mark@sickkids.UUCP (Mark Bartelt) (05/21/89)
Last Friday I noticed that the portion of Elizabeth Street between
Dundas and City Hall is being torn up and repaved. Among the other
expected sorts of street rubble were some ancient streetcar tracks.
I've seen a number of old maps of streetcar routes, but I don't
recall ever having noticed anything on any portion of Elizabeth
Street.
Does anyone (Mark Brader, most likely) have any idea what these
tracks were used for? I suspect they were part of a turnaround
loop for short-turned Bay Street cars, back in the days when Bay
street had streetcars rather than trolley buses. But I'm fairly
certain that I've never seen a map that shows this.
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Mark Bartelt UUCP: {utzoo,utgpu,lsuc}!sickkids!mark
Hospital for Sick Children BITNET: mark@sickkids.utoronto
598-6442 INTERNET: mark@sickkids.toronto.eduhoward@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Howard Lem) (05/23/89)
In article <267@sickkids.UUCP> mark@sickkids.UUCP (Mark Bartelt) writes: >Last Friday I noticed that the portion of Elizabeth Street between >Dundas and City Hall is being torn up and repaved. Among the other >expected sorts of street rubble were some ancient streetcar tracks. >I've seen a number of old maps of streetcar routes, but I don't >recall ever having noticed anything on any portion of Elizabeth >Street. > >Does anyone (Mark Brader, most likely) have any idea what these >tracks were used for? I suspect they were part of a turnaround >loop for short-turned Bay Street cars, back in the days when Bay >street had streetcars rather than trolley buses. But I'm fairly >certain that I've never seen a map that shows this. > It was part of the dundas line that used to terminate at the by the old city hall (really going around the old EATON'S annex store). The street cars stopped going down Elizabeth St. when the 'new' city hall was built. (The street cars were re-routed down bay to Louisa and around the Eaton's) -- .signature follows! use the n key if you don't want to see it :-) <<<<<<<<<========= ALL Usual disclaimers go here :-) =========>>>>>>>>> Canada Post: Howard Lem - University of Toronto Computing Services 11 King's College Rd., Room 107A Toronto, Ont., Canada, M5S 1A1 Telephone: (416) - 978 - 4310 {work} Email: howard@gpu.utcs.uucp
dave@lsuc.uucp (David Sherman) (05/23/89)
In article <267@sickkids.UUCP> mark@sickkids.UUCP (Mark Bartelt) writes: >Does anyone (Mark Brader, most likely) have any idea what these >tracks were used for? ... Mark's on vacation in Europe for another 4 weeks, so you guys will have to survive without expert input for the time being. :-) I've saved the query for him, howver, and I'm sure he'll reply when he's back, whether or not the topic has by then been beaten to death. David Sherman -- Moderator, mail.yiddish { uunet!attcan att utzoo }!lsuc!dave dave@lsuc.on.ca
msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) (06/21/89)
To Mark Bartelt's original query asking about tracks on Elizabeth Street and inviting me or others to reply, David Sherman said: > Mark's on vacation in Europe for another 4 weeks, so you guys > will have to survive without expert input for the time being. :-) > I've saved the query for him, howver, and I'm sure he'll reply > when he's back, whether or not the topic has by then been beaten > to death. [With friends like that, etc.? :-)] Anyway, two other people forwarded the article to me, too, so I suppose it means I have to uphold my reputation by posting something! Really, Howard Lem's response: > It was part of the dundas line that used to terminate at the by the old > city hall (really going around the old EATON'S annex store). The street > cars stopped going down Elizabeth St. when the 'new' city hall was built. is pretty much sufficient, though it may not qualify as beating the topic to death. But I can find some more to say. For one thing, that old loop was formerly the END of the Dundas line. I have at hand maps of the streetcar system as of the following dates: 1921 - the year the TTC inherited the streetcar network (private enterprise having left it in such poor shape that it needed major trackwork) 1923 - by which time most of the rebuilding was done 1936 1945 - approximately the greatest extent of the streetcar system 1954 - Yonge Subway opens 1971 - some time after the Bloor-Danforth Subway opened 1973 1978 - Spadina Subway opens On the 1921 map, the Dundas line started in the west at Keele and Dundas, and ran east along Dundas as far as Terauley -- the old name for what is now the portion of Bay Street north of Queen. The route then ran south to Queen, where the cars looped