Fare box from the BC Electric Railway.

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salishan Place by the River currently maintains a collection of over 9000 photographs, 2000 archival documents, 9000 objects, 500 works of art, and 300 oral history recordings. This collection, spanning hundreds of years, is a wonderful window on the past and present life of our community.

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Object Description

Object Name

Fare Box

Object ID

1960.043.001

Title

Fare box from the BC Electric Railway.

Date

1898.

Description

Boxes are made of steel covered with leather, the handles are made of brass and raised lettering reads "FAREBOX" on one side and "COLEMAN" on the other. The windows on each side are 2.5" x 1.75" glass and the money slots are 1.75" long. A button on top of the box near the handle can be pushed down to tilt money in the top compartment into the bottom locked compartment. "No. 909" is on the lock; BCER; Interurban; British Columbia Electric Railway. Fare boxes of this type were used on the BCER trams and railcars between 1899 and 1920. The box has a patent date of "26 July '98." It sounds as if there are still coins in the box.

People/Subject

British Columbia Electric Railway Company Ltd. (BCER)

The British Columbia Electric Railway's interurban passenger service for the Fraser Valley, B.C., area came through Langley in 1910. The company was building rail lines into Langley as early as 1906, when they signed an agreement with Langley government. The company itself began as a merger of the National Electric Tramway and Lighting Company (Victoria), Vancouver Electric Railway and Light Company Ltd., and Vancouver & Westminster Tramway Company, and was responsible for hydroelectric power generation, power transmission, and electric rail lines on Vancouver Island and in Vancouver and the Fraser Valley. All three companies had gone into receivership in 1895, and the BCER was met with receivership in 1896, following the Point Ellice Bridge Disaster in Victoria. The company was only able to survive through assistance from London financers, and began operations in 1897 as an English-owned company. A station built at 240 St. in the general area formerly known as Harmsworth in Langley was named after Rochfort Henry Sperling, general manager of the B.C. Electric Company, and the area subsequently came to be known as Sperling community. In 1910, a substation was built at Coghlan, and still stands (2021). The substation stepped the voltage from the power transmission lines down for use by the trains passing through. It did not provide power to the surrounding community. Interurban passenger services on the B.C.E.R's Fraser Valley Line ceased in 1950. The company ended all service in 1958, and broke up into the branches it is modernly: BC Hydro, Translink, and BC Transit.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_Electric_Railway

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