.....Skookum1 (talk) 07:33, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * BCER Terminal is still there, it is now the Salvation Army building. See for a detailed map of NewWest. The Central Park line left the private right-of-way onto Columbia Street in front of the CPR depot and ran diagonally through the BCER terminal, along Front street and over the NewWest bridge, while the Burnaby Lake line trains ran on the streetcar tracks on Columbia (until 1939?). This line is now routed behind the CP Station to connect to the Southern Railways Trapp Steet yards. The tracks underneath the Expo line between the CP Station and 18th St are the last remaining section of the Central Park line in service. I have added the Southern Railway of British Columbia to New Westminster Bridge Kpgokeef (talk) 14:56, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Stave Falls Branch
I'd thought, based on an older bcer.bc.ca site that doesn't appear to be online anymore, that the Stave Falls Branch was an electric line...maybe after Stave Falls was opened? The picture here on the Mission Museum's website says obviously "steam". A separate article may arise soon because of discussions with an area old-timer (older than me haha) on Talk:Whonnock and Talk:Ruskin, British Columbia and on User talk:Braches.Skookum1 (talk) 07:32, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

"Rails-to-Rubber" Transition
The section on the Rails-to-Rubber Transition appears to have been edited fairly recently, adding in un-sourced comments and commentary regarding a recent proposal that was shot down by TransLink (British Columbia) regarding a revival of a passenger rail service along the same line. I've tagged the article and section with the appropriate infoboxes, which can be removed once proper sourcing is provided. ThePointblank (talk) 08:34, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I just reviewed a planning document from Translink on the topic of the interurban line and possible passenger rail service: https://www.translink.ca/-/media/Documents/about_translink/governance_and_board/council_minutes_and_reports/2019/june/Regional-Transportation-PlanningCmt-Report--Interurban-Passenger-Rail.pdf
 * It seems to completely contradict the recent edit. Translink is clearly believing that there is no passenger rail priority over the interurban line, but merely has the right to assign service for a passenger rail service to another operator as long as it does not interfere with freight traffic (meaning passenger rail service is subordinate to freight traffic), and agreements are needed between Translink and the various freight operators on the line before one could run a passenger rail service.

As such, I'll take out the recent edit based upon the information present in this document.ThePointblank (talk) 03:33, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Rewrite
When a knowledgeable contributor rewrites the page, it would be helpful to enhance the operational history of each line and to update the more recent history (eg. Arbutus corridor developments over past decade, Richmond's Railway Ave greenway, Surrey light rail cancellation and Skytrain extension proposal), and if feasible to create rail line templates showing all stations on each line.DMBanks1 (talk) 23:09, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

BCER general history
Patricia Roy has written several good academic articles about the BCER, including her PhD thesis on the electric railway. Several of these are available from the internet (her doctoral thesis is on the UBC Circle site, and she has a couple of articles in BC Studies, online). A future writer may wish to consult these works. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.92.51.32 (talk) 22:50, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Old BC Electric Posters
I found some old posters I believe from the late 1940’s or 1950’s was wondering if I could get any info about them

Thank you Shannon Shannonlynne70 (talk) 18:38, 20 February 2023 (UTC)