Sean Marshall

Tag: History

  • Praise for the vernacular relics

    Praise for the vernacular relics

    A modern electric tower looms over an early hydro pole

    On the edge of a quiet postwar neighbourhood in Hamilton, Ontario, there is a remarkable remnant of a time gone by, preserved in situ, accompanied by an interpretive plaque. A small steel hydro-electric transmission tower stands in a park, once part of a pioneering 43-kilometre corridor that connected Hamilton with a new hydro-electric generating station at DeCew Falls, near St. Catharines. Next to the old pylon stands a much taller tower carrying electric lines along the same corridor.

    Looking south, with the old tower facing the Rosedale neighbourhood

    Both the DeCew Falls plant and the transmission corridor were constructed by the Cataract Power Company, an organization founded by five Hamilton businessmen, who all had the first name John. “The Five Johns” took control of the city’s power generation and distribution, electric lighting, as well as the Hamilton Street Railway (HSR) and electric interurban railways (known as radials) to nearby cities and towns including Dundas, Oakville, Brantford, and Beamsville. The HSR began electrified streetcar service on June 29, 1892, several months before the first electric streetcar operated in Toronto.

    The tower was erected by the Dominion Power Company (the successor company that absorbed the Cataract) in 1913, as part of an upgrade of the corridor between Hamilton and DeCew Falls, and it is the only one of its vintage to survive. Beside the old tower, a modern hydro-electric corridor follows the same route south, up the Niagara Escarpment.

    Access to cheap, reliable hydro-electric power was one reason why Hamilton was able to thrive as a major industrial centre, attracting steel producers, tire and auto manufacturers, textile mills, and electrical equipment suppliers. That, along with excellent water, rail, and road access helped to make the “Golden Horseshoe” at the western end of Lake Ontario shine.

    Plaque installed by the Hamilton Historical Board in 2014 titled Hamilton: The Electric City

    Eventually the hydro dam, the transmission corridor, the HSR, and the radials were taken over by the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario, which consolidated the many private power companies throughout the province and putting them under public control. Adam Beck, who headed the commission, was also an advocate for interurban railways, so control of the HSR and the radials was a natural fit. Unfortunately, Ontario’s radial railways were never fully consolidated, and most disappeared by the early 1930s. Hydro, however, kept control of the HSR until 1946, when it was sold to Canada Coach Lines, a Hamilton-based intercity carrier whose routes followed several of the old radial lines. Under private CCL ownership, the last streetcar lines were replaced with diesel and electric trolley buses by 1951.

    The “danger – high voltage wires” sign on the old tower bears the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario name. HPEC, later known as Ontario Hydro, took over the corridor from the private Dominion Power Company.

    Heritage preservation need not be concerned only with major landmarks and grand buildings. Sometimes the seemingly mundane details matter too, and tell us about the history of our built environment. In Toronto, at Dundas Street West and Shaw Street, an old air raid siren still stands at the top of a long metal tower. These sirens were common place from the 1950s to 1980s, but they were mostly taken down as they became redundant due to modern missile technology (rendering evacuation and “duck and cover” measures useless) and the eventual end of the Cold War.

    Today, the remaining siren tower is also a reminder of those times.

    Disused air raid siren still stands at Dundas and Shaw

    One more thing that the City of Hamilton has done in the last year is paint two of its buses in retro liveries, celebrating the 150th year of the Hamilton Street Railway Company. Though the HSR hasn’t actually operated streetcars since 1951 (and abandoned trolleybus service in 1992), the name persists through multiple ownership changes, even after municipal ownership starting in 1960.

    One bus sports the 1950s-1960s-era colour scheme of burnt red and cream, while a second bus has the classic yellow and black “Ti-Cats” look used in the 1970s and 1980s. Though modern buses still have a prominent yellow stripe and the long-running interlaced HSR letters-in-a-shield logo, there’s nothing quite as says “Hamilton” quite like classic yellow and black scheme.

