The 505 was the streetcar we used most often, as well as my favorite of them all. It’s just the variety of different neighborhoods seen along the route that makes it really interesting. This is another U-shaped line, going from Dundas West Station on the Bloor Line to Broadview, also on the Bloor. There’s a free transfer at Dundas West, where we got on, which makes it quick and easy. That’s not to say it was busy, though; there were only two other people on the streetcar leaving Dundas West.

The streetcar, with a really big apartment building in the background.

The inside.

Looking out the back.

There were some businesses and taller buildings heading down Dundas Street West, but as it curved to the left these were replaced with smaller apartments. We were joined by the 506 just before going on a bridge over the GO Transit tracks (GO Transit is Toronto’s commuter rail system).

Nice view…

Soon after the bridge the 506 turned onto College Street while we stayed on Dundas. There were quite a few varied businesses along this stretch. The skyline of the financial district was constantly visible in front, but Dundas doesn’t actually go through there. We headed by a big park, and it started to get more residential. We crossed over Bathurst Street, going by a big medical center, then Dundas made an s-curve south.

Crossing Spadina, we entered Chinatown. I loved this part: it really felt like we were somewhere in China, since literally every shop name is written in Chinese. After that, we passed the Art Gallery of Ontario and Dundas did another s-curve south. At St. Patrick Station on the Yonge Line, the buildings got much taller but flattened out again after.

After Dundas Station, we passed through Yonge-Dundas Square. Think of this as Times Square, but Toronto. It’s considered to be Toronto’s downtown, and it certainly has a “downtowny” feel to it. Then the neighborhood got a lot less glamorous and a lot more… not nice. We would always get off at Jarvis Street, right outside our hotel (in fact, we had a view of the streetcar out our window – see pictures below).

Okay, so there aren’t any streetcars in this picture, but it still looks cool.

An overhead view.

The streetcar that we took.

They put little flags on the backs of the streetcars in celebration of Canada’s independence day. For some reason it says 504 on the back of this 505.

This is what the streetcar stops look like.

These maps and schedules are convenient.

We barely took the 506 on its Carlton portion; most of our ride was on College, which turns into Carlton. We got on at Euclid Ave after eating in Little Italy. There was a shelter, but it didn’t have countdown clocks like some other ones on the system.

The streetcar cometh…but it’s going the wrong way.

Interestingly, the 506 comes very close to Dundas West Station but doesn’t actually serve the station. Instead it goes onto Howard Park Ave through the suburbs to a little loop called High Park. On the other end, it serves the Bloor Line station of Main Street.

So back to when we got on. Having left Little Italy, College Street was still urban with businesses lining it. Crossing over Bathurst, we passed a tall clock tower, then went on past Spadina. There seemed to be more and more offices as we went by Queens Park Station on the Yonge Line. as well as a hospital. There were some skyscrapers, then the buildings got shorter, then as we went by College Station there were taller ones again.

College was now called Carlton, but we were only on for two more stops. At Jarvis, the neighborhood seemed a bit worse, but there was still a nice church on the corner. Night was falling as we walked back to our hotel.

The streetcar leaveth. That’s apparently a word.

When writing the title, I thought about how easy it could be to misinterpret it as the Queen and King of streetcars. Rest assured, the streetcars are just named after the principal streets they run on; they don’t have special titles.

I was excited to ride the Toronto streetcars, since the MBTA actually leased a few for testing. They didn’t make the buy (because they didn’t have left hand doors and weren’t articulated), but some were in Boston nonetheless. The first streetcar I’ll be showing you guys (I’ll be doing these in numerical, rather than chronological, order) does use articulated trains, but I guess they must be newer than the ones the MBTA leased.

We didn’t take any of the streetcars (except the Dundas one, which will be in the next post) for especially long distances; we did the 501 from Jarvis to Bathurst, about 1 and three quarters of a mile. After a fruitless run for a stopped streetcar and about a 10 minute wait, we were off.

There was some sort of bus replacement for part of the line, it looks like.

The inside.

Looking towards the front.

The 501 runs from Neville Park in the east all the way to Long Branch in the west. Its route is a little under 20 miles in total (for comparison, the 352 is one of the MBTA’s longest – if not the longest, let me know in the comments – bus routes, and it’s only about 17 miles). The sheer length of the line is probably why it uses articulated streetcars.

