@1 BAD 9T9 sent along this information on the restoration of a streetcar in Windsor, Ontario.
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Here’s a little history about Windsor, it’s restored streetcar and RM Auto Restorations.
Windsor Ontario is the western tip of southwest Ontario and has a terrific riverfront on the Detroit River which includes a park-like environment, a swell view of the downtown Detroit skyline, a combination of nearby American/Canadian and ethnic (including Lebanese and Vietnamese) restaurants, several miles of riverside walking trails and more than 30 art statues of all sorts. For rail fans, the Spirit of Windsor, a 1911-era Pacific -type 4-6-2 Canadian National steam locomotive and tender stands on display.
Windsor was the first
Canadian city with an
electric street car system, which was introduced in 1886. .
Here is the story of Streetcar #351. Streetcar #351 was built in 1918 in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is 50 feet long, and weighs 24,688 pounds. It is believed that Cars #351-354 were purchased by SW&A (Sandwich, Windsor and Amherstburg Railway) as used vehicles in 1927 from Public Service of New Jersey. They were equipped with smoking compartments and were placed in suburban service.
The cars were sold for $100 when the city switched to bus service in the late 1930s. A few years back there was a man who wanted to find one of the old streetcars that had run between Windsor and Amherstburg in the early 1900’s to put in his restaurant. Three guys got together to locate one. Hey knew there was a streetcar being used as a diner in Wheatley along with six used as cottages.
However, they learned that there was one located locally, in Belle River which is about 20 kilometres east of Windsor, so they started their search. After one month of searching every weekend for the trolley it was finally located. The streetcar had originally served as a bait and tackle shop but was moved to an empty lot and had a house built around it. There it became the kitchen and dining room inside the house. Because it was built into the house was why it was so hard to find. Had it not been that the front of the streetcar hung out into the carport it would never have been located. They joyfully noted that it was #351, one of only 4 cars that had a smoking compartment. It was exactly what they were looking for. The house was carefully torn down and the streetcar was loaded onto a flatbed truck. It was then just stored in a barn and none of them wanted to just sell it for scrap and they had a condition that it was to stay in Windsor. The vacant lot was later sold without the streetcar.
About five years ago Windsor City Council was looking for something like this to preserve the town’s history. Somehow Drew Dilkins, the Mayor of Windsor, heard about streetcar #351 stored in a barn and made a proposal to the group about a forward looking plan to preserve their treasure, so the streetcar was donated to the city. While the streetcar was undergoing her restoration Council decided to add the finished product to the other exhibits along the Detroit River waterfront.
Irony would have it that our Corvette Club of Windsor has their annual Waterfront Car Show in Dieppe Park on this same beautiful waterfront.
Now for the second part of this story.
A young fellow, Rob Myers, started his passion project in the late 1970’s out of a one-car garage in Chatham, which is about 80 kilometres east of Windsor. As the founder and sole employee here was where the junkyard bicycle projects led to second-hand motorcycle restorations. Motorcycle restorations led to custom work on the side, which fueled the idea to open a body shop full-time. This is how Rob Myers’ RM Auto Restorations started and grew into the RM Group of Companies. This included RM Sotheby's, which is the number one classic car auction house in the world.
RM Auto Restorations stands alone with an unmatched five best-in-show vehicles at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, the foremost event of its kind, at Monterey, California. Wealthy collectors trust only a few shops with their diamonds in the rough: a full restoration can range from $100,000 to $1-million and require one to two years. Therefore it was a logical choice for the City of Windsor to select RM Auto Restorations to do a really professional job on restoring #351.
The streetcar has now been restored to its original glory at a cost of $750K and is to be displayed at the Celestial Beacon pavilion on Windsor’s riverfront.
Here are a couple of videos showing the degree of professionalism displayed by the RM Workers.
Locating the streetcar
Re-assembling Car 351 video
Detail video
More background
