Swept to Death

Such was one of the horrific headlines of Vancouver’s The World newspaper, Nov. 10, 1916.

Beneath the page-width banner, FOURTEEN KILLED IN B.C.E.R. WRECK, startled readers were informed that a “motor stage,” as multi-passenger vehicles that weren’t quite buses were defined a century and more ago, had plunged into the Fraser River.

It’s one of B.C.’s worst public transit disasters in history, second only to the collapse of Victoria’s Point Ellice Bridge on May 26, 1896, when an overloaded trolley crashed through rotting bridge timbers and killed 55 people. 

In Victoria’s case it was the deteriorating stage of the bridge that killed; in the case of Vancouver’s tragedy, it was driver error. 

The story of that ill-fated crash in next week’s BC Chronicles.

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PHOTO:  Today’s Point Ellice Bridge. —Author’s Collection