Saving a Unique Winnipeg Sound !

While writing the post about the BBC's 'Save our Sounds' project, I thought about the most unique Winnipeg sound that I have heard.

Just this summer I had a chance to hear and record the sound of the bell from the undercarriage of Winnipeg's Streetcar #356, our only known (mostly) intact streetcar. The bell was essentially the streetcar's horn and would have been very familiar to generations of Winnipeggers.

I stumbled across the floor switch by accident while the streetcar's restoration committee was giving it a good clean-out one day. It turned out to be still connected to the bell in the undercarriage and sounded great!

Steven Stothers of winnipegstreetcar.com and Danny Schur of Strike! the Musical teamed up to record it for use in the replica streetcar built for Strike!'s 90th anniversary re-enactment of the Winnipeg General Strike's famous 'Bloody Saturday' scene in front of Winnipeg City Hall on May 23rd 2009. It was the first time the bell had been heard on a Winnipeg street in over 50 years!

Here's my recording of it. Give it a listen.

Related:
- Winnipeg Streetcar slideshow
- Winnipeg Streetcar.com
- Streetcar 356 Restoration - Heritage Winnipeg
- Strike! The Musical
- 1919: The Winnipeg General Strike. A Blog