Thinking about a Parliament Streetcar (draft)

Recently the topic of the 65 Parliament bus route and the old Parliament streetcar came up in conversation. Ever since the route was converted to bus operation in 1966, Toronto has had no north-south streetcar route on the east side, whereas it has now two on the west. The context of Parliament Street has shifted considerably in the decades since, with the area rapidly growing amidst a highly dynamic revitalisation along the route. A Parliament streetcar would make for a potentially effective way to improve transit service in Toronto's east, and with several changes to the city's rapid transit structure already underway, can potentially take a favourable route and make several valuable connections.

Why Add More Streetcars?

Streetcars are a vital component of Toronto's surface transportation network. Making up less than 6% of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC)'s surface route network but carrying over 18% of its ridership as of 2025, streetcars support Toronto's busiest surface transit routes. 6 of 11 routes in service carry more than 20,000 riders a day, and the busiest, 504 King, over 60,000, even after ridership impacts from service degradation and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The TTC's streetcar fleet comprises 264 accessible low-floor streetcars of Bombardier's Flexity Outlook model, delivered between 2014 and 2026. Each streetcar can seat 70 passengers and carry 130 at normal capacity, as compared to 35 and 51 respectively on a 12-metre bus. The existing fleet is larger than what is needed to operate existing service. Current operating schedules are observed to require 172 vehicles in service at peak hour, with a reasonable spare ratio bringing operating requirements to slightly above 200. Even if all routes were operated at 6-minute frequencies, the fleet would not be entirely used up, even without considering potential reductions from speed-up initiatives currently under consideration and from bus replacement service during construction.

The fixed costs of streetcar operation are inevitably higher than that of bus operation as way and overhead must be maintained. However, there exist certain advantages to streetcar operations, which counterbalance this fixed cost. Notably,

• The capacity of streetcars is much higher than of busses, so on very high demand routes, fewer vehicles may be run while maintaining a useful headway, reducing variable costs.
• The riding experience is smoother, brighter, and quieter, presenting a stronger image.
• Rail surface transit is perceived as more permanent or more prestigious, potentially positively affecting land use and redevelopment.
• No fuel is consumed nor pollutants emitted by vehicles, providing a cleaner operation. This trait is shared with E-busses.

An estimation of the costs of new streetcar trackage can be reached by examining past projects. In 2023, 570 metres of trackage was built on Adelaide St to accommodate the closure of Queen St for construction of the Ontario Line subway. The total cost of this project was $39.55 million, of which $33 million related to relocation of THESL and Bell Canada utilities in 9 underground chambers and 500 metres of ducting, leaving about $6.5 million for track. A 2013 project that installed about 550 metres of track in a dedicated right-of-way on Cherry St was budgeted at around $5.7 million. In today's money this translates to about 15 million dollars per kilometre for surface work, although construction inflation is higher than CPI. More complex work carries higher cost. The construction of the Spadina LRT, the last new major streetcar line to be built, cost $20.5 million per kilometre in the 1990s, equal to about $40 million today, but included dedicated platforms and right-of-way as well as street reconstruction of a major avenue. Because Parliament cannot be rebuilt for such an arrangement and would necessarily involve simpler infrastructure, the unit cost of construction required would likely fall between that for a project like Adelaide/York or Cherry and that of Spadina.

The introduction of streetcars can significantly increase the attractiveness of transit service. When the 77 Spadina bus was replaced by the 510 Spadina streetcar, ridership grew from about 25,000 per day to 35,000 per day. In the case of that line, the change from curbside to right-of-way operation factors into the ridership growth, but it is thought to be motivated partly by the introduction of streetcar service on its own.

Concerns regarding operational drawbacks streetcars in Toronto exist. The average speed of streetcar routes tends to increase when bus service is substituted. However, this effect is not necessarily inherent to the mode, and in fact has to do with specific operational policies in Toronto such as slow orders at special work, stop-and-check procedures, restrictions on simultaneous intersection entry, permanent speed restrictions, and unconducive traffic and parking regulation along routes, all of which may be revised. As a result of political pressure, measures to improve the speed of streetcars are being investigated and will be reported for implementation as of 2026.

