Toronto Suburban Railway

The Toronto Suburban Railway was an electric railway operator with local routes in west Toronto, and a radial (interurban) route to Guelph.

History

The railway began in 1894 as Toronto Suburban Street Railway, a merger of the City and Suburban Electric Railway Company and the Davenport Street Railway. In 1900 it changed its name to Toronto Suburban Railway (TSR). It was taken over by Canadian Northern Railway in 1911. Routes inside the city were purchased by the City of Toronto in 1923, which then turned them over to the Toronto Transportation Commission^[1]. Outside the city, the Guelph line and the Woodbridge extension to the Weston Road line were abandoned early. The TTC did upgrade the city routes, and operated Lambton Weston and Davenport lines for some years, connecting them with the St.Clair and Dundas routes.

A small part of the Guelph line's right-of-way is operated as the Halton County Radial Railway museum. Much of the right-of-way between Limehouse and Guelph is maintained as the Guelph Hiking Trail^[2].

A power house on Weston Road is now a lumber store and a power house on James Street in Guelph has been converted to residential use.

Routes

The Toronto Suburban operated five city and one radial route during its existence.^[1]

City

• Crescent: a short-lived short local route west and south from Keele and Dundas.
• Davenport: from Keele and Dundas north to St. Clair Aveniue, then east, and along Davenport Road to Bathurst Street.
• Lambton: from Keele and Dundas west on Dundas Street to Lambton.
• Weston: from Keele and Dundas north to the town of Weston.
• Woodbridge: from Keele and Dundas, continuing north beyond Weston to the town of Woodbridge.

Radial

• Guelph: from Keele and Dundas (later Keele and St. Clair) to the city of Guelph.

Rolling Stock

The one remaining TSR car is number 24. It was built in 1914 by the Preston Car Company, reusing an 1897-vintage Taylor truck. After the TSR was absorbed by the CNR in 1923, the car was renumbered as CN 15702 and used at Neebing Yard in Fort William, Ontario. It was retired in the 1960s, donated to the Canadian Railway Museum, then leased to the Edmonton Radial Railway Society in 1987.

See also

• Toronto and York Radial Railway

References

• Salmon, James V. (1969). Bromley, John F.; Filey, Mike. eds. Rails from the Junction: The Story of the Toronto Suburban Railway. Toronto: Lyon Productions. pp. 20. 
• Handforth, Gordon W. (1977). Toronto Suburban Memories. Oshawa, Ontrario: Canadian National Electric Lines Historical Group. pp. 12. 
• "Toronto Suburban Railway 24". Edmonton Radial Railway Society. Archived from the original on 2007-03-10. http://web.archive.org/web/20070310220642/http://www.edmonton-radial-railway.ab.ca/tsr_24.htm. Retrieved 2007-07-21. 
• Wyatt, David A.. "History of Regional Transit in Toronto, Ontario". http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~wyatt/alltime/toronto-suburbs-on.html. Retrieved 2007-07-21.