(ParkdaleLiberty, March 2003)
by Liz Clayton
A 504 King Streetcar waits to go through the streetcar washer
at Roncesvalles Carhouse. Photo: Liz Clayton.
At the complicated intersection of Queen, King, Roncesvalles and The Queensway, some see only a McDonald’s. Others see more than 100 years of streetcar history nestled behind the grease traps.
20 The Queensway is home to Roncesvalles Carhouse, one of the city’s oldest, and most important, transportation hubs. While most Roncesvalles Avenue residents know it as the unfortunate site where their streetcar is usually short turned, the carhouse is where those streetcars are kept clean and well-maintained.
The facility, originally built by the Toronto Street Railway Company in 1895, was home to the then-new electric streetcars that ran through the neighbourhood to popular locations like the Roncesvalles Bathing Beach.
Originally constructed to hold 75 streetcars, the depot was soon expanded to handle the increasing capacity of a growing city. Additional storage tracks were added in 1907. In 1923, two years after the formation of the TTC, the already dilapidated car barn was leveled and completely rebuilt. Another building was added for transportation management, and together the buildings and yard are simply known to many today as “Roncey”.
The car barn’s eight indoor tracks (numbers 18-25), are where the carhouse’s round-the-clock workers keep the streetcars in ship-shape. The carhouse is home to heavy repair tracks, a body track, a washing track, and an inspection track. Repair bays have been expanded since the original construction to allow workers easier access to the sides of streetcars as well as underneath. Bill Hughes, a foreman at the carhouse, says it’s normal for the car barn to have about 20 to 25 streetcars in for repair, maintenance or inspection each day.
The indoor tracks are used for service, while the yard’s outdoor tracks are storage — they’re where more than 100 streetcars sleep at night before going back into service again at 4:45 each morning.
Important traffic decisions — like when to short turn your streetcar, where to divert disabled streetcars, and when to add extra streetcars, or even buses, to a route — are made inside the transportation building.
The handsome brick transportation building is also the drivers’ headquarters, where 104 operators show up each morning, coffee cups in hand, ready to start the day’s run. The building’s common area is home to dozens of tables and almost as many decks of playing cards — streetcar drivers break here, and evidence would have it that they’re pretty into cribbage.
The carhouse, along with Russell Carhouse in the city’s east end, has long been responsible for streetcars on the 501 Queen, 504 King, 505 Dundas, and 506 Carlton routes. In the decades since the closing of Wychwood Carhouse near St. Clair and Christie, Roncesvalles has been accepting 512 St. Clair streetcars and 511 Bathurst cars as well. The newest route’s streetcars, those of 509 Harbourfront, also call Roncey home.
As for the long-term future of Roncesvalles Carhouse, only those who control the TTC’s purse strings can say for sure.
And what would Bill Hughes change?
“The yard is a mess, it needs new rails…this place is older than me.”