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Old Posted Feb 3, 2016, 8:37 PM
OldDartmouthMark OldDartmouthMark is offline
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Originally Posted by ns_kid View Post
Keith is right; both Halifax and Dartmouth's transit systems were independent and privately held until the 70s. I haven't done the research but my guess is ours were among the last privately-owned transit systems serving a major North American city.

In Dartmouth, a guy named Lawrence Bell operated the bus services from the early 20s until 1957. The service operated under L.M. Bell Ltd from 1927 then as Bell Busses Ltd. from around 1938. A company called DTS [Dartmouth Transit System] Buses Ltd. took over on April 1, 1957. I'm not sure about the ownership of that company. Both Bell and DTS painted their buses in a blue and white scheme. The City of Dartmouth took the system over in 1978 and operated it until the Metropolitan Authority launched Metro Transit in 1981.

NSLP was the direct descendent of the original street railway, which opened in 1866 as Halifax City Railroad Company. (Halifax, incidentally, was the fourth city in Canada with an integrated transit system, after Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City). The Halifax Electric Tramway Company completed the conversion from horse-powered cars to electric trams in 1896. The tram fleets were worn out and needed replacement after both world wars and, in 1949, NSLP replaced the trams with its bright yellow electric trolleycoaches. Halifax was, I think, the largest all-trolley system in North America before adding diesel buses in 1963. When the first Halifax Transit took over at the start of 1970, the system became all-diesel.

Leger and Lawrence's wonderful 1994 book Halifax – City of Trolleycoaches documents the painful negotiations between NSLP and Bell on who should have the right to traverse the McDonald bridge when it opened and how to share the fare revenue on transfers between the systems. NSLP won that right and Bell always maintained they were shortchanged on the revenue.

PS: This June marks the 150th anniversary of transit service in Halifax. I haven't heard a word about any plan by Metro Transit to commemorate the occasion.
Just found a few images of Bell Buses on the archives. Here are a couple of them from 1941:



https://novascotia.ca/archives/EastC...es.asp?ID=1774



https://novascotia.ca/archives/EastC...es.asp?ID=1775

Given the lay of the land and the large house on the left at the top of the hill, I would say this location is on Portland street, just down from Five corners, near where the present-day Tim Hortons is located.
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