We got on in a fairly bad neighborhood, with abandoned buildings and parking lots, but once we crossed over Church Street it got better. There was a nice park on the corner and the buildings got taller. We went by Queen Station and Toronto’s old city hall.

We then went by Osgoode Station and Osgoode Hall (which had a very interesting exhibit about the fence around its perimeter…very interesting), then the buildings got much smaller after that. There were some very diverse storefronts along this section. Also of note was a CTV building, which had a car smashing its way out. I didn’t take any pictures, but here’s a link that leads to the Google Street View of the building.

Nearing Spadina Ave, the neighborhood got hipper, with a lot of clothing and shoe stores lining the street. But after Spadina, it got much less so. We didn’t see much of it, though, because we got off at Bathurst to take another streetcar up to the theater district.

A better view of the train.

That may not have seemed like a very long journey, and we took the 504 an even shorter distance: from Bay (the street between the two arms of the Yonge Line) to Bathurst. The line runs from Broadview on the Bloor Line to Dundas West, also on the Bloor Line. However, it’s also the southernmost of the principal east-west lines, so that means that it’s basically shaped like a big, fat U.

The one picture I got of the 504.

We got on right in the heart of the financial district and headed west to St. Andrew Station. After going by Roy Thompson Hall (a very cool-looking building), we left the financial district, though the buildings were still pretty tall. After crossing Spadina, the buildings got smaller, but they did have very cool brick architecture. However, we soon reached Bathurst and our ride was over. Sorry, 504, for only giving you a paragraph…

But next time I’ll be doing the Dundas and Carlton Streetcars, the former of which we actually took a considerable distance!

So what does RT stand for? The other lines are all referred to as “subways,” so the Scarborough RT must be different. RT must stand for rapid transit, right? What else could it be? But all the other lines are rapid transit, too…

Anyway, the Scarborough RT is essentially an extension of the Bloor Line from Kennedy to Scarborough. Looking at the map, I was wondering why they didn’t just extend the Bloor Line, but we’ll talk about that later.

The 190 dropped us off at Scarborough Town Centre (named after a mall, of all things), which is the penultimate stop on the line. If this had been an actual transit race, we would’ve ran to McCowen (the last stop), but we just took the train there. And I have to say, the train was really cute. The cars were pretty tiny, and we had one to ourselves. The only real problem I had with it was that there was no screen to compliment the announcements; the train was pretty noisy so the announcements were hard to hear.

The dingy busway.

And the also dingy…mudroom? I don’t really know what to call it.

A nice map of the route.

And the station platform.

The train coming in…

…And the train stopped.

The camera doesn’t capture it very well at all. Well, these cars were tiny, let me tell you.

A brief look at McCowan Station.

You could see into the driver’s area! This was the middle of the train so nobody was in there.

Don’t mistake it for stop request tape.

We then headed back to Scarborough Town Centre and onward to Midland. Views on this portion were mostly of some truly huge apartment buildings and some truly huge parking lots. It was on the section after Midland that we found out why they didn’t just extend the Bloor Line: leaving the station, the train dipped down into a short tunnel, then made a really sharp turn, screeching the whole time. The full sized trains on the Bloor Line could never make such a turn.

Ellesmere Station was right after the sharp turn, then the views mostly consisted of industrial wasteland. After Lawrence East, the next stop, we went under some pylons and then through a planned housing area where all the houses are the same. Finally, we crossed under a bridge and onto one of our own, then made one final super sharp turn into Kennedy. Our short ride was done.

This is only a small fraction of the massive parking lot for Scarborough Town Centre (the mall, that is).

Some huge apartment buildings.

Lovely view. Lovely.

The train at Kennedy.

Can you see how sharp that turn is?

I had to crop this one a bit due to my finger getting into the picture.

The train again.

The trains apparently used to loop around at Kennedy, but now it’s just a single track.

The mezzanine at Kennedy.

The busway.

So then we went on our way to the Bloor Line. This one runs east to west, and uses the same older trains used on the Sheppard Line. I was disappointed to find out that Kennedy is an underground station for the Bloor Line – I got a bit worried that the whole thing would be underground.

The walkway to the Bloor Line.

