Subway rare mileage in Toronto

60103

Pooh Bah
announce1 The Toronto subway is going to be running regular service on track that hasn't seen passengers since 1966.

http://transit.toronto.on.ca/

In 1966 the new subway line was connected to the old one with a wye which included 2 2-level stations. At the wye, alternate trains went different directions. This had a 6-month "trial" after the system opened, the another 6 months running a separate lines. They never went back to using the wye and the bottom half of one station (Bay) was closed off and rented for movie shoots. To complicate further, the northbound track was extended in a new line which would make the wye operation more complicated. (London Underground riders will say "So what?")

Anyway. the tunnel roof between 2 of the stations needs replacing (after 40 years) and to allow this, on weekends all trains will go through the wye and the Museum station just south of it. (Details in the link).
Lower Bay station will be visble to the paying public for the first time in 40 years, although trains will not stop there, and the lighting may be poor. The station is the dirtiest in the system, and not just because it acts the part of a New York station so often.
 

spitfire

Active Member
Thanks for the heads up David - that's very interesting news!! I remember when the Bloor Danforth subway first opened, and the wye was the subject of a lot of fanfare. My brother and I rode it a couple of times to Yorkville (at the beginning of the hippie days), and then that route just kind of disappeared. It would be neat to take a little tourist trip to see the old station at Bay.

Val
 

60103

Pooh Bah
Val: there has been quite a bit of discussion of the Wye at Transit Toronto and/or Steve Munro's site. It looks as if the wye was forced on the TTC by the City and TTC made a deternined effort over 6 months to prove it wouldn't work (Insisted on alternate trains taking alternate routes, so all lines suffered if one had a delay), then did a survey that showed that more people had to wait a few minutes to get the right train than got on the first one that came. I was lucky enough to have a job at Osgoode station that summer and my father drove me to Keele (!), so I travelled the wye a bit.
 

60103

Pooh Bah
Bad news: construction has gone faster than anticipated and the re-routing is over.
There will be a "doors open" visiting Bay Lower but no more trains.
And I didn't make it!
 
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