65 Parliament

The 65 Parliament route is one of two north-south transit routes in downtown Toronto east of Yonge St. In its present form, it runs between Castle Frank subway station and the waterfront. Departing Castle Frank's bus loop, it proceeds along Bloor St on the Prince Edward Viaduct for about 250 metres before turning onto Parliament St, the core of the route. It continues past Lakefront Blvd, where Parliament St turns and merges into Queens Quay, proceeding for about 650 metres and looping on-street via Richardson St, and Dockside Dr. This routing was set in 2022 to accommodate new development south of King St. 

The service level on the bus varies from an 8 minute headway at peak to a 15 minute headway at off-peak weekend hours. In 2019 daily ridership was 4,961 passengers per weekday but it by 2024 it had grown to 7,988 per weekday. This represents a doubling of ridership since 2014. Ridership is much lower than on 510 Spadina and 511 Bathurst, both of which exceed 20,000, but is higher than 509 Harbourfront at 6,713. 

The Parliament Context

The areas along Parliament are undergoing rapid transformation. Beginning at the bayfront in the south, substantial change is visible since the 2000s. Beginning at the bayfront, the pier west of Parliament, dubbed the East Bayfront, has gone from a disused shipping facility to a development led by Waterfront Toronto of some 6,000 residential units. At the southern end of Parliament, the Quayside site, also led by Waterfront Toronto, is planned to accommodate about 5,000 more. The area west of Parliament and south of Lakeshore Blvd is the Keating Precinct, planned for some 5,000 units. The West Don Lands and the Distillery District to the west of Parliament contain another 8,000 units in delivery between them. 

Altogether, the areas near Parliament St south of Front St are seeing some 25,000 or more new residential units in Waterfront Toronto developed areas alone. Tens of thousands of residents will move into the area, which will only have 1 residential parking space per 3 units or fewer. High-quality transit will be vital to these new precincts.

George Brown Polytechnic's Waterfront Campus, which opened in 2012 in the East Bayfront and around which the 65 Parliament loops, counts some 10,000 students and is a major demand driver at the south end of the Parliament line. 

Proceeding northwards, the Corktown station on the Ontario Line subway is under construction on the west side of Parliament St between Front and King streets. The Ontario Line, fully automated and planned for extremely high frequencies, will offer a fast connection to downtown and the west side while also bringing in riders from the east side of Toronto. A transit connection to the station would allow for rapid access to downtown employment and amenities, letting residents along Parliament bypass slow east-west streetcars and the crowded Yonge subway. It will also stimulate development in the Old Town on the west and Corktown on the east side of Parliament St, growing population and creating demand for local transit. The station site itself is to accommodate a Transit-Oriented Community of some 2,500 units. 

Further north, Parliament is flanked by Moss Park and Regent Park, mixed-income communities with a large proportion of public housing. Regent Park is in the midst of a high-profile redevelopment, the public housing authority replacing aging structures with newer, larger ones, increasing the area's population and mixing market-rate housing with social housing. Moss Park is experiencing less change, but the Ontario Line station on its west end may bring shifts in development patterns.

North of these communities is Cabbagetown, a lower-density area of brick Victorians and small apartments. This area is the most stable and slowest to grow of the neighbourhoods along the street: whereas lakefront areas and Regent Park grew their populations by 50% or even 100% population between 2016 and 2021, Cabbagetown tracts barely grew or lost population between censuses. The area also has higher incomes. In contrast, at the northern end of Parliament St lies St James Town, Canada's densest neighbourhood. The apartment towers there house nearly 20,000 people, a large proportion of whom are transit commuters.