    Two modern Nova low-floor buses layover at the end of the Barton Street route, with one in the 1950s-era red-and cream colours, and the other in the current colour scheme
    A New Flyer articulated bus in the prominent “Ti-Cats” colours of black and yellow, which match the colours of the venerable CFL franchise (as well as the traffic signals used in Hamilton)

    It would be great for other agencies, such as the TTC, GO, and Brampton Transit to bring out their old colours. I would like to see a modern low-floor bus or Flexity streetcar in the classic maroon and cream colours, or a GO bus with the 1970s GO Transit wordmark. I would love to see a Brampton Transit bus sporting the old pink stripe and “b” logo.

  • Transit museums’ transit dilemma

    The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum now features a new main entrance and exhibition hall, along with an on-street boarding area complete with vintage signage.

    While visiting Pittsburgh earlier in June, I also paid a second visit to the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum (PTM), located 45 minutes south of Downtown Pittsburgh in Washington PA. I had visited the museum a few years prior as part of a visit to the Pittsburgh area, but since then, a new section of the museum opened to the public, and there were additional cars in operation.

    While I went to PTM with a friend who planned to stick around until the evening, I planned to return to downtown Pittsburgh earlier in the afternoon. I found information on a local transit service operated by Washington County — called Freedom Transit — that ran a route to and from Pittsburgh that stopped not too far from the museum’s main entrance. That plan did not go well at all.

    It is an unfortunate irony that most North American transit museums have poor or non-existent transit access. There are historical reasons why this came to be, but some of the continent’s best transportation exhibitions are inaccessible to newer generations of transit fans, historians, and enthusiasts, many of which do not or cannot drive.

    Washington County Transportation Authority, or “Freedom Transit,” doesn’t offer much freedom
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  • What Canadian passenger rail looked like in 1955

    What Canadian passenger rail looked like in 1955

    Former Canadian Pacific locomotive #136 hauls excursion trains at the South Simcoe Railway in Tottenham, Ontario

    December 17, 2023: The complete map has been migrated to a newer ArcGIS Online account, on account of ESRI suddenly changing its monthly service account to charge bandwidth. That was a pay-as-you go account that helped me get re-acquainted with the ESRI ArcGIS Online platform before I set up a full online subscription to support a small business I co-founded in 2021.

    However, I am happy to announce that I completed updates to the Ontario Intercity Transport Map and the 1955 Canada Passenger Rail Map, and that they are safely on a new subscription server at ESRI Canada. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or corrections to the maps, especially during the migration phase.

    Link to Interactive Map

    Original post published March 25, 2021

    Sadly, passenger rail has faced a long, slow decline in Canada. Though commuter and regional rail systems in the Toronto and Montreal metropolitan areas have expanded tremendously over the last fifty years, rail service in general has declined in frequency, reliability, and even in speed. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, just six trains a day in each direction operated direct between Canada’s two largest cities, the fastest of those trains taking 4 hours 48 minutes to go 539 kilometres to get from Toronto to Montreal.

    Seventy years ago, 28 trains on a typical weekday called at CN’s Hamilton Station, departing for Toronto, Niagara Falls, London, Guelph, Barrie, and Simcoe, with another 12 trains calling at the TH&B station on Hunter Street. In 2019, just six GO trains departed Hamilton for Toronto each weekday, with no direct connections even to Niagara, London, or Guelph.

    There are several causes for the decline in passenger rail. In 1955, which the map below depicts, passenger train revenues were augmented by express cargo and mail, with the mail contracts alone helping to subsidize many branch lines. Lightly-travelled branch lines were served by mixed trains, which carry both passengers and freight. In Northern Ontario and Quebec, many highways were still of poor quality or unfinished — Highway 17 along the Lake Superior coast was not complete until September 1960. Construction of Highway 401 was just getting underway in 1955. In addition, the airline industry was still new, and air travel was expensive.

    Improved highways drew more passengers to coach buses, while the move to trucks for cargo and mail deliveries made many branch lines unprofitable. Larger jet aircraft made air travel cheaper and more convenient for long distances. The major railways concentrated their energies on modernizing their freight networks, with CN and CP building new freight classification and intermodal yards outside of central Toronto, while focusing on bulk freight and shipping containers.

    Though CN made efforts to win passengers back in the 1960s and early 1970s with new fare structures and equipment like the Turbo train between Toronto and Montreal, the government of Canada stepped in and took over most intercity passenger rail services in 1977. Though VIA Rail Canada acquired new modern locomotives and rail cars for the Ontario-Quebec corridor services, cuts to government subsidies made in 1981, 1989-1990, and 2012 forced further service cutbacks. British Columbia and Ontario also cut passenger services on their own rural railways.

