Toronto Railway Company Belt Line

The Toronto Belt Line Railway and the Belt Line Streetcar Route.

The Toronto Railway Company operated the Toronto Railway Company Belt Line from 1891 until 1921, when its operations were taken over by the Toronto Transportation Commission.^[1][2][3][4] The TTC continued operating the line until 1923, when it was broken up into separate routes, the Spadina streetcar line, the Bloor streetcar line, the King streetcar line, and the Sherbourne streetcar line.^[5]

The present-day 504 King streetcar line is a lineal descendant of that original King line. The Bloor streetcar was extended from Jane Street to Woodbine Avenue, and remained in operation until it was replaced by the Bloor-Danforth Subway line in 1968. The Spadina line was replaced by buses in 1948. The current 510 Spadina streetcar line, completed in 1997, uses new tracks, new rolling stock, running on a dedicated right of way, and has nothing in common with the original Spadina line other than location.

References

1. ↑ Mike Filey (2003). "Toronto Sketches 7: The Way We Were". Dundurn Publishing. pp. 19–21. ISBN 9781550024487. Retrieved November 2012. 
2. ↑ Mike Filey (1997). The TTC Story: The First Seventy-five Years. Dundurn Publishing. p. 75. ISBN 9781770700796. Retrieved 2013-07-15. 
3. ↑ Mike Filey (2000). The Way We Were. Dundurn Publishing. p. 75. ISBN 9781550023398. Retrieved 2013-07-15. On October 10, 1948, all Spadina streetcars were removed to be replaced by buses in an attempt to conserve electricity, in short supply following the end of the Second World War. 
4. ↑ James Bow (2013-01-03). "Route 510 - The Spadina Streetcar". Transit Toronto. Archived from the original on 2005-01-13. Retrieved 2013-07-15. The first Spadina streetcar line operated between a crossover at Bloor Street to a crossover at Front Street. On May 23, 1927, with the new Spadina bridge over the railway tracks open, the route was extended to a new crossover on the north side of Fleet Street (now Lake Shore Boulevard). With no loops at either end of the route, double-ended streetcars had to be used. 
5. ↑ Pete Coulman, James Bow (2013-04-27). "A History of the TTC's Belt Line Streetcars". Transit Toronto. Archived from the original on 2013-01-20. Retrieved 2013-07-15. June 30, 1923 -- Last day of operation. Service is discontinued in favour of crosstown service on the BLOOR streetcar and separate SPADINA and SHERBOURNE streetcar routes. 

External links

• Shawn Micallef (2015-01-15). "The beltline trail keeps growing". Toronto Star. Archived from the original on 2015-01-19. Opened in 1892, the railway lasted only two years as the expected residential development in the north of the city didn’t materialize.