Vintage Regina streetcar restored to former glory by Edmonton group

WATCH: A Regina streetcar that escaped a transit fire in 1947 has been restored by a group in Edmonton. Wayne Mantyka has the story.

It’s been 75 years since street cars operated in Regina. Many were destroyed in a 1947 transit garage fire, but one that escaped the blaze has been restored by a group in Edmonton.

As a result of 23,000 hours of volunteer work in Edmonton, the streetcar looks like new, returning to the rails at an Edmonton park this month.

“One of the things I am always surprised at is how passionate our members are in doing restoration. We want to get them done as accurately as possible to what they were originally, in some cases like what the Regina streetcar we have photos from the manufacturer as well as blueprints,” Chris Ashdown with the Edmonton Radial Railway Society said.

The Edmonton Radial Rail Society received the streetcar as a donation from the City of Regina back in the 1990s. The group had been looking for streetcars to restore for Fort Edmonton Park.

Regina streetcar Number 42 is one of 10 found on the prairies and returned to operation.

“We had a group of our members scour Western Canada in the early 1980s to try and find old abandoned streetcars and we managed to come up with about 20 of them. Edmonton as well as examples from Regina, Saskatoon, and even Brandon, Manitoba,” Ashdown explained.

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Regina operated streetcars from 1911 until 1950, ending service not long after a major transit garage fire destroyed much of the fleet.

“It wiped out most of the rolling stock which included at the time not only streetcars but trolley buses and [a] few diesel buses that they had in their fleet as well,” Dana Turgeon with the City of Regina said.

The Edmonton group has also restored a Saskatoon maintenance streetcar that dates back to 1907.

“So, we have a 1907 Saskatoon maintenance car, big yellow beast, and then our 1928 Regina Municipal Railway passenger streetcar,” Ashdown said.

A few years back, Regina Transit considered restoration projects of its own but didn’t have the resources needed. The city is pleased that Edmonton volunteers were able to get the job done.