Rail around Toronto (from the Gathering)

A few pictures from our three days in Toronto.

I arrived the day before and stayed at a Mariott Courtyard Hotel at Younge and College, a 10 minute ride by the subway to Union Station. Surprise, my Presto card from last year had 9 bucks of credit on it. Not sure where that came from, unless I had to put value on the card when I bought it, and didn't end up suing it because I also bought a day pass.

Back to Union Station on Friday and a ride on Go Transit to Kitchener and the ION light rail between Kitchener in Waterloo. A full day.


Cab car end of our very long GO train.


Kitchener train station. It's also used by VIA for its Toronto-Sarnia trains.


ION light rail that connects Kitchener to Waterloo. We had to walk about 10 minutes from the GO station to the light rail stop, but according to a sign near the light rail stop, they will be building a new train station right nearby. The ION service is mostly light rail but runs as a streetcar through downtown Kitchner and downtown Waterloo.



No Macy's or Nordstroms in Canada! We had lunch in a food court in a mall right out of the 1980s or 1990s. Nearly all the stores were occupied, and business traffic seemed decent. Obviously retail trends in Canda are a bit different than those south of the border.



The war memorial in downtown Kirchener. While other conflicts are mentioned, the focus seemed to be on World War I. Kitchener's name has an interesting history. The area was originally settled by Germans and the town was called Berlin. I imagine things got a little uncomfortable after 1914, and after some discussion the name of the town was changed in 1916 to honor Lord Kitchener, who was a famous British General and the Secretary of State for War until 1916, when he died after the ship he was traveling in hit a German mine.


Seating accommodations aboard the GO trains. They were reasonably comfortable, though I though the seat cushions were a bit hard. But I guess most GO rider don't travel the 2 hours it took us between Toronto and Kitchener. The trains cruised at ~100 km/hr, though they went faster after we left Guelph. In any event, we got back to Toronto at about 4 -4:40 PM.


A quick stop at the Library Bar at the Royal York Hotel for a very good, if expensive martini.



Toronto Union Station. The subway back to College, and then a nice dinner at a Persian restaurant where I enjoyed borani bademjoon, a grilled eggplant and yoghurt appetizer and Fesenjoon, chicken stewed in pomegranate and walnuts.



And that was it for the first day of the Gathering.

Thank you for posting, wish I was there!

Our itinerary for Saturday was to ride the streetcars, subway and the UP Express airport train in the morning, and then have a ride on the VIA corridor to Belleville. E ended up taking also taking a GO train ride to the Exhibition Loop, as the streetcar from Union Station was out of service due to track work.

From Exhinition Loop, we rode the 511 streetcar up Bathurst St. to its end at Bloor. We got to pass by Fort York, part of the original British settlement of Toronto, which was attacked and destroyed by the Americans in 1813. This provided the excuse for the British to come attack Washington and Baltimore in 1814, in which they did occupy and burn down a lot of government buildings in Washington, but were unable to capture Baltimore. Also, our ride up Bathurst covered some of the rougher areas of Toronto, included some encampments of homeless people, as Toronto, like every other large North American city, seems to have a problem of unaffordable housing and other conditions that result in concentrations of the homeless.

At the Bathurst Loop, we transferred to the number 2 subway line, which we took to Bloor.






The cars are a bit older looking than the ones used on the 1-Yonge line.

We got off at Bloor and had a 5-minute walk to the Bloor GO/UP station.




The UP (Union-Pearson) express that provides service from Pearson International Airport to downtown Toronto.

These were about the most comfortable seats I encountered on my sample of VIA, GO, and UP Express trains.

The train is well set up for luggage storage.

This was a quick ride back to Union Station, and then Lunch in the food court.


A Loaded Pierogi, a multicultural treat with Mexican-style toppings on pierogies.

That was the morning, now off to ride the VIA Corridor in coach. I had already ridden this route in business class on Thursday, let's see what VIA class difference are like.

On to the VIA concourse

The GO trains have two concourse on the east and west sides of the station. The VIA concourse is in the middle. Toronto Union is a little unusual in that the concourses are below the tracks, so you tide an escalator up to the platform. The only other station in North America that I know of with this arrangement is the one in Wilmington, Delaware, a station that I ride through, not get off at.


Here's some CN power, it think in the yard at Oshawa.


Along the shore of Lake Ontario, near Port Hope.


The new Belleville train station

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And the old one.

We had over an hour layover in Belleville. I walked down the road to the war memorial and a riverside park, but didn't make it into the downtown.



And here's train 67, about a half hour late ready to take us back to Toronto. A P42 pulling LRC coaches.


Here's the interior of the LRC coach. It's 2x2 seating with generous legroom, similar to that of the business class. Drinks and snacks were sold from a cart (credit cards only). The seat cushions were the same as business class (a bit hard). Aside from the ability to have a single seat and the complementary meal service, I'm not sure that the business class is necessarily worth it, unless you're doing the full 5 hours from Montreal to Toronto, and even then, it's marginal.

So, back to the hotel, then over a a pun at Church and Wood called "Hair of the Dog," where I had butter chicken (another popular Ontario menu item) and a pint of local Ontario Cider brewed in Kitchener-Waterloo. And that was Saturday.

Nice report, thanks.

MARC Rider said:

The trains cruised at ~100 km/hr, though they went faster after we left Guelph.

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Bit of useless trivia. While the highways in Canada are posted in kilometers, the railroads still use miles and mph.

MARC Rider said:

Toronto Union is a little unusual in that the concourses are below the tracks, so you tide an escalator up to the platform.

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Not all that unusual. LAUS uses a tunnel to access the platforms, but no escalator, just ramps and stairs. San Jose Dirdion uses a tunnel to get to the platforms CalTrain mostly uses, Amtrak usually stops on the track adjacent to the station. Detroit's Michigan Central used a tunnel. Sacramento had a tunnel, at least before they relocated the tracks. I don't know now, and the original wasn't used much in later years. Tucson shows evidence of having had a tunnel, but it's sealed up. I seem to recall Denver in its original configuration had a tunnel. Haven't been in Denver's station since it was redeveloped.

Denver you walk out at the end, or use a bridge. Syracuse, Rochester, Schenectady, are all below track level.

zephyr17 said:

LAUS uses a tunnel to access the platforms, but no escalator, just ramps and stairs. San Jose Dirdion uses a tunnel to get to the platforms CalTrain mostly uses

Click to expand...

Also as I recall, New Haven CT is also like this with the tunnel under the tracks.

Philadelphia 30th St. upper level also has stairs and escalators to the track level, which is not currently used by Amtrak, although in the early days I believe there were some Keystone trains that originated at Suburban Station and used the upper level for their 30th St. stop.

Newark, NJ is another. There were/are a whole lot of stations where tracks and platforms are elevated, and reached from concourses below. Some have sub tunnels and overhead bridges to reach platforms. Like LIRR’s Jamaica station..