All Aboard!

All Aboard!. The Brantford and Hamilton Electric Railway. Between 1906 and 1931, this park was part of a busy radial railway line which provided round trips between Hamilton and Brantford. Radial railways were networks of electric streetcars with lines that connected city centres and outlying areas., Radial railways were a popular form of transportation in southern Ontario until the early 1930s. Beginning in the 1930s usage declined as travelers began to use automobiles and bus services., The Brantford and Hamilton Electric Railway closed in 1931 and the tracks, including those that once ran through this park, were pulled up the next year., The property was sold to the English-language Public District School Board in 1958 for a proposed school. The school was never built, and the land became a schoolboard-owned park until purchased by the City of Hamilton in 1990., Riding the Rails, The trains were an efficient mode of transportation, designed to run at 80km/h. If the streetcar made each of the scheduled eight stops between Hamilton and Brantford, which included Ancaster and Cainsville, the trip would take about one hour. On most days, the streetcar would make 10 round trips. In 1919, a return ticket from downtown Hamilton to Brantford cost $1.35 (equal to $23.00 in 2024).