[BCMA] CMA Clip Serv: Historic trucks soon homeless

Thu Dec 9 11:41:13 PST 2010

Sadly the Province did irreparable damage to the museum field in BC,
first with its commercialization of the BC Transportation Museum i.e.
throwing out museum staff and values - one big public scandal being the
marketing gimmick of pretending to repaint the Beatles' psychedelic Roll
Royce and a second scandal was the dissolution of the BC Transportation
Museum and dispersal of its collection. Those who had donated vehicles
and other objects to the BC Transportation Museum were badly hurt when
the province sold off the bulk of the collection. I have had collectors
tell me that they had donated valuable items, only to have the Province
sell them off, and as a result they would never donate again ... and
neither I suspect, would the 10 friends that each of them told. 

True, the Province did transfer a number of vehicles from the BC
Transportation Museum to BC museums when a community had an historic
connection to the vehicle. While I was Curator at Burnaby Village
Museum, the Province offered us a truck that had been found abandoned in
the bush and then restored by a Burnaby automotive dealer. Luckily I had
a copy of the old guide to the collection booklet and realized that
their 1929 Nash car (Named "Agnes" by its former Burnaby owner) had a
strong Burnaby connection and I asked for that one instead and got it. 

Bear in mind that the King Truck Collection is just a portion of the now
dispersed BC Transportation Museum Collection.  My understanding
regarding the King Truck Collection is that there is a special condition
that the Province agreed to when they accepted it. I believe, although
it is only hearsay, that the collection has to be kept together and
possibly that it cannot be sold. Dan Gallacher might know some more
about that. Whoever deals with the King Truck Collection needs to
confirm the ownership issue and any binding constraints that might be in
place.  

Colin MacGregor Stevens,

Manager,

New Westminster Museum and Archives,

302 Royal Avenue,

New Westminster, BC,

V3L 1H7, Canada

Phone Office:    604-527-4639

Work Cellular :  604-830-6965

Fax:                    604-527-4641

E-mail: cstevens at newwestcity.ca 

Web Site: www.newwestminster.ca 

Normal work week: Sun-Thurs 9-5, OFF Fri-Sat.

The New Westminster Museum and Archives (NWMA) consists of:

   * City's Museum (est. 1950)

   * City's Archives

   * Irving House (built 1865)

   * Maintenance of the Samson V Maritime Museum (paddlewheel ship built
1937; museum since 1984) 

From: Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv. [mailto:bcma at lists.vvv.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2010 9:27 PM
To: bcma at lists.vvv.com
Cc: Dan Gallacher
Subject: Re: [BCMA] CMA Clip Serv: Historic trucks soon homeless

Can you believe it?

Two Listserv tales of the Provincial Government back to back revealing
its Janus face viz.

1.	The RBCM seeks "hundreds of millions" of dollars to expand its
property footprint 183%.
2.	The Transportation Museum, earlier a creature of the RBCM (and
outlined below in its present form), has been given its eviction notice
by an unnamed landlord somewhere east of Vancouver.

Since its donation to the Province in the early 70s, the latter has been
shuffled around the Lower Mainland at least five times like an outcast,
no matter which Party was in power. 

Something decent and sensible has to be done. More later . . . .

Dan Gallacher

----- Original Message ----- 

	From: Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv.
<mailto:bcma at lists.vvv.com>  

	To: bcma at lists.vvv.com 

	Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 9:30 AM

	Subject: [BCMA] CMA Clip Serv: Historic trucks soon homeless

	Historic trucks will soon be homeless 

	Fine examples of trucks named Hayes Anderson, Federal and
Indiana left in limbo 

	Alyn Edwards, Vancouver Sun, Friday, December 3, 2010 

	British Columbia's historic trucks may be homeless by year's
end. For more than a dozen years, the Joint Council of the Teamsters
Union has funded the transportation museum housing them. The Teamsters
Freight Transportation Museum & Archives displaying approximately 20
trucks from 1913 and up have called a warehouse on Kingsway in Port
Coquitlam home. Memorabilia in showcases tell the story of how drivers
in primitive trucks carried freight east and north over roads that
wouldn't be considered passable today. 

	Trucks named Hayes Anderson, Federal and Indiana haven't been
manufactured for decades but some of the best examples are in this
museum. 

	Many have been restored by retired Teamsters and other
enthusiasts who have dedicated thousands of hours. 

	Trucks are rented out for films, appear at local historical
vehicle shows, and the 1927 Hayes Anderson flat deck that was
manufactured in Vancouver carried Santa Claus in Burnaby's Christmas
Parade last Saturday. 

