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It’s the end of an era!

All good things must come to an end, right? After 58 years of transporting visitors up and down Grouse Mountain, the Blue Tram has been retired, making way for the more convenient and updated gondola that will open in the winter.

Before the Blue Tram debuted in 1966, Grouse Mountain's peak was only accessible via road or on foot. When it opened, the Blue Tram (initially named the Skyride) was the largest double-reversible tramway for passengers in Canada. 

“At the end of its first year of operation, more than 200,000 passengers had ridden the Blue Tram,” shares Michael Cameron, the president of Grouse Mountain Resort, in a statement. “Now, we welcome more than 1.3 million visitors to the mountain every year, and we’re excited to greatly enhance the experience of our guests by introducing the new gondola.”

The new gondola promises to double the capacity of the Blue Tram, with a travel time of five-and-a-half minutes and a maximum capacity of a thousand people per hour. Ahead of the new gondola opening, take a trip down memory lane with these archival photos of the OG.