Temporary Park Trail Closing as Windsor’s Historic Streetcar No. 351 Moves to its Permanent Riverfront Home

The City of Windsor is preparing to move the historic Streetcar No. 351 from its storage location to its permanent home at the riverfront Legacy Park.

To accommodate the move, there will be a three-week closure of a section of Windsor’s Riverfront multi-use trail starting Monday, July 15, 2024, and extending to Saturday, August 3, 2024. A small portion of the riverfront trail will be closed from Crawford Avenue to the C.M.H. Woods Pumping Station. Directional signage re-routing trail users up to Riverside Drive will be in place at Crawford Avenue and Church Street. 

This closure is needed to accommodate construction and asphalt replacement at the Legacy Beacon and Park construction site. During this trail closure, the restored and covered streetcar will be positioned on the site inside the structure being constructed for its future grand opening, which is anticipated for the fall of 2024.

The $10.3 million project is part of the City’s 10-year capital plan, which invests more than $184.5 million in City parks, recreation, and facilities across the community. 

This project is highlighted in the Strengthen the Core: Downtown Windsor Revitalization Plan’s fifth action item, Vibrant District, which seeks to create vibrancy by attracting and engaging residents and visitors by improving municipal venues, improving streetscaping, and stimulating activations in Windsor’s core. The project also ties in with Windsor Works – An Economic Development Strategy for the City’s Future Growth, which included recommendations to invest in waterfront infrastructure and amenities to attract and support our evolving community. Alongside the Civic Esplanade and ice rink at City Hall, the Legacy Beacon is one of many initiatives that support economic development in Windsor’s downtown core and across the city while creating jobs, engagement opportunities, and positive spinoff impacts for businesses, and the tourism and hospitality sectors.

About Windsor’s Historic Streetcar No. 351

U.S. and Canadian cities built between 1880 and 1945 were streetcar cities. The first streetcar company in Windsor, the Sandwich and Windsor Passenger, was essentially a horse-drawn service along what is now University Avenue starting in 1874. That evolved into the SW&A (Sandwich, Windsor and Amherstburg Railway), which began electric service in 1891, though the first electric streetcar in Canada was operated by the Windsor Electric Railway in 1886. SW&A would go on to become Transit Windsor in the 1970s. Electric streetcars ran on Tecumseh Road, Wyandotte Street, Ouellette Avenue, Parent Avenue, College Avenue, Lincoln Road, Seminole Street, and Erie Street, as well as the Sandwich line that ran down University Avenue. 

Streetcar No. 351 is an important artifact in the story of Windsor’s transportation history. Built in 1918 in Cincinnati, Ohio, the streetcar is 50 feet long, and weighs just over 24,000 pounds. It is believed that cars 351 to 354 were purchased by SW&A as used vehicles around 1926 to 1927 from Public Service of New Jersey.

“This streetcar is a relic from Windsor’s past – one of those unique artifacts that is important because it is truly authentic to the city of Windsor’s history,” says Mayor Dilkens. “When I began conversations with George Sofos and Van Niforos, who were in possession of the streetcar, and later City Council and administration, I had no clear idea of what we were going to do, but I knew we had to do something. This streetcar is an important piece of Windsor’s history. I didn’t want the last of three remaining cars that operated here to be sold and moved outside of Windsor. It was important to find a new life for the streetcar, and to write a new chapter for it in our community.” 

City Council, project partners and the public saw the value in the vision that developed for Streetcar No. 351. In 2017, following a public open house and city-wide survey, Council approved a recommendation that, pending restoration, Streetcar No. 351 would become the focal point for one of five beacons planned for the riverfront as envisioned in the Windsor Central Riverfront Implementation Plan (CRIP) that was approved in 2000. 

About the Riverfront Legacy Park and Beacon

Windsor’s Central Riverfront Implementation Plan (CRIP) is an overall conceptual plan for the development of the community’s waterfront. As such, it provides design and high-level guidance for the ongoing development of the riverfront, including the construction of five beacons across the area. The intent of these beacons is that they act as points of interest and attraction along the over six-kilometre stretch that offers a continuous multi-use trail, public art installations, playgrounds, site-seeing areas, and more while providing appropriate services for the public as they make use of the riverfront and its amenities.

In the years following approval of the Streetcar No. 351 project, Council identified the riverfront Legacy Park as the ideal location for the streetcar. The park is situated adjacent to the historic railway tunnel and original station tower entrance. It will be the third of five destinations and landmarks along the Detroit River that will explore themes of integration of landscape and building, the history of the Canadian Pacific (CP) Railway, ecology, and sustainable development. 

“Windsor has a long tradition of celebrating its rich history and heritage, and highlighting the stories that make our community unique,” says Mayor Dilkens. “History, heritage and stories, that’s at the heart of the project to restore and display Streetcar No. 351 while activating the riverfront space around it. Windsor is important to the world of transportation. Our city is at the forefront of research and emerging technologies in the field of automation. The vehicles that get us where we need to go, from carriages and streetcars, all the way up to electric vehicles and self-driving cars being developed and tested today are really artifacts that help to tell the important story of how our community grew to what it is today. Building Windsor’s Future includes honouring its past, and I’m excited to see us writing the next chapter in the story of Streetcar No. 351 as we continue investing in growth to support our evolving community.”

To learn more about Streetcar No. 351, watch the documentary video produced by ENWIN Utilities in partnership with the City of Windsor, which highlights how this artifact from Windsor’s transportation history was discovered and is now being preserved so future generations can learn about the city’s technological pioneering past.