by using Bay, Richmond (then two-way, of course), Victoria, and Queen. That was the entire route. A separate line served part of Dundas Street East: the Winchester route. Reading west to east again, it started with a loop using Richmond, Church, Adelaide, and Victoria, and continued up Victoria to Dundas, then east to Parliament, north to Winchester, and east to terminate at Sumach. On the 1923 map, Terauley is now Bay, and the eastern terminus of the Dundas line has moved: the cars now loop via Louisa, James, Albert, and Bay Streets. (Albert is 1 block north of Queen, Louisa 2 north; James is 1 east of Bay.) This is the City Hall Loop. The Winchester line's Dundas section is shifted to Queen and the line is renamed Parliament. Service on Dundas Street East is now provided by the College car, which runs as follows: from Lansdowne and Royce south to College, east to Bay, south to Dundas, east to Broadview, north to Gerrard, east to Main, north to Danforth. The Elizabeth Street tracks appear on the 1936 map. The Dundas line is almost the same as in 1923, but its western end is extended to Runnymede and its eastern end uses Elizabeth instead of Bay. Mark Bartelt's speculation about short-turning Bay cars shows up here, sort of, in a backwards way: the *old* form of the City Hall loop, using Bay, Louisa, James, and Albert, is used on this map as the southern terminus of the *Dupont* route, which runs from Dupont and Christie along Dupont, Davenport, and Bay. (The Bay cars run from St. Clair and Lansdowne along St. Clair, Avenue Road, Davenport, Bay, and finally west on Queen's Quay to York.) On the 1936 map, service on Dundas Street East is now provided by the *Harbord* car. On the 1921 map this had started at Lansdowne and run east on Lappin, south on Dufferin, east on Hallam, south on Ossington, east on Harbord, south on Spadina, and finally east on Adelaide to loop using Victoria, Richmond, Church, and Adelaide; on the 1923 map it was the same except the western end was extended up Lansdowne to Royce. But on the 1936 map the route left Spadina at Dundas, running east to Broadview, north to Gerrard, east to Carlaw, north to Riverdale, east to Pape, and north to Lipton. (There was an additional service in rush hour, a branch of the Carlton route, which resembled the eastern part of 1923's College route.) On the 1945 map, things are essentially unchanged from 1936 in this area. On the 1954 map the streetcar system is much diminished, but mostly by the elimination of multiple routes serving the same street -- for instance, the Bay route is removed but its southern portion is taken over by the Dupont route being extended. But the Dundas route and the eastern portion of the Harbord route are exactly as they were before. (In the west, the Harbord car takes over the former Davenport route, starting from Townsley to run south on Old Weston Road, east on Davenport, south on Dovercourt, east on Bloor to Ossington.) On the 1971 map there are many changes. The western end of the Dundas line is now Dundas West subway station on the Bloor line, though I do remember that the streetcars did continue to Runnymede for some time after the subway opened in 1966. The Harbord line is dead -- this I think happened concurrently with the subway opening -- and its eastern part is replaced by a new branch of the Dundas route, which simply continues along Dundas all the way to Broadview, and then turns north to Broadview subway station. And the City Hall loop has reverted to its original form, with those Dundas cars that use it (coming from the west only, not the east) turning south on Bay Street, not Elizabeth, to loop via Louisa, James, and Albert. As Howard implied, this was forced because, with the con- struction of the New City Hall in the 1960's, Elizabeth Street no longer reaches as far south as either Louisa or James. With this transformation of the Dundas route the City Hall branch no longer operates on evenings -- the last trip being at 6:38, according to the 1973 map -- or Sundays. And on the 1978 map the branch has disappeared altogether, leaving Dundas West to Broadview segment as the entire Dundas line (or as it became known a few years later [on everything except transfers], route 505). Some change would have been forced not long afterwards in any event, as the Eaton Centre development eliminated most or all of Louisa Street and part of James (not to mention Albert, but the block where the tracks were survives). Well, you asked. :-) -- Mark Brader "Domine, defende nos SoftQuad Inc., Toronto Contra hos motores bos!" utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com -- A. D. Godley This article is in the public domain.