A Token for Your Thoughts: Uncovering the Lost Tracks of Kingston’s Transit System

Kingston Street Railway Token, 1877.

© Murney Tower Museum National Historic Site of Canada

It’s a cold, snowy day on the 2nd of February in 1877.  An unfamiliar sight makes its way down Princess Street – a horse-drawn wagon on a railway track, carrying the earliest passengers of Kingston’s first-ever public transit system. 

This small transportation token, a brown, plastic disc 2.6 centimetres in diameter, was your ticket to a ride with the newly inaugurated Kingston Street Railway Company. The city had steadily grown over the years, making public transportation feasible, and now, for the first time in 1877 – for only five cents – you could hitch a ride with the Kingston Street Railway. The city’s first transit system operated as an entirely horse-drawn system, with its car shed and stables located at 493 Princess Street. According to a bulletin by the Upper Canada Railway Society, “very little is known about the horse car days in Kingston, as the Company does not seem to have been outstanding in any way” (Upper Canada Railway Society, n.d., 1).

The company’s reputation seems to have improved, however, after it was reconstituted as the Kingston, Portsmouth and Cataraqui Street Railway on May 27, 1893. Instead of the original horse-drawn system, the new charter stated that the railway could be worked by “electricity, ammonia, compressed air or by such other motive power as may hereafter be agreed upon” (Upper Canada Railway Society, n.d., 1). The company was again renamed, becoming the Kingston, Portsmouth and Cataraqui Electric Railway, and the new electric cars were first operated on Princess Street in the fall of 1893. The bulletin reports that “the first electric car was driven by a Miss Kathleen Hardy and, since the day was wet and the street paved only with granite blocks, considerable sputtering and arcing occurred on the muddy rails, which is reported to have ‘terrorized’ many onlookers” (Upper Canada Railway Society, n.d., 1).

Enjoying an initial period of prosperity, the reconstituted company was described by 1900 in a trade press as “one of the most modernly equipped in Canada” (Upper Canada Railway Society, n.d., 2). It extended its routes and even placed an order for a “deluxe car,” stating that it would “place this car at the disposal of those who wish to attend the opera etc. in full dress and who are willing to pay for the extra accommodation” (Upper Canada Railway Society, n.d., 2). The system operated with four main routes: Portsmouth, Belt Line, Bagot St., and Williamsville. Every 10 minutes, three streetcars would cross paths at the corner of Alfred and Union Streets. And in wartime, eleven female conductors were hired to help maintain the service while many men served overseas. 

Alas, prosperity was followed by hardship. In financial difficulties, the privately owned company offered twice to sell to the city, and was twice refused. It also encountered many fires over the years, mentioned in various news sources. The Ottawa Journal, for example, reported on January 13, 1909, that a fire had broken out in the street car barns on Ontario Street and was fought “in the face of the bitterest weather of this year,” with the men of Battery A and B even being called on for aid. 

After fighting with fire for thirty-seven years, the Kingston, Portsmouth and Cataraqui Electric Railway endured a fire that would prove the end of the company. On March 1, 1930, flames broke in the carpenter shop and spread to the carhouse before the cars could be moved to safety (Upper Canada Railway Society, n.d.). Four days later, W.F. Nickle, the president of the company, asserted in a City Council meeting that “restoration of the service was out of the question”; the Ottawa Citizen then reported that the company had “decided to cease operations altogether” (1930). The tracks were dismantled one by one, with the last rail not removed until the winter of 1940-41. The Upper Canada Railway Society poignantly describes the event as so: “And thus passed the last signs of the Kingston Portsmouth and Cataraqui, never profitable, always in difficulties, but operated as long as possible by a public-spirited local management determined to provide a necessary service as long as it was physically able to do so” (n.d., 3).

For thirty years thereafter, a subsidiary of Colonial Couch Lines provided transportation service to Kingstonians until July 1, 1962, when the City of Kingston finally took over transit operations. The Kingston Public Transit System was thus formed, renamed Kingston Transit in 1975, the service which continues to ferry locals and tourists alike around the city to this day.

This is the story of Kingston’s transit system, inspired by one small token among Murney Tower Museum’s 1.000 artifacts. The token is a remnant of the very first incarnation of a transit system in our city. Who knows how many hands it may have passed through, how many rides it may have enabled during its lifetime. A simple token, yes, but it played an indispensable role, allowing residents to travel, work, and connect with their friends and family across the city. The token opened possibilities. 

From a five-cent transportation token to a $3.25 fare, from its earliest, horse-drawn days, to the familiar orange and blue busses swarming with passengers at the Downtown Transfer Point, it is safe to say that Kingston’s transit system is no longer recognizable from its beginnings. Yet, its roots will always lie in a blustery winter day in 1877, when a horse-drawn wagon first transported city residents down Princess Street. 

References 

Churcher, C. 2018. Local Railway Items from Area Papers - Kingston, Portsmouth and Cataraqui Railway. Colin Churcher’s Railway Pages. https://churcher.crcml.org/circle/Papers %20by%20Subdivision/Kingston,%20Portsmouth%20and%20Cataraqui.pdf

Upper Canada Railway Society. (n.d.) Kingston, Portsmouth, and Cataraqui Electric Railway. Bulletin 54. https://railwaypages.com/upper-canada-railway-society-ucrs-and-its-publications