"515 Parliament" Concept

The basic routing of the conceptual Parliament streetcar is a line between Union Station and Castle Frank station via Parliament St, with the Union connection on Queens Quay. The basic reasons for such a routing are:

• A turning loop can be located at Castle Frank station, the terminus of the 65 Parliament, but not at Sherbourne station.
• A Union Station terminus allows for single-seat access to regional transit and brings riders close to prominent downtown destinations.
• Streetcar infrastructure on Queens Quay East and an expanded Union loop is already part of the Waterfront East LRT project, which a Parliament line could take advantage of.
• Parliament St already has trackage between Carlton and King streets.

Consequently the required work to instate a Parliament car is reduced. The major aspects are:

• A junction with the future WELRT at the extended Queens Quay. 
• Work at the underpasses of the railway Joint Corridor and Gardiner Expressway.
• New track and overhead from Queens Quay to King St. 
• New track and overhead from Carlton St. to Bloor St. The original poles for OCS are still present but may need rehabilitation.
• A turn onto, and a short section on, Bloor St.
• Modification of the Castle Frank bus loop.

The design of way is intended to be median-running, allowing use of the existing Parliament tracks. Although the TTC intends to construct new streetcar trackage as right-of-way only, Parliament is narrow at 20m wide and is highly constrained, making dedicated rights of way impractical if general traffic is maintained. The operational performance of a line could be improved with priority measures such as those applied to the 511 Bathurst route as part of the RapidTO initiative, but centre running with curb stops means that customers would have to cross a traffic lane to board and alight as with most existing streetcar routes. Reserved centre lanes would also require the removal of curbside parking along the route.

The most challenging traffic interaction on the route is the segment from Parliament/Bloor to Castle Frank station. Streetcars must access the loop on the north side from Parliament on the south and so all movements conflict with Bloor traffic. The Prince Edward Viaduct which carries Bloor in the area is wide, however, and can accomodate streetcar tracks as well as traffic lanes of a number matching with the design of the street in the eastern and western contexts. 

more to come...

Some of the streetcar surplus is intended to eventually service the under-development but currently unfunded Waterfront East LRT. Mirroring the 509 Harbourfront and 510 Spadina streetcar routes, originally built as the Harbourfront and Spadina LRTs in the 1990s, the Waterfront East LRT is to comprise a streetcar route on a dedicated right-of-way reaching into Toronto's East Waterfront along Queens Quay East. The LRT includes a capacity expansion of the existing underground streetcar terminus at Union Station as well as the route along Queens Quay and in the Port Lands.  

The Fushun Electric Railway - China's First Electric Railway

China is not a country well-known for legacy suburban railways. Although lately several dozen new-build lines have appeared, and several mainline railways been adapted for metros, there is no commuter rail in the country operating today that predates the 21st century. However, for more than 100 years, electrified urban passenger railway service plodded along in the city of Fushun, seemingly misplaced in space and time. In 2020, a fascinating book was published about the railway and its history. I don't have a copy myself but people have written lots based on it and other sources, including on Baidu Encyclopedia.

Like all the early railways in China, the Fushun electric system originated in foreign domination. After losing the Sino-Japanese war in 1895, the Qing realised that its eastern provinces, historically called Manchuria and today Northeastern China, were vulnerable to further Japanense incursion. To stave it off, the government signed a secret unequal treaty with the Russian government, securing a military alliance in exchange for broad extraterritorial rights in Manchuria and the rights to build the Chinese Eastern Railway and South Manchuria Railway systems. The railways comprised a main-line from Siberia straight through Chinese territory to Vladivostok, as well as a branch from Harbin to the Russian treaty ports at Port Arthur and Dal'ny via Mukden, near which sits Fushun. Certain territorial rights around the railway and the cities on it were included, so that these territories were not really under Chinese sovereignty. Especially after the Boxer Rebellion, Russia treated Manchuria as a protectorate and basically ignored Qing protestation.