    I mapped the year 1955 for several reasons. I have CN and CP schedules for those years in my collection, while I found contemporary Ontario Northland and New York Central schedules online. It was also the year both railways inaugurated new transcontinental trains: CP launched the Canadian, while CN launched the Super Continental, luxurious diesel-hauled trains with modern sleeping cars and lounges. There were six trains a day leaving Montreal and Toronto for Vancouver that year. In 2019, there were just two trains a week.

    In 1955, there were still many branch passenger and mixed trains in Ontario and Quebec, most of which were gone by 1965. Mixed trains were notoriously slow, though, but in many cases, there was a faster parallel highway coach. 1955 was also the last year for CP’s electric trains between Kitchener and Lake Erie, with the London & Port Stanley and Montreal & Southern Counties railways ending passenger runs a year later.

    For Ontario and Quebec, I used Paul Delamere’s amazing Ontario Railway Map Collection and Quebec Railway Map Collection, adapting his work to identify those routes used by passenger trains in 1955, then mapping them on my own server. Mapping other routes was much more labourous.

    Original version of interactive map

    Please contact me if you have any suggestions, corrections, or other feedback.

  • The story of Stop 17

    The story of Stop 17

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    Stop 17 Variety, 2835 Kingston Road

    Kingston Road is one of Toronto’s oldest and most important thoroughfares. Sections of the road were first laid out by Asa Danforth in 1799, though a straighter, more direct route was established by the early 1800s. By the 1830s, it was a busy stagecoach route, connecting Toronto with Cobourg, Belleville, and Kingston.

    As Toronto grew into a major city, Kingston Road was an obvious route for a radial railway line serving Scarborough Township; by 1906, radial cars extended as far east as West Hill, near Morningside Avenue. The radial line’s stops were numbered from the beginning of the line, first at Queen Street and Kingston Road, then at Kingston and Victoria Park Avenue after the TTC took over city operations.

    Kingston Road, east of Bellamy Road, 1918: a rural scene. This siding, Mason’s Switch, was Stop 22. The house on the far left of the photograph still stands at the corner of Kingston and Mason Roads.
    From Toronto Archives, Fonds 1568, Item 148.

    Stop 0 was at the city limits at Victoria Park (with connections to TTC streetcars). Stop 14 was Halfway House at Midland Avenue. Stop 26 was the Scarborough Post Office, near today’s Scarborough Golf Club Road, and Stop 35 was the end of the line, at West Hill.

    With increasing automobile ownership and new intercity bus lines in the 1920s, Kingston Road was busier than ever, becoming part of the new provincial highway system, but ridership on the radials declined, especially after the TTC extended city streetcars east to Birchmount Avenue in 1928, leaving behind a mostly-rural service. Radial service was cut back to Stop 26 in 1931, and completely replaced by buses in 1936 (the 86 Scarborough bus route is the modern legacy).

    Stop 14, in front of Halfway House in 1955.
    Photo by James V. Salmon, from the Toronto Public Library collection.

    Despite the switch to buses, the stop numbers carried on for many years, listed in TTC timetables through the 1950s. Locals would often refer to stop numbers instead of street intersections. Stop 17, at Kingston Road and St. Clair Avenue East, is one example that has lingered on. A mural on the side of Stop 17 variety depicts a green radial car in front of the Scarborough High School), with a cow blocking the way of a truck looking to pass.

    Mural at Stop 17 Variety

    Scarborough High School, on the opposite corner of the variety store, was built in 1922, expanded several times, and later renamed R. H. King Academy. The original building was torn down in 1976, but the entrance way, depicted in the mural, was retained.

    Arched entrance way to the demolished original section of Scarborough High School

    Nearby, towards Brimley Road, several older motels date from the motoring era, when Highway 2 was the main route into the city. Though Highway 401 drew some of the traffic away in the 1950s, it wasn’t until the completion of the Don Valley Parkway (which provided a direct route downtown) and the rise of chain hotels saw a decline in independent motels along Kingston Road and Lake Shore Boulevard. Some have been repurposed as shelters, while others, like the Hav-A-Nap, diversified by offering paid parking for nearby Bluffers Park.