The next train sign at this platform is very convenient.

It was indeed underground, but we came up just before Warden Station, the next one. The section after that went through Warden Woods (presumably the namesake of the station), so it felt pretty rural. Right before Victoria Park we passed pretty close to a playground. I’m sure I would’ve loved it as a little kid. After Victoria Park, we went…back below ground. But we were only above for, like, two stops! There was then a flurry of generic underground stations. We only used one of them, Pape, because it’s in a cool Greek neighborhood called Greektown.

A train leaving the station.

The generic platform.

Though I didn’t really understand this artwork, it was pretty cool.

Ew.

That’s a bit nicer.

Sometimes I end up capturing really weird things accidentally. I have no idea what’s going on here.

We went through a few more stations, then suddenly shot up above ground. The line goes over a huge viaduct over the Don Valley, and it’s a beautiful view. It’s really high up, and looking down at the many trees of the valley is amazing. It’s a shame the view is so short, though: after about 15 seconds the train goes back underground.

In no way does this capture the view at all.

We went through the amusingly titled Castle Frank Station, then the hard to pronounce Sherbourne Station, and arrived at Bloor-Yonge. Between the eastern and western arms of the Yonge Line, there’s one station on the Bloor Line: Bay. It’s a bit of a pain in the butt when riding the entire system without any plan, and we had to go there then wait for a train going back the way we came.

The platform at Bay.

A train leaving the station.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned before that my parents are total theater fanatics. Well, they are, and Bathurst Station is very close to a big theater district so we used that station a few times. It’s the first station after the two interchanges with the Yonge Line on its western arm, but it still has that same white tile design on most of the Bloor Stations. Boring!

You can see a streetcar peeking in on the left.

The bright and airy lobby.

The hallway to the train.

The platform.

And the train coming in.

The Bloor Line has very closely spaced stations, so we passed through a flurry of them before Dundas West, the next one we used. We got off here coming back from Kipling (the last stop) so we could take the Dundas Streetcar which goes right by our hotel. But guess what? It was a generic white tiled station! Hooray!

A train leaving.

You can see where it goes above ground. Don’t get too excited.

The mezzanine.

You can see in the second photo of the above trio that the train goes above ground after Dundas. You see the backs of some apartments for about three seconds, then the train arrives at Keele. Then it goes back underground. Aw!

High Park is the next station, and it’s also underground. But then the train rises to the surface again after that, and you can see the back of a UPS store for another three seconds…then it goes under again. After a few more underground stations, it comes back up to go over the Humber River. But the river’s tiny, and once again the train goes back into its tunnel. This was, for some reason, my father’s favorite view on the system, saying that the awesome viaduct was “too short.” The Humber River is literally a two second view!

I somehow managed to get a picture.

The station after, Old Mill, is kind of cool because it’s half underground and half overground. The underground portion is just more white tiles, but the overground part has a pretty cool design on its glass windows.

I got a picture from the train.

We went above ground again after the next station, Royal York, but it was only for about a femtosecond. We did go back up after Islington, the station after, for what would be the last time. Kipling is the next and last stop, and it’s a Quincy Center sort of station (where it feels a bit like a subway station but it’s effectively above ground). The western part of the Bloor Line is a fickle thing.

Lovely view of some train tracks.

A look at Kipling, but we just stayed on the train.

The layout of the Toronto subway is kinda…weird. There are two main subway lines: the Yonge-University-Spadina Line, and the Bloor-Danforth Line. However, only the Yonge-University-Spadina (which I will now be referring to as just the Yonge) Line serves the financial district, in a U shape. The Bloor-Danforth Line goes east to west, but doesn’t go anywhere near downtown! That said, Bloor Street is still extremely busy – Toronto is the fourth largest city in North America, after all. Fun fact for the day.

From the outside.

The LED map.

Rather than announcing it, the screens tell you what side the doors open on.

The view down the train.

There are also these screens along the sides of the train.

Good safety feature.

In case there’s someone in a wheelchair, these seats retract.

There are interesting prop seats at the end of the train.

Before I start talking about the actual route, I should talk about the fare system in Toronto. Every time we rode the subway or streetcar for the entire trip, we would just pay the 9 dollars (3 for adults, 2 for students). It was only on the very last day that we found out about the day passes: 11 dollars for an entire family! That’s such a deal it’s crazy.

