Downtown Brandon construction reveals century-old streetcar tracks

Construction work along a downtown Brandon street has uncovered a lesser-known and short-lived part of the city's history. 

When crews started stripping Rosser Avenue, sections of track for the city's streetcar system began to surface.

"They're still underneath the pavement in a lot of downtown," said Aly Wowchuk with Brandon's General Museum and Archives. 

It was a project that seemed doomed from the start.

"They were originally installed in 1911 and it didn't have a great start. It actually took up to three different contractors to get this whole system started," she said.

Wowchuk said the first contractor was fired by city council because they didn't like being told where the track should be. The second one was found to have been putting nonexistent people on the payroll and was also let go.

The third contractor hired did finally get it done.

"Nonetheless, in 1913, the tracks came into operation, but they only existed for the next 20 years," she said. 

"They shared the roads with some very early automobiles as well as horses with buggies," Wowchuk added. "It was a very, very busy downtown back then." 

She said the system proved to be too much of a financial burden on the city council of the day, which decided to shut down the streetcar system in 1932 in favour of a private transit service, which ran buses around the city. 

The tracks were later paved over and largely forgotten about, until last week. 

"We got a sight of these tracks. We thought it was neat," said Wowchuk. "The very next day, another part of Rosser started getting stripped up for construction and even more tracks appeared."

Wowchuk said the early days of transportation in Brandon are featured in an exhibit at the museum's downtown location. Old log books and a section of track are on display. 

The museum has also shared some images of the tracks on social media. 

Wowchuk believes just one of Brandon's old streetcars is still in its complete form in a warehouse in Edmonton. Other streetcars were used as part of a drive-in that existed along Victoria Avenue at one point in time. 

"A lot of people are getting really excited, especially when the street was stripped and a lot of this cobblestone started to show up," she said. "There's even people suggesting that part of downtown Brandon should stay stripped with this cobblestone exposed and how much more character it would give to the city."

She said the story of the streetcar is part of the museum's downtown history walking tours.