    Hav-a-Nap Motel, with the Americana Hotel just behind
  • One hundred years of Ontario’s provincial highways

    One hundred years of Ontario’s provincial highways

    IMG_2956

    On February 26, 1920, Ontario’s provincial highway network was born. That year, 16 highways were established across southern Ontario, between the Ottawa and Detroit Rivers. These highways, previously maintained by townships and counties, connected the province’s largest cities and provided important links to Quebec and the United States.

    In 1925, these highways were assigned numbers 2 through 17, in rough order from west to east. There was no Highway 13; instead, the Port Hope-Peterborough Highway was assigned Route 12A. Highway 2, alternatively known as the Trans-Provincial Highway, extended from Windsor to the west to the Quebec border in the east, continuing eastwards as Quebec Highway 2. (That province renumbered its entire highway system in the 1960s and 1970s.) Meanwhile, Highway 15, connecting Kingston and Ottawa, took a deviating “S” shaped route via Perth. Highway 7 only went as far east as Brampton. While the province used triangular highway markers at the time, in 1930, they were renamed “King’s Highways” and assigned crowned highway shields still in use today.

    The map below illustrates the highway system at the time.

    1920OntarioOntario Provincial Highways, 1925 (click for larger version)

    Several of Ontario’s first highways no longer exist. Highway 12A was later renumbered to Highway 28; that first section was later downloaded to Northumberland and Peterborough Counties. The first section of Highway 14, which originally ran between Foxboro and Picton via Belleville, was later integrated with the longer and more important Highway 62. The short stub of Highway 14 between Foxboro and Marmora was also downloaded in the 1990s.

    But Highway 11, formed out of Yonge Street and the Barrie-Muskoka Highway, eventually became the province’s longest and one of its most famous highways (even if it never was the world’s longest street). To mark the occasion, I wrote about Highway 11’s history for TVO. 

    If you’re interested in learning more about Ontario’s highways, nearly 100 years of digitized provincial road maps are available on the Archives of Ontario website. I also suggest visiting The King’s Highway website, which contains histories and photographs for most of Ontario’s highways.

  • The story of Toronto’s streetcar “bull’s eyes”

    7566316174_524a59174e_o.jpgReplica of Toronto Railway Company streetcar #327 operates at the Halton County Radial Railway museum, with the unique glass bulbs visible below the metal “Belt Line” sign. Photo taken June 2012

    In 1891, the Toronto Railway Company (TRC) was created, taking over the city’s streetcar system from its predecessor, the Toronto Street Railway. The TRC quickly began electrifying Toronto’s transit network, operating fifteen routes across the city. Electric streetcars were faster than horse-drawn trams, and passengers had difficulties figuring out which streetcar was theirs at night.

    This was a problem as many streetcar routes overlapped. For example, Dupont and Avenue Road streetcars operated on Yonge Street south of Bloor, and Belt Line and Yonge streetcars both ran on Front Street. While the TRC had metal signs on the top and sides of each streetcar to denote the route, they weren’t illuminated. With electric light still in its infancy — arc lamps were too intense while early incandescent lamps were too dull to adequately illuminate route signs — the TRC developed an ingenious solution: uniquely coloured glass bulbs mounted on the roof, lit by interior lights. These lights became known as “bull’s eyes.”

    Under this scheme, the Yonge Streetcar could be identified by one blue light, while the Broadview Streetcar could be identified with red and green lights. This system required passengers to memorize their route’s colours, and as new routes were introduced, changed, or withdrawn, it became cumbersome. Eventually, lighting technology caught up: while back-lit destination signs were possible by 1910, the TRC became hesitant to spend any capital funds to modernize its fleet or expand the streetcar railway network. The City of Toronto was forced to start its own streetcar system, the Toronto Civic Railway, to serve outlying neighbourhoods.

    Though the Ontario Railway Board (predecessor to the Ontario Municipal Board) refused to force the TRC to expand the street railway network beyond the 1891 boundaries, it ordered the TRC to install backlit route signs. These new signs were introduced in February 1913, and those unique coloured bulbs disappeared by 1915. Six years later, the TRC’s franchise was up, and the city-owned Toronto Transportation Commission came into being.

