Fifty Years of Progressive Transit by Bromley & May Toronto Transit Commission
Fifty Years of Progressive Transit by John Bromley & Jack May A history of the Toronto Transit Commission
Hard COVER
Copyright 1973 Headlights Electric Railroaders Association;
176 pages. INCLUDES LOOSE MAP , Supplement and addenda and errata.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments 5
Foreword 7
One:Prologue 9
Two: The Commission is Created 17
Three: TTC Operation Begins 19
Four: The Renaissance: Cars and Shops 25
Five:The Renaissance: Routes and Service 37
Six: The Depression Years 47
Seven: Dawn of a New Era59
Eight: Postwar Change 71
Nine: Subway City 85
Ten: Rapid Expansion 97
Eleven: The Crosstown Subway 107
Twelve: The Next Fifty 125
Photo Gallery 131
Work Equipment 145
Roster and Charts 155
SUPPLEMENT, MAP, Addenda and Errata
Sleek subway trains speed swiftly beneath a modern city while streamlined streetcars compete with cars and trucks on the surface of busy streets. These are the present characteristics of public transporation in Toronto. However, not too long ago Toronto was a smaller city, and the pace of living was quieter and slower. These were the days when streetcars were king of the road. The people of Toronto depended upon the maroon and gold cars of the tic to take them to work and to play. And take them to play they did! The rails spread out from Toronto in all directions, to lakes and streams, amusement parks, picnic groves, race tracks and bathing beaches. The lake Simcoe radial line extended north for 45 miles past farms and woods into small towns and villages.
This is the story of the electric railways of the Toronto Transit Commission, both urban and radial.
Unlike most cities in North America, Toronto continues to rely on its railways, on the street and under the ground.
In 1971 the TTC celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. There has been a great deal of change in the City of Toronto since 1921 and a significant part of this has been due to the FTC. The dirt roads upon which the TIC extended its rails became paved thoroughfares with small businesses serving new neighborhoods of homes. In later years the construction of subway lines created spectacular increases in property values and brought about the construction of vast new high-rise apartment towers adding a new dimension to the Toronto skyline.
The downtown section of Toronto has remained healthy unlike its counterparts in most other large cities in North America. One of the major reasons for its viability has been the continuing high quality of public transportation offered by the TTC. The TTC's policy of fast, cheap, convenient and comfortable transportation encourages people to travel downtown and has resulted in a boon of new office buildings. hotels and theatres.
Prior to the creation of the TIC, most public transportation in the City of Toronto was provided by the Toronto Railway Company, a private firm. Although the TRC electrified most of their horsecar lines during the last decade of the nineteenth century, it was unable to provide decent service for a growing population in an expanded area. The municipal government stepped in to meet this need and constructed several street railways of its own, but the city fathers knew that this was only an interim solution and that Toronto really needed a unified transportation system.
With the expiration of the TRC franchises in 1921. the Commission took over the operation of all street railways in the City of Toronto. Although it inherited an obsolete plant with run down rolling stock and deteriorated track,. it immediately began to rebuild the transportation system into the most modern in North America. Hundreds of new, steel, "Peter Witt" streetcars were ordered to replace the aging fleet, new track was installed throughout the city and new carbarns and shops were built.
The TTC did not stop with this initial burst of activity. As transportation technology improved it was applied in Toronto. In the 1930s the TIC introduced the modern, streamlined, high-performance "PCC" streetcar to Canada. When trolley coaches were perfected they were added to the TTC fleet; and in 1954, the Yonge Street Subway became Canada's first rapid transit line.
Since then Toronto has expanded its rapid transit system to over five times its 1954 size. New streetcars are being designed and plans are being made to lay tracks along new rights of way.
This book is an illustrated history of rail transportation in Toronto. from its earliest streetcars and radials to its most modern rapid transit operations. The text relates the development of the TTC describing how its operations, rolling stock and fixed plant have been modified and improved to meet the changing needs of the people of Toronto through a depression. a world war and the age of the automobile.
The book abounds with photographs. showing not only the streetcars and subway trains, hut the neighborhoods through which they travel.
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