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Lined up and ready to be dispatched for evening rush hour duties, TTC 4441 and a bunch of her sister PCC cars crowd the yard tracks outside Lansdowne Carhouse under cloudy afternoon skies in August of 1955. The route display rollsigns (front, right side) on the closest cars show Carlton for their last assignment, while the destination rollsigns (front, left side) say Lansdowne, for when they short turned and headed back to the carhouse at the end of morning service. Note some still have the front silver headlight ring that was being removed from all of the cars.

Eventually peaking at a total of 745 new and secondhand cars, by this time in the 50's Toronto's PCC streetcar fleet was the largest in North America (and by extension, the world). The opening of the Bloor-Danforth subway and its extensions in the mid-late 60's saw many of the older cars retired and disposed of, and some secondhand cars were sold off in the 70's to other transit agencies. The bulk of the PCC fleet were phased out in the 80's by new CLRV and ALRV streetcars, with a select few rebuilt and living on in harbourfront service before being retired and sold off in the late 90's. Two PCC streetcars, 4500 & 4549, were kept and are used on occasion for special event and charter service.

Original photographer unknown (Al Chione duplicate slide), from the Dan Dell'Unto collection.
Copyright Notice: This image ©Unknown, Dan Dell'Unto coll. all rights reserved.



Caption: Lined up and ready to be dispatched for evening rush hour duties, TTC 4441 and a bunch of her sister PCC cars crowd the yard tracks outside Lansdowne Carhouse under cloudy afternoon skies in August of 1955. The route display rollsigns (front, right side) on the closest cars show Carlton for their last assignment, while the destination rollsigns (front, left side) say Lansdowne, for when they short turned and headed back to the carhouse at the end of morning service. Note some still have the front silver headlight ring that was being removed from all of the cars.

Eventually peaking at a total of 745 new and secondhand cars, by this time in the 50's Toronto's PCC streetcar fleet was the largest in North America (and by extension, the world). The opening of the Bloor-Danforth subway and its extensions in the mid-late 60's saw many of the older cars retired and disposed of, and some secondhand cars were sold off in the 70's to other transit agencies. The bulk of the PCC fleet were phased out in the 80's by new CLRV and ALRV streetcars, with a select few rebuilt and living on in harbourfront service before being retired and sold off in the late 90's. Two PCC streetcars, 4500 & 4549, were kept and are used on occasion for special event and charter service.

Original photographer unknown (Al Chione duplicate slide), from the Dan Dell'Unto collection.

Photographer:
Unknown, Dan Dell'Unto coll. [930] (more) (contact)
Date: 08/25/1955 (search)
Railway: Toronto Transit Commission (search)
Reporting Marks: TTC 4441 (search)
Train Symbol: Not Provided
Subdivision/SNS: TTC Lansdowne Carhouse (search)
City/Town: Toronto (search)
Province: Ontario (search)
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Photo ID: 30072

Map courtesy of Open Street Map

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3 Comments
  1. Well isn’t that something!!!?? Thanks for posting.

  2. Their fleet was once 750 or so streetcars? Unreal. What’s the total number today?

  3. Steve, yes, and that was only the PCC streetcar fleet – they still had a good chunk of older Peter Witt streetcars in service too (operating in multiple unit “trains” until the Yonge Subway opened in 1954, and the last bunch of single cars ran until the mid-60′s). The Yonge, Bloor-Danforth and University subway lines opening cut a bunch of heavy streetcar routes, and others were either abandoned or converted to diesel/trolley bus routes, so today’s car count is far lower.

    The latest TTC service summary for Oct/Nov shows 234 active streetcars in the fleet (148 CLRV, 43 ALRV, and 43 new Bombardier cars).

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