After years of horses and stagecoaches, a new player arrived on the scene: the street car. The first streetcars appeared in 1879. They were drawn by two horses and had steel wheels which ran on L-shaped rails over the muddy and rutted streets. These early cars could only carry 12 passengers and operated from the Welland House Hotel on Ontario Street along St. Paul and Queenston Streets out to just beyond Eastchester Avenue.

Electric trolley cars were introduced in 1887 and were powered by the generating station on Lock 12 of the Second Welland Canal in the Oakdale neighbourhood. In 1898, the streetcar system was purchased by the Niagara, St. Catharines, and Toronto Railway, or N.S. & T., and quickly became very popular because of its ability to move passengers on its systems from St. Catharines to Toronto, by connecting with other inter-urban routes. The N.S. & T., which really got its start on St. Paul Street is one of the foremost examples in Canada of an intensely developed and closely integrated transportation system, incorporating operation of local street railways, inter-urban lines, freight, lake steamers, and eventually large motor coach services.

The Canadian National Electric Railway took over the NS&T system between 1923 and 1925 and quickly replaced all trackage and introduced new styles of streetcars. But within ten years, some lines were cancelled – the automobile had arrived. Traffic congestion, featuring automobiles, particularly on St. Paul Street are to blame for the demise of the streetcar on St. Paul Street. The remaining streetcar lines were slowly abandoned during the late 1940s and replaced with bus service.

Watch This! Check out our Virtual Lecture about the N.S. & T. in St. Catharines.

Check out this link to a documentary about “The Little System that Could”