Farewell to Brill       page 3 of 4
FTB1_18  Overhead details at Blanca Loop 1-18:  "Selectric" switches at Blanca Loop.  The driver throws a Selectric simply by turning under it.  Normally the shoes pass through the wiper strips without overlap and nothing happens.  If the bus is steered right (say), the right shoe trails the left shoe and both will be in contact with their wipers for an overlapping period.  This completes a circuit through the coils that throw the points.
TFB1_19  The 2271 rounding Blanca Loop 1-19:  At Blanca Loop.  Trolleys on the Tenth and Fourth routes turned here.  By my time, the 1970s, Tenth Avenue was a New Look (diesel) route and trolleybuses were rare on it.  A driver of a TB signing "Tenth" would be using Tenth as a short cut to start his rush-hour shift on the Fourth-Oak route.  The University of B.C. Endowment Lands and a golf course lie beyond the hedge.
FTB1_20  My 2271 stops at Blanca Loop 1-20:  Why is Blanca Loop so large? It was never a loop for the streetcars, which terminated at a wye at 4th and Drummond.  That "14 Hastings" sign is a prop.  We did end up on Hastings but on the special fast-lane wire reserved for 34-Hastings Express.  (Coming back from Kootenay, we "did" the rarely used Exhibition wire.  Hastings still had its famous five parallel wires then.)
FTB1_21  Looking north down Hemlock St 1-21:  We're heading down Hemlock Street, approaching Granville Bridge and downtown.  Today Hemlock has wires in both directions.  The new southbound wire facilitates the rerouting of the 17-Oak route from Cambie Bridge.  The shop with the red awning is still open, although as best as I can recall it did not become a coffee house until recently.  The area is very familiar to me;  I've lived a few blocks exactly west of here for nearly 30 years.
FTB1_22 Granville Br Hemlock ramp 1-22:  A blurry appreciation of the southeast cloverleaf of Granville Bridge.  Trolleys rarely ran down Hemlock, and electrical contact was ragged from lack of use.  There is still a park here, but its acreage was reduced to give more land to the developers of the former Pacific Press property.  Baseball was once played here;  old Athletic Park stood at 5th and Hemlock.
FTB1_23  Looking toward Granville Br from the Hemlock ramp
1-23:  Same location but looking out the other side, toward Grouse Mountain and downtown.  Granville Bridge was the widest in the British Empire.  Its concrete approach spans have been reinforced for earthquakes.  The steel part (also reinforced!) is similar to the bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis.  Granville Island, an artist colony and a prominent tourist attraction, lies directly under.
FTB1-24  Looking east on Pender between Seymour and Richards 1-24:  Pender Street, at Richards.  We turned west toward Stanley Park by making three rights, at Cordova, Richards and Pender.  (Granville Bridge has four wires.  Hemlock merges onto the northbound curbside wire leading to Seymour Street, which runs right-to-left immediately behind the camera.)  That hotel is now a Ramada Inn;  MacLeod's Books is still on the corner at left.
FTB2_1  Chilco Loop for Stanley Park
2-1:  Our driver has cranked up "Stanley Park" on the rollers and deposited us for a photo op at the park loop on Chilco Street.  In my lifetime the system has been called (incorrectly or otherwise, and in no particular order) the BC Electric, BC Hydro, GVTS, UTA, MTOC, BC Transit, Coast Mountain Bus, and Translink.  The ongoing identity confusion has not been helpful to its image.
FTB2_2  At Chilco with an unknown D-800 2-2:  During the 70s, buses arriving as 11-Stanley Park would go back as 19-Kingsway.  By the time of Farewell the route pairings had been altered.  Buses coming from Kingsway went to Cambie Street as 15's, while Chilco Loop became the new origin for 17-Oak trips.  Lost Lagoon is out of frame, to the right.
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