All Aboard for Terror: Haunted Trolley returns (Free Ticket Giveaway!)

Vancouver in October is readymade for Halloween: brooding grey skies, rain and that cold fog creeping in off the water.  And one of the best ways for a genuine scare this time of year is the much loved – and feared – Haunted Halloween Trolley tour, which kicks off on Wednesday, Oct. 12.

For 11 months of the year, the cute little Vancouver Trolley ferries tourists to the city’s biggest sites – Stanley Park, Gastown, Granville Island and the rest of the must-sees.  But during the month of October, the trollies are transformed into ghoulish wagons of doom and mayhem.

Well, it may not be that dramatic – but it’s still a pretty spooky ride.  Starting from outside Canada Place, the trollies take passengers on a 2.5-hour tour of the city’s most gruesome and haunted sites.   There are chilling ghost stories and grisly crime scene descriptions aplenty – In fact, the tour is so scary that it’s not recommended for children under 13.

Your guide, for instance, will explain in gruesome detail the legendary Kosberg axe murders, perpetrated in a cozy-looking house on 22nd Street in Mt. Pleasant in 1965.  It was December 9, just a few weeks before Christmas, when young Thomas Kosberg, age 17, drugged his parents and four siblings with sleeping pills before hacking them to bits.

Not scary enough for you?  After a loop around the city – including a stop at the oldest cemetery, Mountain View – the Haunted Trolley makes a final stop at the Vancouver Police Museum.  There, passengers are marched upstairs into what once served as the autopsy room of the city coroner’s office.   From the 1930s to the 1980s approximately 20,000 autopsies were performed there.

Inside, an actor playing the role of coroner (or is he a real coroner?) explains in vivid detail the ins and outs of the average autopsy.  This is genuinely terrifying – especially since the steel gurneys, the refrigerated body lockers and the bone saws in the autopsy room are all the real thing.  In fact, in past years spectators have actually fainted from fright during this demo.

The 2011 Haunted Halloween Trolley tour makes its inaugural run on Oct. 12, 2011.  It will continue from Wednesdays to Sundays through the end of October, with a special trip on Halloween night, which falls on a Monday.   The 2.5-tours depart from Canada Place at 5:30 p.m., 6:30 p.m., 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., with an additional tour on Fridays and Saturdays at 9:30 p.m.   Tickets are $35 and reservations are required.  Call 604.801.5515 or visit VancouverTrolley.com.

Free Tickets!

We’ve got a couple of tickets to give away to one of our readers. To be eligible post a comment below. We’ll pick a winner Oct 13.

For a second chance to win, tweet out the following:

I just entered to win passes for the Haunted Trolley from @myVancouver! http://bit.ly/qIzeC8

Article source: http://www.insidevancouver.ca/2011/10/07/all-aboard-for-terror-haunted-trolley-returns-free-ticket-giveaway/