In keeping with Monday’s theme, here’s another old border crossing post card, today’s view shows the tunnel. This one is unused, as was Monday’s. Someone may be able to get a better date, given the car and bus in the photos. The Maple Leaf flag on the wall means the photo is no older than 1965, when the flag was officially adopted.
From the back:
- DETROIT-WINDSOR TUNNEL
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
Interior view of Tunnel showing a Tunnel Bus and
passenger car at the actual International border, marked
by the flags of the two countries
Also the other thing that is cool, is the Signal Lights in the Ceiling should be some what of help. Also the Hand-railings on the right side of the picture would be another thing that has been removed now.
When I was in the tunnel a few weeks ago, there was a spot near flags that they were testing out LED lights for lighting up the Tunnel, and to me it was not bright at all, compared with the regular lights they have.
I agree. The LED lights just don’t look very bright.
The hand railings in the photograph helped protect Tunnel workers and security guards who used that narrow ledge as a sidewalk. Years ago and before automotive air conditioning, when we drove through the Tunnel with our car windows open, the guards would sometimes bellow, “Slow down!” and we could hear them clearly. (How they might have enforced their warnings was never explained.) And who needed air conditioning, anyway? After all, earlier model Tunnel buses had a protective sun visor over the top of their windshields. We always looked for the international boundary marker, too, and in those days the Canadian side identified our nation as the “Dominion” of Canada…..a term no longer used but which was adopted at Confederation in 1867, partly to avoid arousing aggressive political elements in the post Civil War United States if Britain had presumed to imperiously refer to our country as one of her “kingdoms”.
the hand railings were in fact part of the catwalk along the side of the tunnel used by the tunnel workers to check for leaks. When Customs & Immigration at either end were slower than usual checking people through, there would be a backup in the tunnel and the exhaust fumes would overload the exhaust fans and it was hard to breathe. Poor tunnel workers used to carry gas masks to help them. It was not hard to see water streaming down the walls during a hot summer from condensation buildup, we used to think of a leak that would flood downtown WIndsor and drain the Detroit River!
I would say around or shortly after 1954, the car is a 1954 Buick.
The bus is a Fageol Twin Coach, workhorse of the S.W. & A. Those aren’t the S.W. & A. colours but my faulty recollection is that Tunnel Buses were a different colour. The S.W. & A. was acquired by the City of Windsor in 1970 and became Transit Windsor in 1977.What I do recall about the Twin Coaches is that when the bus slowed down the cabin lights would dim.
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~wyatt/alltime/windsor-on.html
The tunnel company had their own buses,not S W & A. , they only ran on tunnel propherty in Windsor, in Detroit they also used city streets for a downtown loop.
When the tunnel stopped their own buses Transet Windsor got involde.
Check out this link for an earlier photo of the international boundary in the tunnel.
http://swoda.uwindsor.ca/swoda/content/149
Thanks for the old postcard of the tunnel! Love it!
Hmm… someone has been modifying pictures. The exact same picture appears in the UWindsor archives but with the original Dominion of Canada flags… dated 1960. The Maple leaf flag and USA side have been modified I guess to sell more postcards?
Check it out here…. [url] http://swoda.uwindsor.ca/swoda/content/125 [/url]
They are planning a huge expansion on the Windsor side of the tunnel in the next couple years. The preliminary plan shows them closing off Goyeau from Wyandotte to Park to keep the lineups off of Wyandotte.
Looks like your photo above is an altered version of this original:
http://swoda.uwindsor.ca/swoda/content/125
Original photo dated 1960–see that the flags are different, but the bus and car are identical.
does anyone recall if, anytime in the last 10 or 15 yrs, the tunnel bus was ever run by city of detroit, however briefly?
As far as I remember when the tunnel went out of the bus buisness SW&A or Transit Windsor took over, same company just a name change owned by City od Windsor. Back in the early 1900 the DSR(Detroit Street Raailway) owned the SW&A.