BCER streetcar placed on display

Within the last few weeks a new history museum has opened in North Vancouver, BC, and one of its headline exhibits is a restored streetcar body. British Columbia Electric Railway 153, a double-truck semi-convertible built by Stephenson in 1908 (and, incidentally, the newest Stephenson product in existence), is on prominent display at the new Museum of North Vancouver. MONOVA, as it has dubbed itself, is described in this article that's also the source of the above photo.

The streetcar, which was retired in 1946, was a cottage at Ryder Lake for four decades before being acquired by the City of North Vancouver in 1986. From 1991 until 2021 it was stored at Fen Burdett Stadium and was the subject of a lengthy restoration project that wrapped up fairly recently. It's nice to see the car placed on display in such a visible location. Its ownership has been updated from the city to MONOVA and its status changed to "displayed inoperable."

Plans afoot for BCER 153

Of the 13 preserved pieces of equipment from British Columbia Electric Railway, surely the most elusive in recent years has been city car 153. Its body has been owned by the City of North Vancouver since the 1980s but for most (all?) of that time has been stored out of sight under the bleachers in a city park. During this time it's been cosmetically restored, with work apparently ongoing but nearing some level of completion. A recent article here includes a couple of photos of the car and a description of some of the work that has been done on it. Apparently the car is going to be fitted with Belgian trucks, though of what type I'm not certain. And there are big plans for it once cosmetic restoration is done: it is due to be moved to the not-yet-built Extraordinary Museum in the West Esplanade area of North Vancouver.

One intriguing thing the article mentions involves the car's builder: it says that it was built by Stephenson. I've always had the car listed in PNAERC as built by Brill, but it doesn't show up in Brill order lists so it makes sense that it was built by Stephenson (which was, after all, a Brill subsidiary in 1908). Sure enough, some Googling revealed this confirmation (page 121) of the car's actual builder. It's always good to get errors like this corrected! And it means that BCER 153 is the newest of the ten cars built by Stephenson known to be preserved.