The old WE&LS interurban streetcar line that ran from Windsor to Leamington, via Essex and Kingsville may be a long distant memory, but there are a few small traces of the old network still around today. This building on Park Street in Kingsville down near the harbour, one did duty as the county end Powerhouse of the electric railroad.
This Post card view is from the Vintage Kingsville Facebook Group. It shows the powerhouse in operation about 1910. Funny thing about that Kingsville group is that the mayor Nelson Santos has commented on things. Imagine having a mayor that cares about history?
sharp looking building. thanks for the link to the facebook group. lots of content!
my mother told me they used to ride a street car from Windsor to Essex when she was a kid approx. 1920ish I wonder if it was this line,my grandfathers farm was right next to the NYC CASO back then my mother told me my uncles used to go out and walk the tracks with potato sacks picking up chunks of coal that fell from the locomotive tenders to heat the house back then
it appears that the windows have been bricked over and that little cupola on the roof is missing as well this must have been a grand building in its time great photo Aaron
Interesting…..a pantograph instead of a trolley pole. Pantographs didn’t work really well in “streetcar” situations because they don’t handle tight turns as well as a pole.
A mayor who cares about history?!? What a notion!
Doug, I doubt that they were concerned about tight turns for the street car from Windsor to Leamington…especially in the nineteen aughts.
Navi a mayor who cares about history that’s an interesting concept
They’re stuccoing what used to be the east end blockbuster.. and I don’t like it! Also what’s the word on Windsor’s streetcar station that is supposed to be a new Penalty Box? There hasn’t been any recent news on it. And a mayor who cares about history? I need proof.
I do find it fascinating how humans so often have bad timing. Growing up in Windsor I saw the relatively recently abandoned SW&A street car tracks. Here in Calgary trolly busses were still running in 1969, often over the recently abandoned street car tracks. Then came Calgary Transit’s LRT (Light Rail Transit), the 1990’s version of street cars. I wonder how much money could have been saved by simply continuing the use of street cars, as Toronto e.g. did?
Uzzy, I was curious because Andrew once posted a picture of a WE&LS motor in a street situation with a trolley pole. Pantographs were generally used in high voltage situations (the railway when built was a single phase 6,600 volt AC system), and considered “unsafe” for urban environments. The WE&LS converted to 600 volt DC in 1930, two years before it was abandoned.
A former mayor of Windsor put it best when asked why the city residents had to put up with mediocre bus service even though the city had the financial resources to provide residents with much better service: we’re an auto city and mass transit is bad for our economy!
I drove by the former powerhouse last night and noticed that the building had been sold. I wonder who the new owner is and what is being planned. Is this building a designated historical structure?
My Great grandfather actually worked for this line, and actually died accidentally while working here in the 1920’s, leaving my grandfather at a very young age, along with his two younger brothers.
Sad to report that Kingsville’s majestic WE&LS powerhouse is no more! Demolition crews are on-site and moving quickly.
Even sadder is that Kingsville residents were not made aware of its impending demise.
This probably the last evidence that WE&LS ever existed.