B.C. Electric Railway Company
The B.C. Electric Railway Company was a late 19th and early 20th century British company which had the dual role of operating the Victoria and Vancouver streetcar systems and also acting as British Columbia’s sole electrical power generator and supplier
It appears in our Butchart Gardens History because the B.C. Electric Railway Company was the supplier of electrical power to Robert Butchart’s Vancouver Portland Cement Company at Tod Inlet.
From Chapter 2 of our Butchart Gardens History:
“One excellent example of a vendor’s impression of doing business with Robert Butchart has survived. On December 8, 1909, A.T. Goward, the Victoria Manager of the B.C. Electric Railway Company, a British company which had the dual role of operating the Victoria and Vancouver streetcar systems and also acting as British Columbia’s sole electrical power generator and supplier, wrote to R.H. Sperling, the company’s General Manager in Vancouver,
“I think that Mr. Butchart is anxious to get some arrangement with us [for supplying electricity to the cement factory at Tod Inlet]; at the same time he is, as you know, a very close figurer….. In my conversation with Mr. Butchart he stated that if we could supply him with power for $30.00 per H.P. a year he was ready to do business with us, but that it was no good our making an offer for more than that amount. Personally I believe that an arrangement could be made by which he would pay a little higher rate, but I do not think very much higher.”
Here are some sites with more information about the B.C. Electric Railway Company:
Here are some photos of B.C. Electric Railway Company buildings which are still standing in Victoria:
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