{"id":52511,"date":"2015-08-19T13:00:50","date_gmt":"2015-08-19T17:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=52511"},"modified":"2015-08-18T18:54:36","modified_gmt":"2015-08-18T22:54:36","slug":"happy-birthday-toronto-streetcar-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/08\/19\/happy-birthday-toronto-streetcar-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy birthday to the Toronto streetcar system"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are perhaps few things more symbolic of Toronto than its streetcars. For more than 150 years, surface rail has formed\u00a0the backbone of the city’s public transportation system, and despite numerous struggles and threats of abolition, it’s still streetcars that principally\u00a0serve the downtown core:\u00a0240 vehicles carrying\u00a0some 290,000 daily\u00a0riders across 11 lines.<\/p>\n

154 years ago this week,\u00a0work started on the city’s first streetcar route: a horse-drawn “street railway” between Yorkville town hall just north of\u00a0Yonge and Bloor and St. Lawrence Hall on King St.<\/p>\n

The route was chosen based on its popularity. The city’s first public transit company,\u00a0founded by cabinet maker and undertaker H. Burt Williams in 1849, operated a stagecoach service between roughly the same two points, linking the Toronto’s main market with what was then the independent town\u00a0of Yorkville.<\/p>\n

Williams started out with just four “omnibuses,” each one capable of carrying just six passengers, but as the business and ridership grew, so did the fleet. By the 1850s, buses were leaving every few minutes during\u00a0peak hours.<\/p>\n

The Toronto Street Railway company was founded in 1861 by Alex Easton of Philadelphia. His\u00a0vehicles, while still pulled behind\u00a0a horse,\u00a0promised\u00a0a smoother ride compared to the\u00a0Williams buses. The city’s roads were still unsealed in the 1860s, and the surface\u00a0was often rutted by wagon wheels or a muddy quagmire in the rain.<\/p>\n

Tenders for Easton’s street railway were printed\u00a0in the Globe<\/em> and other Toronto newspapers in Feb. 1861. The advertisements, which carried the official seal of the City of Toronto, sought\u00a0companies interested in acquiring “the privilege of construction horse railways on the streets of the city.” The deadline for proposals was 14th March.<\/p>\n

Sensing the arrival of a\u00a0street railway would mean an uptick in business, merchants on Yonge St. began marketing their products around the transit line. A tea shop at the corner of present day Yonge and Dundas invited “everybody from the peasant to\u00a0the prince” to pay a visit\u00a0when the line opened.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A Toronto Street Railway car on the High Park line at King and Queen streets in 1889. Toronto Public Library, 967-2-12.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Construction started with the laying of rails on Yonge St. north of Bloor on August 15, 1861. “The work will be prosecuted with vigour, and Mr. Easton anticipates that the cars will be running on the track in about a month,” the Globe<\/em> wrote.<\/p>\n

Amazingly, Easton had\u00a0pledged\u00a0to lay\u00a0roughly three kilometres of track, import streetcars from Philadelphia, and acquire all the various sundries needed to operate a transit service in just four weeks. The feat wasn’t deemed remarkable in 1861, but it should have been. The\u00a0rails were also being imported from Philadelphia and other metal parts were shipped\u00a0from a foundry in Hamilton.<\/p>\n

At some point in the pre-construction phase, a decision was made that still effects\u00a0modern TTC streetcar and subway operations. The track gauge, the distance between the rails, was set at an unusual 4 ft. 10 7\/8 inches\u2014slightly wider than the gap used by most other railways. According to Transit Toronto<\/a>, this was so public\u00a0wagons could use the rails, too.<\/p>\n

From the Articles of Agreement between the Toronto Street Railway and the City of Toronto: “The gauge of the said railways shall be such that the ordinary vehicles now in use may travel on the said tracks.”\u00a0The iron-tired wagon wheels of private\u00a0carts could use the inside of the metal rail, the city thought, and the streetcar wheels the outside, provided the former didn’t interfere with the latter.<\/p>\n

In future years, instead of\u00a0replacing the city’s entire network of streetcar rail, the TRC and its successor the TTC simply bought\u00a0vehicles that fit the existing track. Even the new Bombardier low floor streetcars and the Rocket subway train are designed to use the TRC track gauge that was chosen to suit\u00a019th century horse-drawn wagons.<\/p>\n

By August 30, just 15 days after work started, the track reached Queen and Yonge. That day, the city’s first streetcars arrived at the Queen’s Wharf near present day Bathurst and Lake Shore. Seven “comfortable, tasteful” vehicles with views of various\u00a0Toronto buildings printed on the outside were brought\u00a0on the back of wagons to Yorkville where they were met with\u00a0cheers and applause from a group of about 300 people.<\/p>\n

Each streetcar held\u00a024 people, making the capacity of Toronto’s\u00a0first streetcar system 168\u2014about 35 fewer than can be squeezed into a single articulated streetcar on Queen St. during a typical rush hour\u00a0today.<\/p>\n

\"toronto<\/a>
Map of the Toronto Street Railway system in 1891, 30 years after the first line opened. The modern TTC network was built from these bones. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 16, Series 71, Item 9106.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As Easton promised, the line opened less than a month after construction began, on September 10. The first streetcar was scheduled to leave\u00a0Yorkville at 4:00 p.m. loaded with dignitaries, but as the car pulled out of the barn it was mobbed by boisterous well-wishers\u00a0who claimed the seats for themselves and refused to budge.<\/p>\n

Drawn by a single horse, the first car had barely traveled a block before it derailed at Bloor St. “The passengers inside alighted and assisted in placing the vehicle on the rails again,” the Globe<\/em> reported. “This occurred several times with all the cars on the journey, but the passengers treated the delay as a joke, and the crowd were always ready to give a ‘shove’ or a ‘lift’ to keep moving.”<\/p>\n

When the first car reached St. Lawrence Hall, the passengers\u00a0“gave three hearty cheers for the Queen”\u00a0and a band struck up\u00a0the national anthem.<\/p>\n

Toronto had its streetcars, and the city felt like celebrating.\u00a0A concert and ball was held at Yorkville Town Hall that evening, featuring a vocal performance\u00a0by Augusta Robinson, the wife of Toronto mayor John Beverley Robinson, and the band of the British Army’s 30th (Cambridgeshire) Regiment of Foot.<\/p>\n

“Everybody there seemed determined to be pleased,” the Globe<\/em> reported.\u00a0“Even the rain, which fell heavily in the evening,\u00a0was looked upon as a sort of blessing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are perhaps few things more symbolic of Toronto than its streetcars. For more than 150 years, surface rail has formed\u00a0the backbone of the city’s public transportation system, and despite numerous struggles and threats of abolition, it’s still streetcars that principally\u00a0serve the downtown core:\u00a0240 vehicles carrying\u00a0some 290,000 daily\u00a0riders across 11 lines. 154 years ago thisContinue reading “Happy birthday to the Toronto streetcar system”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8234,"featured_media":52526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69,24,50,14,32,9,8],"tags":[22084,22083,19,397],"class_list":["post-52511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-curiosities","category-history","category-infrastructure","category-spacing","category-streetscape","category-traffic","category-transit","tag-horse","tag-street-railway","tag-toronto","tag-yorkville"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHappy birthday to the Toronto streetcar system - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/08\/19\/happy-birthday-toronto-streetcar-system\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Happy birthday to the Toronto streetcar system - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There are perhaps few things more symbolic of Toronto than its streetcars. 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