The (treaty-agreed) railway system was completed by 1903. In that year, there emerged an episode in which a certain A.M. Bezobrazov, having obtained concessions for forestry in both Manchuria and North Korea, scammed the Russian imperial government into making him more or less the head of development in the Yalu basin. By 1904 he had a business empire spanning most of the important sectors of development. Although the concessions allowed for construction of roads, telegraphs, and other infrastructure, nobody said he could construct railways. This did not matter, because the Russians, assuming that they would imminently annex Manchuria and maybe Korea soon anyway, began laying rails towards the Fushun coalfield in 1903 without legal permission. Bezobrazov's company finished the enterprise in the spring of 1904 and installed a 1200VDC overhead contact power system that autumn, powered by a generating station burning the coal produced at the Fushun mine. This was the second electric railway of any kind in China, postdating a Siemens-built electric tramway in Beijing built in 1899 and destroyed in 1900 by the Boxers. As for mainline railways, major electrification would not appear for another half century.

This Russian period turned out to be short-lived, as in 1904 the Russo-Japanese War broke out. The Trans-Siberian Railway was not quite complete, and Russian troop movements to Manchuria were torturously slow. Over the course of two campaign seasons Japan secured Korea and captured the Liaodong Peninsula, then defeated Russia outside Mukden, the old Qing capital. In the process, it re-gauged the railways in the captured territory from Russian broad gauge to Japanese narrow gauge. As for Bezobrazov, his overleveraged businesses collapsed once it became clear that they would be seized by Japan, and he fled to Switzerland to escape his creditors. 

Control of the China Eastern Railway system and the South Manchuria Railway became an international issue. None of the interested powers wanted to see Russia retain them, including the Americans, a consortium of whom rallied to gain control of communications and transportation in the Far East. This was vigorously opposed by the Japanese foreign ministry, who wanted Japanese dominance in the region. American interest in East Asian empire was not too strong to begin with, so in the end the new South Manchuria Railway was formed with 100% Japanese capitalisation. In 1907 control of the railway zone and associated complexes was transferred from the military to the new Mantetsu (short for Minami-manshu tetsudo, 南滿洲鐵道). The military's narrow gauge made the railway incompatible with the Chinese, Korean, and Russian systems, so in 1907 the SMR converted again to standard gauge, removing the break of gauge heading into China and into Korea. This made the Fushun division one of the first standard-gauge electric railways in Asia, following maybe the early Keikyu lines.

The Fushun colliery immediately took on enormous importance. There are no anthracite deposits and almost no iron ore in Japan, so all steelmaking depended on imports. Fushun had anthracite and plenty of bituminious coal, and there was furthermore significant mineral wealth elsewhere on the SMR zone. Strategic self-sufficiency thus depended on development of Fushun and the SMR zone, to the point where it later became politicised as Japan's "lifeline". Since Fushun was the largest urban leasehold on the SMR system, large-scale industrial development could occur on Japanese terms. Urban development of industry initially occured on the Qianjinzhai site, southwest of the centre of modern Fushun. In 1918, an urban master-plan for the town of Fushun was developed, providing the template on which a large industrial city was built. The scale of industrial development at Fushun was such that it was called one of the four great industrial centres of Manchuria, alongside Dairen (Dalian), Hsinking (Changchun), and Harbin. 

In 1937 Fushun was transferred to Manchoukuo sovereignty along with the rest of the South Manchuria Railway zone, legally ending Japanese extraterritoriality. Of course, since the government was puppeted by its vice-ministers, who were all Japanese, and because Japanese controlled the South Manchuria Railway and Manchoukuo in general, the actual situation remained an imperialist one. The circumstances shifted in 1945, when the Red Army entered the region; presumably, the large-scale looting and theft of industrial plant which characterised their presence throughout the region may have occured in Fushun. In 1946 the Kuomintang took control; in 1948 the Communists ejected them in the Liaoshen campaign, after which railway restoration was made a key priority. Thereafter expansion of industry in Fushun continued, receiving large investment in the first 5-year plan. The railway had to expand its role to accomodate continued development.

