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Online database, city hall exhibition showcase photos of civic transit over the decades

Riding through history

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2026/01/25/riding-through-his...

THE transit buses, trolleys and Red River carts that carried Winnipeggers around for nearly 150 years are the driving force behind a new city project.

The city’s archives department is in the process of preserving thousands of photos showing the history of civic transit in Winnipeg. Hundreds of photos are already available to view from a searchable database online. A select few will be part of a temporary exhibition at city hall.

Until recently, the photos were sitting unseen in the yellowing pages of more than two dozen photo albums on shelves tucked away at Winnipeg Transit’s complex on Osborne Street.

Members of the Manitoba Transit Heritage Association said they are thrilled the public will have the collection at their fingertips any time they want.

“I think this is a really wonderful project,” said David Wyatt, secretary of the association. “We’ve seen some of the historic photos through the many, many years and they are great.”

Alex Regiec, the heritage association’s vice-president, spent 30 years working at Winnipeg Transit in its operations department. He said the organization helped city archivists identify some of the photos.

“When I worked at Transit they were in a series of binders close to my office,” he said. “I put the annual calendar together and drew on the photos for it. They were in good shape.

“I’m very happy they are in very good hands.”

Sarah Ramsden, senior archivist with the archives, said her department is pleased to house the collection.

She said 600 of the 6,000 photos her department received are now online, with others to follow. Those that can’t go online due to copyright will still be preserved and the records available at the archives.

“The exhibit is to make this collection better known,” said Ramsden. “We wanted to give people a little taste of what we have.”

Greg Ewankiw, director of Winnipeg Transit, is also pleased the public will now have access, especially since between himself, his dad, brother, son and son-in-law, his family has spent 83 years at the public transit agency.

“I drove a bus for 14 years,” Ewankiw said. “My father drove (an electric trolley).

“We are so pleased the archivists could take this on and preserve it for everyone.”

Gwen Friesen, an archival intern at the archives, recalls spending much of 2025 going through the photo collection and adding information to each including the photographer’s name, the type of vehicle, and where the photo was taken.

“It was overwhelming to see so many and to know each one of them was going to get a description,” Friesen said. “It was a bit daunting at first… when I first saw them they were on a couple of shelves in very thick binders full of thousands of photos.”

Friesen said the oldest photo in the collection is from 1882, showing a horse pulling an enclosed car. There is an even older photo from 1880, showing people being pulled in a Red River cart, but that image belongs to the Manitoba Archives Collection.

Within a few years there was rail on the road, electric lines in the air, and streetcars were pushing aside the horsecars.

From there came trolleys and, ultimately, different types of diesel buses over the decades.

Friesen said the most recent photo is from 2005, when the first low-floor buses came into service.

Regiec, whose organization preserves a collection of more than a dozen former Winnipeg Transit buses and others from Grey Goose, Northern Bus Lines and Beaver Bus Lines, said his favourite photos are ones showing trolleys.

“I grew up in Winnipeg and, with my mom, I went on the North Main-Corydon route,” he said.

“I have memories of the pole coming off the (electrical line) at Selkirk and Main Street and the driver, no matter what the weather, would have to go out and connect it again.

“Now everyone can see what they looked like at the time.”

The photos can be viewed at: wfp.to/transitarchivehttp://wfp.to/transitarchive.

The temporary exhibit is set up on the main floor of the Susan A. Thompson building at city hall at 510 Main St. It is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.camailto:kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

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CITY OF WINNIPEG ARCHIVES

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Above: Bus No. 138 heads eastbound along Portage Avenue in 1987. Left: Children in formal wear prepare to board a chartered gasoline bus pointing south on Memorial Boulevard in 1929.

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Streetcars sit on Portage Avenue in front of the Osler Hammond & Nanton Building in the 1940s.

CITY OF WINNIPEG ARCHIVES

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Above: A man holds hands with two children in front of westbound streetcar No. 672 on Route 21 on Portage Avenue at Edmonton Street in this undated photo. The Eaton's department store is visible in the background.

CITY OF WINNIPEG ARCHIVES

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CITY OF WINNIPEG ARCHIVES

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Left: A White Star Manufacturing horse-drawn cart in 1902. Right: Trolley bus No. 1540 heads east on route 73 (Sargent Avenue) passing Richmond Pharmacy (495 Sargent Ave.) in the 1940s.

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Sarah Ramsden (left), senior archivist, and Gwen Friesen, archival intern at the City of Winnipeg Archives, with the binders with yellowing pages in which many of the photos were stored for decades at the transit offices. Ramsden holds one of the photos depicting Winnipeg Electric Street Railway streetcar No. 10 on the St. Johns-Kildonan route, ca. 1892–1904 (City of Winnipeg Archives, Box A2266, File 62, Item 4.)

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