If you're just trying to plunder the copper wire, someone will hit you
Old trams can be yours for just a few hundred dollars. There is only one catch. You have to carry it away yourself.
Last week, B.C. The department in charge of “Asset Investment Recovery” posteda list of “electric trams” that were charitably described as “not in operation”.
The 15 meter long tram is "untested", missing parts, confiscated wheels, graffiti on the exterior, and seems to have been looted with copper wire is. Also, it is clearly the same height as asbestos.
The winning bidder also had a logistic nightmare of picking it up from his current home in a visible warehouse in Vancouver's False Creek. Facing ..
The £ 43,000 tram cannot be moved until the owner spends time upgrading the tracks he is currently sitting on. When the tram is taken (or dismantled) to a flatbed trailer, the purchaser must provide B.C. A government with detailed "risk mitigation and transportation planning" to enable safe movement.
For all these reasons, car bids are relatively sluggish. At the time of the press, after a total of 125 bids, the tram bid was as high as $ 310. This means that the vehicle is being bid on an average increment of only $ 2.50.
Electric trams were once ubiquitous in major Canadian cities. During World War I, most residents of both Victoria and Vancouver lived just a short walk from the network of trams that connect even the farthest suburbs. With the exception of Toronto, the city's tram network was almost completely dismantled by the 1950s. In Vancouver, many of the city's famous electric trolleybuses roughly follow the old tram routes.
However, the tram auctioned by the Government of British Columbia has never actually served in Canada. The last time we accepted paid passengers was on the streets of Brussels.
According to Matthew Laird, a member of the Transit Museum Society, the carwas a gift from the Belgians to Canada in 2000. Originally, it was intended to serve the Vancouver Downtown Historic Railway. A traditional tram line run by the Association, which once operated tourist-friendly excursions from Granville Island.
Okay ... this is car 4 from Brussels, the original work car was remodeled with windows and turned from the Belgian government to the Transportation Museum It was donated. society. I met the Belgian Consul at Five Sails and arranged drinks around 2000.pic.twitter.com/zg6CUGEbGx
— Matthew Laird (@matthewlaird)August 4, 2022
During the 2010 Olympics , This line famously hosted theintendedmodern Belgian trams to give Vancouver citizens a "taste of European light rail technology". Instead, the Downtown Vancouver Heritage Railway was abandoned just a few months later, making Belgian cars meaningless and vulnerable to destroyers and thieves.
In a Facebook post last week, Vancouver traffic historian Peter Finchsaid the car was damaged by a bomb during the conflict, dating back to the occupation of Belgium during World War II. It is written as. ..
Finch also questioned asbestos claims, noting that this vintage car used asbestos very modestly and only for selected parts. "The reference to asbestos comes from either ignorance or horrific tactical attempts," he writes.
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