    In 1935, the TTC re-introduced “bull’s eyes” to its streetcar fleet. Officially known as an advance light, a single roof-mounted light, which gave off a blue-green hue, was designed to let waiting passengers know a streetcar was on its way. At the same time, the TTC installed dash lights, which both illuminated advertising cards and provided additional lighting, a useful safety feature.

    IMG_7929-001.JPGTTC PCC Streetcar #4549 on Queen Street West in September 2018

    New PCC streetcars, which began arriving in 1938, were built with the advance lights already installed. By 1940, all streetcars, including the remaining wooden cars acquired from the Toronto Railway Company, were equipped with advance lights. After the Second World War, PCC streetcars purchased from cities such as Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Kansas City, were similarly fitted with the roof-mounted lamps.

    IMG_8717-001.JPGCLRV streetcar on Queen Street East, with two blue-green advance lights above the back-lit destination sign. 

    By the 1970s, the TTC decided to maintain its street railway fleet after planning for their eventual replacement with buses and subways, and sought a replacement fleet for its ageing PCCs. The new Canadian Light Rail Vehicles (CLRVs) and Articulated Light Rail Vehicles (ALRVs) were designed with dual advance lamps, mounted within the streetcar body, immediately above the destination sign.

    Advance lights were introduced to TTC buses starting in the mid-1990s, as new wheelchair-accessible vehicles were added to the fleet, starting with high-floor Orion V and Nova RTS buses, and continuing with newer low-floor vehicles. Blue lights indicated that the bus was accessible. As a bonus, when combined with new digital orange LED destination signs, the bus advance lights served to further improve the visibility of approaching transit vehicles.

    11041809023_47fc64e5e7_o.jpgNova articulated bus with orange LED destination sign and blue LED advance lights indicating it is an accessible vehicle

    The new Bombardier Flexity streetcars are similarly equipped with new blue LED lights, as they too are fully accessible vehicles. While blue advance lights are unique to TTC buses, the new light rail vehicles for Waterloo Region’s ION LRT, also built by Bombardier, sport similar blue lights.

    IMG_8421-002.JPGION LRT vehicle undergoing testing in Kitchener, February 2019

    Sources:
    John F. Bromley and Jack May: Fifty Years of Progressive Transit (Electric Railroaders’ Association, 1973)
    Mike Filey: Not a One-Horse Town: 125 years of Toronto and its Streetcars (Firefly Press, 1990)

  • Brampton Transit’s evolution from a laggard to a leader

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    The introduction of Brampton Transit’s Zum service in 2010, serving York University, was a major turning point for the suburban transit agency

    For TVO this week, I discuss Brampton Transit’s impressive ridership growth. In the last five years, Brampton Transit has bucked the trend of stagnant ridership numbers encountered elsewhere in the Greater Toronto Area and North America in general. I argue that Brampton’s success in improving transit ridership comes from sustained investment over many years, the move to a grid-based route structure, and the introduction of Züm, a basic network of semi-frequent, limited-stop bus routes, many of which extend outside of Brampton’s boundaries.

    I grew up in Brampton, and I have collected maps since kindergarten; my collection includes several old Brampton Transit maps. These maps help to illustrate the progress made since the 1980s, when the level of service provided was quite basic.

    Brampton Transit began operations in 1976 after the old Town of Brampton’s local bus service was amalgamated with the dial-a-bus service operated in Bramalea. (Brampton amalgamated with most of Chinguacousy Township in 1974, including Bramalea.) In 1980, Brampton Transit operated 14 routes, serving a community of just under 150,000 people. Buses operated no later than 9:00 or 10:00 PM, Mondays through Saturdays, and many routes operated with long, meandering loops. Apart from GO Transit, there were no connections to nearby communities.

    Brampton Transit - December 1980 front
    December 1980 Brampton Transit map

    By 1988, service was offered on Steeles Avenue to Humberline Drive in Etobicoke, where connections could be made to TTC buses on the 96 Wilson and 73 Royal York buses, but didn’t continue east to Humber College. Brampton Transit Route 14 Torbram served Westwood Mall in Mississauga, and connections to Mississauga Transit could be made at Shoppers World. But still, service levels were poor — you were lucky to get a bus every 30 minutes outside of rush hours. Permanent Sunday service wouldn’t come for another ten years. Notable are the four lettered bus routes — A, B, C, and D — that made direct connections to the four weekday GO train round trips to and from Toronto.