Also, let me just talk about transfers, because they’re definitely something you should know about. Many TTC stations offer free transfers from train to bus or streetcar (which is great), but some of the downtown ones don’t. With these, you have to pick up transfers at the station you board, not the one you exit at. It’s not a mistake you want to make.

A token machine.

And a transfer machine.

Downsview is currently the last stop on the Yonge Line’s western arm (but it soon won’t be – check the pictures below). Most TTC stations are very utilitarian, but Downsview was a nice deviation from the standard style. Namely, there was a huge skylight, bringing natural light into a subway station. The mezzanine and busway were more standard fare, but the skylight was awesome.

Some bad pictures of trains at the station.

The platform.

A look down.

The mezzanine.

They’re extending the Yonge Line!

The busway.

There was a short underground section after Downsview, but we soon came up to the surface. We went by a yard, which made for an interesting view.

A train at the yard.

It was also a bus yard.

There was some sort of work platform, maybe so drivers can get on their trains.

After the yard, the tracks came into the middle of Allen Road, which was more like a highway. There wasn’t much to see, but there was a nice view of the Toronto skyline at one point (sorry, no pictures). We crossed over the 401, the busiest highway in North America (or possibly the world – Wikipedia attests to both) and one of the widest, with 18 lanes.

We passed some malls, but it was mostly houses that were exactly the same. That said, the highway was below ground level so we didn’t see much of that. We passed some huge apartments before going below ground at Eglinton West. Passing through St. Clair West and Dupont, we arrived at Spadina.

Now, Spadina is one of two transfer stations to the Bloor Line on the west side of the Yonge Line. It’s also the one you should definitely not use if you’re transferring, namely because of the million mile walkway connecting the two lines. Spadina was a typical utilitarian station on both the Yonge and Bloor Line platforms. It did have one redeeming value, though: an underground streetcar station. It’s one of only three on the system, and the other two are closed for renovation. Interestingly, they’re all on the same line, the 510, which I’ll be posting about later.

The platform.

A mezzanine area.

It…never…ends.

Finally!

The Bloor platform is a lot brighter.

These countdown clocks are pretty good, though sometimes the next train is arriving in N/A minutes.

Mind the gap!

A Bloor Line train arriving at Spadina.

St. George, on the other hand, made for a much easier transfer. It was still utilitarian, though, not much you can do about that.

A plaque at St. George (I think) commemorating the opening of the Bloor Line.

A train at the platform.

The platform.

A convenience store…funny how I don’t actually remember seeing that.

A nice sign outside.

The station entrance.

The station from far away.

The entrance – seems like any other.

The fare area – seems like any other.

Then the amazing platform.

A close-up of one of the totems.

Even this thing is really cool!

There are a few stations between Museum and St. Andrew, the next one we actually used. It was very standard, nothing special about it. Next!

The sign outside.

The entrance.

The mezzanine.

Center platforms always make for fun pictures.

Union is the vertex of the Yonge Line’s parabola, then it heads back up past King (which is right in the financial district) and into Queen. Now, I don’t remember/have any pictures of Queen’s platform, but I do remember that it has an unmarked entrance. Yeah, we crossed the street because there was only signage there, but it turns out there was an entrance on the side we were on. Ugh.

This signage is perfectly fine, but not on the other side.

An awful picture, but you can see the interesting Art Deco in the station.

Next is Dundas. This was our local station, and thus the one we used the most. But alas, it was just another uniform one. The best part about it was the fact that one company bought all the ad space in the whole thing, but made really good use of it. Dundas is considered to be “downtown,” and there is a Times-Square-like area outside the station with free musical performances to boot.

The platform, with a little train in the distance.

The train, much closer.

An entrance to Dundas.

A very cool poster that was at the station.

A train at the platform.

The platform itself.

Another example of ads taking over an entire station, but the one at Dundas was much better.

The Yonge platform.

Stand back!

A train at the yard.

And the yard itself.

The platform at Finch.

The platform at Sheppard-Yonge.

The mezzanine to the Sheppard Line.

Now the Sheppard Line is a very short one, only five stops in length, and is entirely underground. It did have my favorite station on the system, though: Leslie, where every tile had “Leslie” written in a different handwriting. I didn’t get any pictures, though…sorry.

