Pair of original 1947 snapshot photos of a people enjoying an open-air railway sight-seeing tour of Quebec City, Canada.
Original 1947 photographs, titled and dated by the original owner.
Locals affectionately nicknamed the nimble Quebec City sightseeing and streetcars "Mountain Goats".
( see historical information below )
Photo 1. 3 1/2" x 5"
Photo 2. 3 1/4" x 4 1/2" ( blurry )
Nearly 80 years old.
Carefully packed for shipment to the buyer.
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Historical information :
In the first half of the 1900s Quebec City's sightseeing streetcars were operated by the Quebec Railway, Light & Power Company, navigating the historic city's famously narrow, steep, and winding streets.
The operator, The Quebec Railway, Light & Power Company, ran the local tram network, which included special sightseeing and observation operations starting from terminals near landmarks like the Château Frontenac and Place d'Armes.
Because Quebec City featured exceptionally narrow corridors, sharp turns, and steep inclines (such as near Côte Dinan and Côte du Palais ), the city's sightseeing and standard streetcars were built shorter and more flexible than those used in cities like Montreal or Vancouver.
Locals affectionately nicknamed these nimble vehicles "Mountain Goats".
The Quebec City tramway streetcar system began in 1865 with horsecars.
It was electrified in 1897.
The sight-seeing car was inaugurated on June 18, 1910. It was a car with six rows of double seats on different levels. Passengers boarded via a staircase at the rear.
The route began at Place d’Armes.
The tour of Upper Town and part of Lower Town lasted about an hour, and the fare was $0.50 for the full tour or $0.25 for a shorter evening tour.
The electric sight-seeing streetcars ran on the city’s railway network, with cars which had no roof, allowing its passengers to clearly see the beauty of the old city.
The route began at the Château Frontenac and circled the city via Côte de la Fabrique, Saint-Jean, D’Auteuil, and Saint-Louis streets.
It was the ancestor of the current double-decker, open-top buses.
The sight-seeing cars operated in the season of mid-May to mid-October from 1910 until the final run in the autumn of 1947, when it was discontinued.
A year later, in 1948, the entire tramway system closed permanently.
Maintenance challenges, rising costs, and the push for motor vehicle traffic led to the permanent shutdown of the Quebec City tramways in May 1948, replacing the rails with buses.