    Brampton Transit’s maps of the era are also historically notable because of their advertising: only one of the Burger King locations shown on the 1988 map still exists. Other restaurants advertised — the Old Beef Market, O’Henry’s, and Queen’s Pizzeria — are no longer in business.

    Brampton Transit - 1988
    September 1988 Brampton Transit Map

     

     

    Brampton Transit Maps published in the 1990s and early 2000s were printed on newsprint, and used only a two-colour scheme: blue for regular routes, and orange for rush-hour routes. Service to new subdivisions was often provided by way of long one-way loops, which is an inexpensive way of serving new areas, but are inconvenient and slow for potential riders.

    Notable in the 2001 map below is Route 77, launched in the 1990s as a joint Brampton Transit/Vaughan Transit route between Bramalea City Centre and Finch Station along Highway 7. Route 77 was a very slow way to get to the subway from Brampton, but it operated until Züm began service in 2010. In 2001, bus service on 11 Steeles was finally extended to Humber College’s main campus.

    Brampton Transit, 2002
    September 2001 Brampton Transit map

    2005 marked an important turning point for Brampton Transit, as it introduced a grid-based route system on major arterials. Route 14 Torbram, for example, no longer served Bramalea City Centre, but continued north, providing a core north-south route; many other routes were straightened, including Route 2 Main north of Downtown. Changes since May 2005 saw service frequencies improved, more local routes added, and improved connections.

    Brampton Transit - 2005 front
    May 2005 Brampton Transit map

    The current system map, dated September 2017, can be found on Brampton Transit’s website.

  • A visit to New Glasgow, Nova Scotia

    IMG_0319-001New Glasgow City Hall

    After our wedding, we went away to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. I’ve been to Halifax and the Annapolis Valley once before, in April 2004, but I’ve never been to Cape Breton (which has become one of my favourite places in Canada), or PEI.

    It was a wonderful trip. We drove the Cabot Trail, hiked several trails in Cape Breton Highlands National Park, enjoyed great meals featuring local seafood, visited restored historic sites such as the Fortress of Louisbourg, and spent some time wandering around Halifax and Charlottetown. I’ll write more on those adventures later.

    Driving through Nova Scotia on the way to Cape Breton, you must pass through Pictou County on Highway 104, part of the Trans-Canada Highway. Most travelers pass through, or stop off the highway for gas or food. But the region has an interesting history, and we visited two historic sites there which are off most tourists’ radar.

    Once an industrial powerhouse, settlements such as New Glasgow, Stellarton, and Trenton have been hit by the closures in the steel industry and in coal mining. Trenton had a large steel mill; the TrentonWorks plant produced rail cars until 2007. Coal mining was also important to both northern Nova Scotia and in Cape Breton, but today, only one surface coal mine remains in the province near Stellarton. Today, Stellarton might be most known as the hometown of and headquarters for the Sobeys supermarket chain and its parent company, Empire Corp. The town of Pictou was known for its shipbuilding industry.

    New Glasgow, which we visited, is the largest community in Pictou County, and the regional centre for central Nova Scotia. We stayed in New Glasgow overnight, as we were to take the Northumberland Ferry to PEI early the next morning.

    In 1947, Viola Desmond, a successful Black entrepreneur, was removed by police from the Roseland Theatre for refusing to sit in the upper segregated seating area, but in the ‘whites only’ section. She was charged and convicted for tax evasion – the one cent difference in the provincial amusement tax between the ticket she was sold and the lower level seating. Despite this injustice, the apology and pardon from the Nova Scotia government didn’t come until 2010. That year, a plaque was unveiled in New Glasgow. Since then, there has been more recognition of this injustice and of Desmond’s importance — a new ferry was named for her in Halifax, and she will appear on the next issue of the $10 bank note.

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    Roseland Theatre building, June 30, 2017

    Today, the Roseland Theatre is closed (the theatre later became a club). I found the building (which is being renovated, and the marquee removed), but I had trouble finding the plaque. I found out it was located two blocks away from the theatre building, next to the public library.

