Text by James Bow
Unfortunately, the nature of trolley buses in Ontario is such that we seem only able to report on them in the past tense. Due to neglect, bad luck, increasing costs or whathaveyou, trolley buses are just a memory in Hamilton and Toronto. And barring museums, and weird finds such as the Last Trolley Bus in Toronto, the only place we'll see trolley buses these days is in the scrap yard.
Transit vehicle graveyards, in general, are eerie places. It just seems wrong to see vehicles which used to be active, ferrying thousands of passengers through our cities, dead and deserted. Electric vehicles such as streetcars and trolley buses are especially incongruous without any sign of overhead wires around them. Their poles, if they still have them, wave in the air, giving them an especially forlorn look. The X-Files understood this, and shot the climax of an episode entitled "Paper Hearts" in a scrapyard filled with derelict Vancouver trolley buses.
Roger DuPuis visited a scrapyard on Nebo Road in Hamilton, where a large number of Toronto and Hamilton buses are stored, awaiting the final torch. He can attest to the sadness of these sites. Here are some of the shots he took.
Nebo Road Scrap Yard Image Archive
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Nebo Road has a number of Hamilton and Toronto trolley buses, along with some abandoned Toronto diesel buses. Here, coach 9299, its poles flying, is pressed up against an abandoned Flyer. Photo by Roger Dupuis. |
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A red and cream trolley bus in the 9300 series rusts out in the yard. Photo by Roger Dupuis. |
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Coach 9230 (on top) is stacked, on its side, atop another repainted coach, also on its side. Photo by Roger Dupuis. |
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In this rear shot of 9299, we see that this trolley coach has actually been chopped in half, and its rear end is missing. These buses are slowly being stripped of all usable parts. |
