'They're fun, they're funky': Take a ride back in time on a classic trolleybus

Vancouver trolleybus fans are celebrating the bygone transit vehicles' 70th anniversary with a series of tours aboard a refurbished bus from the 1950s.

Vancouverites first began to ride trolleybuses on Aug. 16, 1948, according to the Transit Museum Society of Vancouver.

To say happy birthday, the society has been giving people tours of the trolley network.

• 3 generations of Vancouver bus drivers toast great-grandfather's 100th in vintage bus

Riders on the tourclimb aboard a Canadian Car built in 1954, which has been refurbished and plastered with original advertisements.

"It's just so cool just watching people's expressions, and everybody loves it, everybody smiles," said bus rider Peyton Liscomb.

Mark Walton took the tour to reminisce about riding the trolleybuses when he was a child in Montreal in the 1950s.

"I suppose it's a bug that bit when I was little for anything that's electric riding on [bus] #2416 is in some ways like being a kid again," said Walton.

Wearing his original BC Hydro uniform, former trolleybus driver Angus McIntyre took the wheel to give passengers a tour.

"Today I get to relive the days of when I started on the job almost 50 years ago, and how many people at age 70 can go out and do that sort of thing."

McIntyre says he first drove the trolleybuses in 1969, and despite the manual steering he says they have a lot going for them.

"They're electric, they're non-polluting, they carried a lot of people in the city," said McIntyre.

"They're fun, they're funky, they've got a history to them. Heads turn, you go down the street people just can't believe it, they either remember them from years ago or they've never seen anything like it."

• Are fares electric? TransLink unveils battery-powered bus

The museum society says Vancouver is the only city in Canada that still operates the buses, and is offering tours until Sept. 16.

With files from Micki Cowan

Read more from CBC British Columbia