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    The plaque commemorating Viola Desmond is located two blocks away from the Roseland Theatre

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    On May 9, 1992, sixteen miners were killed in a methane and coal gas explosion at the nearby Westray Mine. News of the explosion, and coverage of the attempted rescue efforts was one of the first major news stories I clearly remember, and the first I really understood. I was eleven when it happened. (Though I also remember the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, I was eight years old at the time, and I couldn’t understand the significance. Westray was the first news story that I remember and which I could understand clearly.)

    Tragically, eleven bodies remain underground. The mining company ignored unsafe working conditions, and the government was complicit in knowing about the problems but not forcing changes — the Westray mine promised jobs, not only in the mine, but in other local industries, such as TrentonWorks, which was contracted to supply rail cars for shipping coal to a nearby power generation station. The mine had lots of support at all three levels of government; this likely contributed to pressure to keep it open despite serious safety concerns. Furthermore, criminal proceedings against the company and its management were botched.

    IMG_0316-001Their Light Shall Always Shine Memorial Park, New Glasgow

    Though the main Westray Mine site and shaft were located at Plymouth, to the south of New Glasgow, the explosion took place north of Highway 104, within the city limits. Their Light Shall Always Shine Memorial Park is located close to the site. Besides a garden and a monument with all sixteen men’s names, there are several interpretative plaques on the history of the Westray Mine, the explosion, and the aftermath.

    Main memorial with the names of the 26 miners
    A predictable path to disaster
    26 miners trapped in depth
    Disaster area map
    The aftermath and inquiry

  • Exploring Earl Bales Park

    IMG_8535-001View from the top of the ski hill at Earl Bales Park

    Last Sunday afternoon, I went for a walk around Earl Bales Park. The large, multiuse green space is located near the corner of Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue in North York; it also descends into the West Don Ravine. It was a delight to explore this park, but as I discuss below, it could be much better connected to the city on the south end.

    Earl Bales Park originally was a farm established in 1824 by English settler John Bales and his family; their house still stands in situ. The land later became a private golf course, and was purchased by the Borough of North York in 1975, named for one of the Baleses’ great-grandsons.

    A lot is packed into this popular green space: walking trails, playgrounds, picnic areas, a community centre, an amphitheatre, an off-leash dog park, a memorial, a seniors’ woodworking shop, and even a ski hill. Even on the first weekend of April, the park was full of picnicking families and groups; families represented a diverse cross-section of suburban Toronto.

    After English, the most commonly spoken languages I heard were Russian and Tagalog — the Bathurst Street corridor north of Highway 401 is popular among immigrants from the Philippines and Eastern Europe; many businesses and community organizations in the area cater to these communities.

    IMG_8530-001Picnicking at Earl Bales Park, April 2, 2017
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  • Hallam Street and the Harbord Streetcar

    img_7439-001Hallam Street looking east from Dufferin Street, January 2017

    Hallam Street, which runs east-west from Shaw to Dufferin, north of Bloor Street, is unusually wide for such a quiet, short road. Hallam Street doesn’t provide a convenient thoroughfare for motorists, and nearly every storefront is either vacant, or converted to other uses. Despite being located in a dense urban area of Toronto, Hallam Street has a ghostly feeling when walking or cycling across it.

    So why is Hallam Street so wide? And why does it have so many vacant or former storefronts?

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    Former storefront on Hallam Street at Delaware Avenue, one of several on Hallam that were converted to residential uses

    For thirty-one years, from 1916 to 1947, Hallam and Lappin Streets hosted the Harbord Streetcar, an interesting and circuitous route that served the northwest portion of the City of Toronto, and later, the east end of the city. Unlike most streetcar routes in Toronto, the Harbord Car refused to follow a grid. It wound its way through several working class neighbourhoods, tying together parts of Toronto otherwise underserved by its transit network.

    The Harbord Car was re-routed from Hallam Street and Lappin Avenue to Dovercourt and Davenport Roads in 1947, as part of a re-organization of transit services in Toronto’s west end (more on that below). The streetcar was fully abandoned in 1966, when the first phase of the Bloor-Danforth Subway opened. (more…)