Sandwich Street – 1913
Today’s post features a view looking east along Sandwich Street (today’s Riverside Drive) from the intersection with what is today Viale Udine (just east of Ouellette).
The streetcar to Amherstburg is visible in the foreground. Amazing how in less than a century we’ve managed to go from progressive regional transit to what we have today.
the interurban street cars must have been great, leamington, amherstburg, sandwich, kingsville… all with decent frequency..
I know Detroit also had quite the interurban system… does anyone konw if there was ever service from Windsor to Detroit though the Detroit – Windsor Rail Tunnel? (my guess is not)
Shane, the only connection to Detroit was via the ferrys. Though thyere were plans to build a connecting tunnel for passenger rail between the two cities. The depression killed that idea.
Andrew, also note that our downtown was larger back then; More businesses, more buildings. Compare it today and it really is night and day.
Don’t forget to add, that all of the building shown in the postcard no longer with us.
Ooops. Wait a minute. There was a time when you could buy a standard railroad ticket on the Michigan Central (later New York Central, later Penn Central) passenger trains from Windsor to Detroit and travel through the train tunnel which exists today. In the late 40s and early 50s, Windsor people would do this, get out at the magnificent, now ruined, station in Detroit, and casually WALK…safely…to Briggs, later Tiger Stadium, for a baseball game. I seriously doubt if streetcars ever used the rail tunnel or if streecar service through the 1910 tunnel was ever considered.
There is no way streetcars could pass through the tunnel, the grade on either side would be way too much for them to get over for starters.
It would be neat to see a map of Windsor, and the street cars, and interurban train lines in 1913.That may show why suberban sprawl killed many good ideas.
Windsor was early into sreet cars but probaliy got out to soon.
Well said Andrew. Interesting that in London England the last tram was retired in 1952 and in 2000 the city started the new Tram-Link. It is estimated that Tram-Link reduces the number of yearly car trips by between 3 to 4 million
There is an interesting book titled “When Eastern Michigan Rode The Rails-Book 4″ by Schramm, Henning, and Andrews, published by Transportation Trails, 1994. It has a good section on Windsor-Essex county electric railways. Included are items about Amherstburg, Tecumseh, Essex, and Kingsville/ Leamington . I don”t know if this book is still in print.
The rail tunnel when it open was electrify all strean power trains where pulled threw the tunnel by electric locomotives. Yes people could get on an train from Windsor to Detroit or the other wat around but the trains didn’t have the frequently as the ferrys did. Streetcars could have run threw the tunnel but the RR wheren’t in the business of public transit. The electric power for the station in Windsor and the tunnel came from the U.S. side.
There is an 1920′s map of the streetcar system on display as part of the Electric Ave. at the Art Galley of Windsor.
Hi,
When living in Windsor and working at CN Telegraph office in Walkerville in early to mid-1950s, I hung out at the New York Central station near Tecumseh and Pelletier; I recall one could enter a pedestrian tunnel in that station which went under the two main tracks to access either track. The reason for the tunnel was safety: no crossing of tracks, plus the electric trains that operated between Windsor and Detroit drew their power from a third rail, the same as most subway lines (like Toronto’s). Canadian Pacific passenger trains also used the station for their Toronto-Chicago business.
Is the building in the near right the old Windsor Opera House? And what is the building in the near left?
JBM – Yes it’s the old Opera House. The building on the left I show on the 1937 Fire Maps as a CN Freight Office.
I believe the building on the left also housed the American Embassy at one time. The Stars & Stripes hung from that flagpole protruding from the building.