Weekend construction this month at the TTC's Bay subway station has trains diverting via Museum station and is giving passengers a little glimpse of Toronto history: the famed Lower Bay station.
Located below the existing Bay station, hence the name, Lower Bay was opened in 1966 as part of a TTC experiment in “interlining” that essentially merged the Bloor-Danforth and Younge-University lines with trains traveling both, so you could, say, board a train at Warden and travel to Union without changing trains.
However the public wasn't keen on it, and interlining was abandoned and the Lower Bay station closed after just six months. Since then, the closed station has only been used for repositioning trains between lines, staff training, and filming the occasional movie, such as Don't Say a Word, Mimic and Johnny Mnemonic.
With the detour on weekends this month trains are transiting Lower Bay without stopping, and I arranged my route home yesterday to get a look and shot this video. For more on Lower Bay and Toronto's lost subway stations, check-out Wikipedia and James Bow.
Interestingly, people will be able to get a closer look at the station and take a look around during what sounds like a really cool event in May, called the Doors Open Project.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Train(Station)Spotting-Lower Bay
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2 comments:
The public was actually just fine with it—the TTC deliberately sabotaged it. Check out Steve Munro's blog about the TTC and transit for details.
The public wasn't keen on it? They cried FOUL in September of 1966 when the integrated service was cancelled. The TTC used a system of strict train sequencing and evenly spaced headways that made it appear to NOT work. It was totally political, plus it did cost more to run the wye because the level of train service on Bloor had to be higher with integration.
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