We pretty much had the train (or at least the car we were in) to ourselves during the entire ride. One thing I really liked was that the driver held the doors for us when he saw us running in – that’s not something you see on the subway, but it was a really nice thing to do. And finally, when we arrived at Don Mills and I went around taking pictures, I noticed that there was a driver in the back of the train as well… fast asleep! It must be really boring sitting back there doing nothing. Or maybe she just fell asleep on the job and nobody noticed her? No idea.

Sheppard-Yonge Station.

The interior of the train.

And the exterior.

Don Mills Station.

The mezzanine.

Don Mills had different leaves on the floor, which was interesting.

The very dingy busway at Don Mills.

A bus countdown clock at Don Mills. Spoiler alert: we took the 190.

I did a Service Change about the New York subway 6 line over a year ago. I had taken it up to the Bronx, so the train was elevated and there were some very interesting views. Unfortunately my subway experiences this trip were entirely underground, but I have much better pictures of the trains and such.

Firstly, there’s the E. We wanted to go up to the MET (on the east side) from our hotel (on the west side). Now, anyone who’s ever been to New York knows that going across town is a pain in the butt. The blocks are way too far apart walking, the traffic and traffic lights are horrible driving, and there aren’t many subway lines that go across. But, we were staying very close to a station on the E which does go across town, so that was very convenient.

The station was 34th Street-Penn Station, and it was what most New York subway stations are: utilitarian. It was functional and efficient, but very unattractive. For one of the city’s two railway hubs, it was surprising to see that the entrances were just as standard as any other New York subway entrance. We decided to purchase MetroCards rather than single ride fares, since MetroCards offer fares that are 25 cents cheaper ($2.50 for both bus and subway). There is a 1 dollar surcharge for getting a new card (a good way for some extra profit – take note, MBTA), but you make it back in four rides.

Heading into the station.

The ticket area, looking very bleak.

These clocks weren’t particularly useful.

The ticket barrier.

A ticket machine. “…Why wait?”

The equally bleak looking platform area.

Expect to see a lot of these…

The inside.

The destination boards were fairly standard.

A decent picture of the M, which we didn’t actually ride.

And another.

We got off at Lexington Avenue to transfer over to the 6. Once we left the platform, the station was actually kinda nice. There was an art mural, then a very modern concourse connecting to the 6.

A cool art mural.

This was a nice concourse.

The platform for the 6.

What is this? Really?

The 6 coming into the platform.

The inside.

It had a cool map letting you know where you are. The MBTA wants to put these in the new Red and Orange Line trains.

A nice mosaic station name.

The best picture I could get of the countdown clocks…

That same standard subway entrance.

The next day, we walked down High Line Park (there will be a post about that at some point) and ended up in Union Square. We had to get back to the bus before it left, and needed a direct way of getting to 34th Street or so. I suggested taking the Q, since that’s an express train and goes to 34th Street from Union Square without stopping. It was really fast! We got to 34th Street in about 3 minutes. Amazing.

No, I’m not advertizing Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. I wanted to show the convenient delay screens they have outside some stations.

Okay, that entrance is pretty cool.

The turnstiles were kind of annoying.

The concourse of Union Square.

Another blur-fest.

A different version of the electronic map.

34th Street Station.

Seems like all the decent pictures are of trains I didn’t actually take.

There won’t be another post for a week or so, as I’m going to Toronto! There’s still some New York stuff I have to do, but that’ll have to wait until I’m done with Toronto’s transit system.

Yes, I know I promised the new “Diary of a Bus Adventurer” post and a plethora of bus reviews, but I happened to be in New York for the past two days. I ended up taking quite a bit of transportation there, though, and I have a few Service Change posts in the works.
First we have the Go Bus. This was reviewed in a guest post way back when, and now I’ve gotten the opportunity to ride it. It boarded in the grim Alewife busway, and then we were off. The bus only makes one stop, at Riverside, and then zooms all the way to New York. Well, I say zooms. The ride back took about 7 hours due to traffic. Next time we’re taking the train…

For a much more interesting account of the Go Bus, check the old guest post.

The bus at the Alewife busway.

This looks very trippy…

Lovely air freshener…

The bus in New York.