MTM: Edmonton High Level Street Car (corrected)

It has been awhile since I've done one of these, But I vaguely remember mentioning the High Level Street Car in one of my other posts. We finally got around to taking a ride on it a couple of weeks ago and I even had my camera along!


The Edmonton Radial Rail Society has put in thousands of volunteer hours yearly to restore and locate cars. They run on a short section of track from Strathcona to Jasper Avenue as well as in Fort Edmonton Park. We took the run over the High Level Bridge and I can see we will have to go to Ft. Edmonton Park as well. That will be at least two posts worth too ;)

This is where we start, just behind the the bus barns and Museum. Click any photo to enlarge.

Here comes the Street Car.

Hmm, seems a little modern and plastic!

Is that German?

Yes, it sure is! This is the car from Hanover, Germany!
The trip is about the ride anyway.

Approaching the tunnel that runs under 109 St and some apartment buildings!

Once out of the tunnel you can almost believe you have left the city behind.

But no...there it is, just hidden behind trees.

To the East is our ball diamond, yes, we have a team... um... Edmonton Capitals (forgive me they were the Cracker Cats two years ago and I don't follow the sport) and they belong to the Golden League.
Oops! This is Kinsmen field on the South side of the river (hard to tell in the little photo). The diamond (Telus Field)for the Capitals would be behind the Rossdale plant.

This is the view to the West from the bridge.

This is the Rossdale Power Plant (it seems they are decommissioning it) and the Walterdale bridge which the locals call the 5th street bridge - because we're too lazy to say one hundred and 5th.

The dome of our Legislature building and a few of our high rises.

Picking up a passenger at the Grandin stop.

The end of the line....Jasper Avenue, surrounded by Apartments and office towers.



For $4.00 you can stay down town all day and take the street car back in the late afternoon...cheaper by far than the daily fare for regular transit - if you live near the Strathcona terminal. Regular transit is $2.75 and you get a 90 minute transfer.

Southbound for the return trip you can see the bridge for the LRT and in the background residences and other buildings (hospital) for the U of Alberta.

Oh, look! The LRT! Which to be honest I didn't even notice until I processed the photos... it probably beat us to the other side of the river. Behind that is the Royal Glenora Club and Victoria Park and behind that are residential high rises.



MTM  is being hosted by Clare2e from Women of Mystery and it even has it's own blog now...My town Monday.

Have a good day all.

My weekend continued!

Sunday morning we got up bright and early to go to the Telus World of Science (TWOS - formerly the Edmonton Space & Science Centre) to see "Body Worlds". This is "The Original Exhibition of Real Human Bodies" and it is fascinating! There is a video clip here which gives you a taste of the exhibit. I could have spent much longer than I did, as it was we took about 90 minutes to go through.

I was just as intrigued watching the people looking at the exhibit as the exhibit itself. There was a father with his daughter & son, the girl was about 8, the boy younger. But the questions that little girl had! It was wonderful to see a young mind so engaged by this and daddy was doing very well explaining. It makes a person wonder, if our generation had been exposed to this sort of thing at that age, would there be more women in science & medical fields today?

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We, went for lunch and then back to the Art-Walk that we had been to on Saturday to see the rest of the exhibits. At the other end, we found I could have had a sketch of me as a Zombie instead of a caricature! Such is life!

They had actually arranged to shut down two blocks of Whyte Avenue and the businesses were involved in a street sale, there was a fashion show, and live music. The two blocks they shut down are the two busiest blocks of Whyte and it was rather surreal to see it like this:

A little back history is called for here. Edmonton used to be two cities a long time ago, Edmonton on the North side of the river (the North Saskatchewan) and Strathcona on the South side. Whyte Avenue would have been the "main" street of Strathcona and the area is now known as "Old Strathcona", there are many historic buildings and the crowd is mostly arty, funky, hip people. The University of Alberta is at the west end of Whyte Ave, so there are always young people around. It is where the Fringe Festival is held along with many other festivals.

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This is the Great Divide Waterfall! Seen from the South side at the top of the river valley. The waterfall is man-made and pumps 50,000 litres of water per minute out the nozzles and costs about $2000.00/hour to run. More stats can be found by clicking the link above. It was made for Alberta's 75th Anniversary.

I have very good friends who willingly drove me to a place that I could take photos, then took me across the river to get more shots from different angles. At the cost of gas and the size of vehicle they drive, yes, they are very good friends!



This is just entering the river valley, we had to wait for pedestrians.

I didn't crop this, just to give you a bit of perspective. This is about 1/2 way down into the river valley.

This is looking directly on from the Low Level Bridge.


This is the waterfall from the North side of the river, by the Legislature grounds.

From a bit closer you can see how far out the water shoots.


This is driving onto the bridge.


And a good shot of the girders and pedestrian rail - obviously not what I was aiming for.


This is all you can see while looking straight out.

Quite a lot of water puddles onto the bridge deck and there is a bit of back spray. I imagine walking or biking across gets you a bit damp.

So, that was my Sunday & I am exhausted just telling it here. One day, I may walk (gasp - not that) across the bridge when the waterfall is on, but I don't think it will be this year.

Have a good Wednesday everyone.

WWC - Raw & Finished.

Happy Canada Day!

Yes, today is the day we celebrate Canada and all things Canadian. For a fairly good idea what Canada Day's history is and how it came about click on this link.

Celebrations in Edmonton include turning on the waterfall over the High Level Bridge and of course there will be fireworks all over the city. The major display downtown, but several community leagues usually put on a small display of their own. In the 28 years the waterfall has been around, I have lived in the city for a combined total of 14 years and I have never seen it! They only turn it on for special events as they have to shut down the bridge to turn the water on. In fact they are shutting down the closest bridge down river too, but that is just crowd control. I am going to do my best to find a good spot from which to takes photos of it this year - even if it takes all summer. I will do a report later in the week on whether I am successful.

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On to the Weekly Word Challenge! This week the ever evolving Tink at Pickled Beef gave us the words RAW and FINISHED to play with. If you think you would like to join in the fun, drop by and she will let you in on the scoop.



This is in my storage room, it is shelves made from RAW lumber. (well close anyway)

Another view of the RAW lumber shelves.


MMmmm Bison Burgers - Raw still! (phone camera)


Still RAW, but not for long! (phone camera)


All FINISHED! (phone camera)


These Lilacs have finished for the season :(


These Lily of the Valley are FINISHED too. (the truck door was slammed just as I clicked, I thought it looked really cool though!)


The day is almost FINISHED. We were looking for places to get photos of the bridge.


I have no idea if the ball game was FINISHED though.


For all you baseball fans, the team is called the Edmonton Cracker-Cats (yes, you read that right) and they are a minor league team. About all I know is they have a cute logo. I was standing on the top of the river valley across the river from the field, which is on the flats by the river.


So, if you want to view more photos the WWC has a group page on Flickr, and here is my own Flickr page.

Have a great (Canada) day everyone.