	Sadly, the society that operates the museum has run out of
options. The rent that had been partly paid with a tax receipt is now
going up and the landlord wants full cash payment. The provincial
government's implementation of the Harmonized Sales Tax that added seven
per cent to the rent was the tipping point. There is no longer enough
money to continue occupying the warehouse. 

	The memorabilia is packed in boxes and the display cases are
ready to move. Restoration work on the trucks has stopped because their
future is uncertain. The volunteers who run the museum and maintain the
fleet of historical vehicles are despondent. 

	"We were supposed to be out of the warehouse by Oct. 31 but we
were able to get an extension to the end of the year," society president
and museum curator Norm Lynch says. "These vehicles will be homeless and
people should care about this because it's our transportation history." 

	Lynch drove tractors with low-bed trailers, hauling heavy
equipment all over Western Canada and Alaska for Arrow Transport before
a stroke ended his professional driving career. 

	He has volunteered his time since the museum opened. 

	The trucks had been acquired by the provincial government 35
years ago after warehouses owned by the late Aubrey 'Bob' King were
opened up to reveal dozens of dust-covered trucks that had been stored
for years. One of the trucks, a 1946 General Motors Maple Leaf three-ton
tractor, had never been put to work. 

	Bob King was an eccentric who once controlled trucking in and
out of Vancouver with nine companies and dozens of trucks. But in 1958,
he locked his trucks in warehouses after a bitter pay dispute with the
Teamsters Union. The millionaire trucking company owner retreated to his
four-room house in Burnaby to live out his days. He never reopened the
warehouses filled with trucks. 

	The first time I saw these trucks was when I was a young BCTV
(Global) reporter in the early 1970s and two side-by-side downtown
warehouses on Pender at Carroll Street were opened to reveal the dusty
trucks. I had never seen anything like that before. 

	I had read a newspaper story with a photo of a reporter trying
to look through a dirty window in the warehouse that was supposed to be
filled with old trucks. The story specifically mentioned a Central
Cartage warehouse on Main at Terminal where McDonalds is today. 

	I began watching the warehouse for any activity. One day in the
summer of 1973, I saw that the doors were open as I drove by. I met Gil
Cornish and Lloyd Barrett, who had been hired by Bob King's widow to
deal with his estate. They told me about the other warehouses. When the
story appeared on BCTV, the provincial 

	government got involved and negotiated to acquire the trucks for
a new B.C. Transportation Museum. The trucks would be preserved for
everyone to see. But 20 years ago, the government broke up the
transportation museum with many of the vehicles auctioned off. The King
trucks were saved because they had been donated. 

	They ultimately ended up in an unheated damp warehouse under the
care of the Atchelitz Threshermen's Society. The Teamsters got involved
when they asked Norm Lynch to find a 1936 era pickup to commemorate
their 60th anniversary. When they couldn't find a suitable truck to buy,
they acquired the truck collection to start the museum. 

	The amazing collection includes the following trucks: 

	- British built 1914 Four Wheel Drive which originally saw
service in WWI and was brought to Canada by the BC Electric Company to
haul coal and plow street car tracks in Vancouver 

	- 1924 Federal donated to the museum by a 101-year-old man who
had saved it from being junked 

	- 1927 Hayes Anderson built on 2nd Avenue in Vancouver that
hauled freight between Vancouver and the Fraser Valley 

	- 1929 White tractor that hauled fuel for Shell Oil before being
purchased by Bob King in 1939 

	- 1932 International A4 tractor that saw service hauling steel
to Vancouver-area shipyards during WWII 

	- 1935 Dodge Airflow -the only one sold in Canada -used by
Standard Oil to deliver fuel to Chevron gas stations into the 1940s when
it was acquired by Bob King 

	- 1937 Indiana purchased new by the late Andy Craig who operated
Inland Motor Freight hauling between Vancouver and Penticton. He
produced the book: History of Trucking in BC Since 1900. 

	- 1943 Maple Leaf tractor economically built during WWII with no
chrome work, a wooden steering wheel, canvas covered seat and only one
windshield wiper 

	- 1946 Maple Leaf tractor purchased by Bob King from Collier
Motors on Georgia Street and put away new in his warehouse where it
remained until being acquired by the provincial government 

	- 1946 Fargo tractor that hauled freight between Vancouver and
Seattle for Sea-Van Freight until 1953 

	- The Teamsters Freight Transportation Museum and Archives
Society at 1580 Kingsway in Port Coquitlam hopes to preserve these and
other trucks and memorabilia to commemorate the history of 

	trucking in B.C. 

	Sadly, the society members, the trucks and memorabilia have
nowhere to go when they are forced to vacate the warehouse by Dec. 31. 

	---   30   --- 

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