The length of the electric railways steadily grew, reaching a length of 188.7km by 1940 and over 200km by 1945.  Before liberation, the railway was upgraded with 40kg/m rails, higher-voltage 1500VDC electrification, track bed improvements etc. In the PRC era many improvements were made in all aspects: introduction of better ballast, concrete ties, replacement of poles and wire with higher-quality infrastructure, high-speed turnouts, better signalling, doubling of bridges, and so on. The length of the railway grew to over 300km and new rolling stock was introduced to meet demand.

Before 1945, the signalling system used was based on manual operation. Points were manually moved and a switch thrown to activate the signal by means of a linkage. (I can't really make sense of the original Chinese text here. It's too technical for me.) Later, in the 50s, a Japanese-type centralised relay signalling system was acquired, which was used for the upgrade of some blocks. Apparently some Soviet equipment was also acquired, such that in the 1960s the railway ran with an odd combination of different signalling solutions. In the 1970s an upgrade programme standardised the system along Chinese lines. 

The old part of Fushun still has the street layout of the 1918 master plan. The electric railway sits at the south side. In later years the city expanded its footprint north of the river and to the east and west.

Fushun was formerly smaller than adjacent Qianjinzhai, which was segregated into a Japanese quarter and a Chinese quarter, visible as an orderly grid and a tangle of streets resepctively in the southwest of the map. The electric railway connected the two cities with each other and to surrounding industry. Today, Qianjinzhai has been totally erased, replaced with an enormous open-pit coal mine. 

Over time, various coal, iron and steel, and oil enterprises were set up in the area. Accompanying these primary industries were all kinds of secondary manufacturing, including a locomotive works, rolling stock factories, electric motor plants, machinery production plants, and so on, which supported the emerging industrial economy. The initial equipment used on the Fushun railways were sourced from the West, but once this was set up the supply chain became split between local products and products from the Japanese home islands. 

An early interurban tram-type passenger vehicle running alongside a freight train on the Fushun electric lines, 1912

A list of Mantetsu-era rolling stock in use at Fushun is compiled by the maintainer of chiheiwoyuke.com/満鉄撫順炭鉱の車両/. Several dozen electric locomotives were in use, a mix of German, American, Japanese and locally produced models, but I find the collection of passenger equipment most interesting. A couple dozen General Electric wooden-body tram-type vehicles were acquired in the early 1910s, and were later supplemented by a few copies made by Toyo Denki. A new generation of Kisha Seizo steel-bodied cars was introduced starting from the 1920s. These were vehicles operating as single cars or as a pair of motor and trailer.

Fushun Electric Railway 100-series, ex-Mantetsu ジテ１

The "retro", "Japanese" face of the Fushun Electric Railway became a family of streamlined multiple-unit formations after the inauguration of the People's Republic of China. To some, they bear a familiar resemblance Meitetsu Mo 850 "Namazu" trains that once graced central Japan. The styling was actually used in a number of different Mantetsu cab cars and made its way back to the Home Islands later. The Fushun trains are retro and indeed they are Japanese, having been manufactured by Nippon Sharyo from 1935, but they did not start their life on the electric railway. Rather, they were heavy-oil burning self-propelled trainsets designed for long-distance limited express service. (An IP editor on the Japanese Wikipedia put together a stunningly detailed page on these trains back in 2024.) They were the basis of the front-end styling of the Fushun legacy trains, but are not the basis of every formation. Others are derived from various KeHa, JiHa, and KiHa self-propelled railcars of various heritage, including units formerly of Mantetsu, of the Central China Railway, the organisation responsible during the Japanese occupation of north China, which had previously been transferred from the Japanese national railways.

