Toronto’s MASSIVE Streetcar Yard Tour!



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Leslie Barns is the newest streetcar yard in Toronto, opening in 2015 and with capacity for over 250 streetcars. Let’s go behind the scenes to see all that goes into maintaining the amazing legacy system!

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Ever wondered why your city’s transit just doesn’t seem quite up to snuff? RMTransit is here to answer that, and help you open your eyes to all of the different public transportation systems around the world!

Reece (the RM in RMTransit) is an urbanist and public transport critic residing in Toronto, Canada, with the goal of helping the world become more connected through metros, trams, buses, high-speed trains, and all other transport modes.

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36 thoughts on “Toronto’s MASSIVE Streetcar Yard Tour!”

  1. toronto's bombardier streetcars are really cool! the only thing i wish was different is that they had doors on both sides and had 7 sections instead of 5 for additional capacity.

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  2. This was a great video! I work closely to aviation so I'm used to the maintenance done to airplane which has its own complexity and size but the size of the tram multiplied by the number of cars make this shop incredible and much bigger than I would have expected. In comparison the REM maintenance shop in Brossard seems tiny!

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  3. I don’t think enough people realize how important the environment is for workers in an industrial setting. Good lighting, comfortable climate control, color, nice landscaping, etc. Too many industrial workplaces are like dungeons.

    Happy workers make safer workers. In this case, they also make transit safer.

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  4. I've worked in aviation for a couple of decades, and man this is a nice facility. I wish our hangars were this nice. Maybe I should switch my career to another transport mode! 😅

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  5. Kudos to the TTC for valuing design for those both within and outside of the facility! Every space/place deserves well designed architecture, even what we might consider industrial or utilitarian, and such design pays great dividends. 🙂 Thanks Reece for the peek within!

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  6. Absolutely loved the video! I can only click the thumbs up one time, but I definitely give it two thumbs up!! Very interesting and informative! It was so interesting, I could have watched a video that was twice as long! Thanks!!

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  7. I remember this place being under construction for quite a while, I'd frequently see it as I would go to the Canadian tire nearby quite often. If I remember right this was quite a while before the current low floor streetcars were even in regular service, only being tested I think, around 2017 or 18? Part of me still misses seeing those old CLRVs at the Russel car house.

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  8. Seeing the behind the scenes of these facilities makes you respect how much of an effort it takes to keep these systems running on a daily basis because it's way more complex than it seems! Teamwork makes the dream work, as they say! Further shows that these systems really are feats! As someone who has taken the LIRR a lot, this is especially true with the LIRR. Hillside is the major maintenance facility and covers 30 acres! It opened in 1991 on a section of Holban Yard that was built in 1906 and was named for Hollis and St. Albans. The Hillside facility also covers the sites of the former Rockaway Junction, Hillside, and Willow Tree stations, with the latter being the location of the employee-only platforms!

    Another cool facility is the Morris Park facility or Boland's Landing on the Atlantic Branch. The facility opened in November 1889 and was used for train storage for over a century until the 1990s when it switched to being used for maintaining and refueling diesel locomotives and diesel electric locomotives. Its 1889 locomotive shop with a roundhouse was reconstructed between 2018 and 2020, and is home to the last functioning turntable on Long Island! There are other turntables in Oyster Bay and Greenport but those two are preserved as part of different railroad museums. The Riverhead branch of the Railroad Museum of LI used to have a preserved turntable as well but now it's just a visual remain.

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  9. Well, I grew up in two cities that had extensive PCC streetcars (Pittsburgh & DC). Seems to me that "maintenance" wasn't such a big deal "in the day." Back then (in those two places) the systems were own and operated by private companies which were able to collaborate and produce a base design of cars that lasted decades.

    Sorry, but I'm not impressed by the "modern" transit systems.

    Reply

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