Ottawa Electric Railway

Prior to this, starting in 1866, public transportation was provided by Ottawa City Passenger Railway Company, a horse-drawn tram service.

In 1868, Thomas Reynolds bought control of the company intending to use it to transport lumber at night from the Chaudiere mills to McTaggart Street, the terminal of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Railway.

[2] The trams for passengers and freight had a line extending from Rideau Falls in New Edinburgh, to Sussex, Sparks, Wellington, Duke (in Lebreton Flats) and the Suspension Bridge.

[6] Thomas Ahearn, born in LeBreton Flats, also became an important figure in the early years of electricity in Ottawa.

[8][9] In 1901, Ottawa Electric Railway Company built a 2,000-foot (610 m) canal just north of the Britannia Boathouse Club to generate Hydroelectric power on the Deschênes Rapids.

Although the hydroelectric project was abandoned as unfeasible, the unfinished canal was used in 1951 by Past Commodores Thomas G. Fuller and Reginald G. Bruce with labour provided by volunteer Club members as the basis of the Britannia Yacht Club's protected harbour.

Today, the main and inner harbour provide 250 wet moorings, fuel and pumpout facilities, for both sail and power boats.

[10] The horsecar was providing public transportation for Ottawa into the 1890s when, for a short time, electric streetcars were also employed.

In 1890 former Mayor Howland of Toronto offered to provide Ottawa with an electric streetcar service.

[5] They succeeded, and got granted a 20-year charter[11] for on November 5, 1890, city council gave them permission to operate an electric railway.

Mayor Thomas Birkett was aboard, as well as some dignitaries[11] and they ran to the exhibition grounds on Bank Street.

)[13] Its first tracks started from Broad Street Station (in LeBreton Flats) to Albert and Metcalfe, then to the exhibition grounds via Bank Street, to the Protestant Hospital at Charlotte and Rideau, to Wellington and Rideau, the Canada Atlantic Station at the end of Elgin to Sparks and Metcalfe.

[5] In the city's first eleven months of electric streetcar service, it had a ridership of 1.5 million, whereas the horse tramway had 575,000.