The ジテ１ series, like the better-known Asia Express hauled by Pashina locomotives, was built in imitation of the world's advanced developments in railway technology. In 1934 the Union Pacific and the CB&Q had introduced the M-10000 and Pioneer Zephyr respectively, modern diesel trainsets, and the Deutsche Reichsbahn's Fliegender Hamburger stunned the world in 1932. Manchuria was not quite as modern as America or Germany in that day, but there was interest in keeping up with foreign advancements. The cars were sleek and featured Jacobs bogies between the trailers, but the trains were underpowered relative to Western counterparts and heavy because ordinary steel was used instead of stainless steel or light metals. Nevertheless, they could achieve an average speed of over 100km/h on non-stop runs between Mukden and Hsinking, and performed admirably in suburban service in the vicinity of Dairen. In ordinary operation a JiTe1 was paired with a HaRoFu1, a HaFu1, and a HaFuSe1, which were passenger trailers.

At some point, due to the circumstances of the Pacific War, oil shortages forced the discontinuation of diesel and fuel-oil hauled service on the Manchurian railways, as navy and army demand took precedence. Supposedly, around this time, a JiTe was fitted with electric equipment and used on the Fushun railways. Their appearance in their current form in Fushun did not occur until sometime in the 60s, until which time the typical equipment was M+M+M+M formations of various trams and converted KeHa, JiHa, KiHa self-propelled railcars. It's unclear to me when the JiTe sets entered service, but by the 1960s they underwent significant modification under which they received conventional bogies, electric equipment, commuter seating, etc. Apparently, car bodies were lengthened and new trailer coaches inserted. 

Ex-Mantetsu equipment of the Fushun Electric Railway. These are just 3 of the many formations on the system. More such diagrams are shown in this thread by @hokuman_hailaer on Twitter. The JiTe-derived formations are probably some of the more normal ones: other sets include bizarre combinations of equipment drawn from throughout the Japanese empire, including General-Electric built interurban trams, KiHa 40000 and 42000 from the Railway Department and the Central China Railway, KeHa railcars of the SMR...

Passenger demand kept on picking up in the 60s and 70s, so a number of new coaches and locomotives of Chinese production were acquired in the late 70s. They give the visual impression of an elektrichka.

Above: Decrepit trains of the Fushun electric railway.

Below: The Fushun electric railways are the 1500VDC lines in blue. They are overshadowed today by the modern 25kVAC high-speed and conventional lines, which have lately proliferated.

Over the course of its lifetime, the Fushun railways had several interesting-looking stations, in particular the steam mainline stations at which people would arrive in the city. These were not on th electric railway but could be found nearby. In the early days, Qianjinzhai was the centre of gravity of industry, so the main station was situated there. The initial complex was modest and had just 5 tracks. It remained the primary hub until 1923, when the new Fushun station was built to accompany the new town. The Qianjinzhai station was subsequently relocated. Fushun station was then rebuilt in 1934 in masonry with a modernist style.

The original Fushun Station at Qianjinzhai. This is on the line to Mukden. 

The second Fushun Station, at Yongantai. The station building was constructed of wood.

The new Fushun Station in Fushun proper, built in a modernist style. The railway behind it has been elevated.

The second Fushun Station ended public service in 2009, and thereafter became secondary to Fushun North station. Boardings and alightings were discontinued in 2017 at Fushun Station, and ticket sales ceased in 2020. It was designated as a national historic site in 2012 and by 2023 renovations to the building had restored it as a public space. As for its replacement, Fushun North has been renamed Fushun Station. It is situated on the new Shenyang-Baishan PDL, which opened in September 2025 and is capable of 350km/h running. Curiously, one of the goals of the new line is to stimulate tourism to Changbaishan, better known as Mount Paektu. The railway has been elevated in the vicinity of the old Fushun station.

A station on the electric railway

The stations on the electric railway are not as grand and give the impression of a commuter railway. They tend to feature extensive freight facilities; this is after all a mine railway. Freight trains carrying oil, coal, or other goods meander by on passing tracks outboard of the stopping tracks at wide island platforms. At other stations abundant sidings give proof to the importance of primary industry to the railway.

The northeast of China today is known as a rust-belt region, filled with industrial decay, population decline, and the resulting social issues. Fushun, as a city of heavy industry, was especially hard hit, and the electric railways, which had served as its main transportation arteries for decades, were by 2009 no longer capable of operating public service. The city had no money to pay its subsidy, and with that the public operations of the Fushun electric railways came to an end. Mining operations continued, and a tourist-oriented service reinstated on the system from 2018 to 2020, but today the Fushun railways are slowly fading away, and the 14th Five Year Plan for transportation in Fushun proposes its rehabilitation as a transit railway that would inevitably be quite unlike the electric railway of the past. The population of Fushun is in decline and its old electric railway is entering into the past - or at least the passenger services are.

Below are the formation diagrams posted by @hokuman_hailaer with accompanying description. I hope they are accurate but don't currently have a way of confirming it.

Sets 101, 102, and 103 are alike, and are formed as HaFuSe1-HaFu1-RoHa1-RoHa1-HaFu1-HaFuSe1. The JiTe motor cars have been removed and the Jacobs bogies replaced with conventional bogies. Pickup is on one of the HaFuSe cabs. ZQ-110KW electric equipment made by Changzhou Electric Motor Plant.

109, 105, and 106 are formed from ex-South Manchuria Railway self-propelled railcars, of types KeHa 3 (became KiHa 2 and KiHa 3 in 4th revision numbering system) and KiHa3 type II series in addition to JiTe equipment. 109 is formed as JiTe1-KiHa3-KiHa3-KiHa3-KiHa3-KiHa2-JiTe1. 105 and 106 are similar but the non-pickup JiTe1 is replaced by a KiHa3 II.

Unusual railcars of the SMR and MNR were proactively transferred from the Chinese railways to Fushun, perhaps to simplify the fleet. These include the light oil Mantetsu JiHa 3 (KeHa 7 in 4th revision numbering system), and JiHa 4 (KeHa 6 in 4th revision numbering), as well as cars of the Peking-Mukden railway (later became part of the Manchoukuo National Railway), here referred to as JF. 104 is formed as KeHa7-KiHa3-JF-KeHa6-KeHa6-KeHa7-KiHa3 II. 107 is formed of cars of unknown provenance but speculated to be KeHa 5 modified by the Nanjing Puzhen works.

The JGR transferred some of its KiHa 40000 and 42000 railcars to the Central China Railway when that company was set up during the occupation of China. They later found their way to Fushun. The Mantetsu Fushun 100 series are GE-built interurban cars acquired early on, later rebuilt as steel-bodied cars. 108 is formed as 100形-KiHa42000-KiHa42000-KiHa40000-KiHa40000-KiHa40000-KiHa40000.

110 appears to be formed entirely from rebuilt Fushun 100-series cars. They have been given JiTe style faces on the cabs. 

112 is similarly formed from rebuilt 200-series. These cars were built by Kisha Seizo instead of GE. As with 110, 112's end cars received JiTe style faces. 

113 is formed as 100series-KiHa420000-KiHa42000-150series-200series-150series-150series. 119 is formed entirely out of 200 series cars. 

There were more sets of which I don't really know anything about. Additionally, 29 YZ-31 cars, the Type 22 variant with hard seats in commuter layout, were acquired in 1980 and hauled around by locomotives. The bafflingly diverse fleet, which was substantially rebuilt in different ways, appeared in various colours over the years. During the early 2000s, they were bright blue, but more recent footage shows them in railway green. 

YZ-31 coaches hauled by a locomotive.

The situation of the Fushun electric railway was evidently a little strange, and reflected a curious series of historical circumstances that made its use as urban transportation convenient. Nowhere else in China were these circumstances replicated. Regional railways are beginning to assume an increasingly large role in that country, but they are of a new and different type. The Fushun railways' uniqueness captures the imagination of observers and commentators, who imagine a world where there were more systems like it.