In this photo we're looking north up the Don Valley, not too far north from Bloor. It's the early 1920s. Those are the smoke stacks of the Don Valley Brick Works on the left-hand side of the photo and this is the railway that still runs along the eastern edge of the property today. The bridge is called the half-mile bridge (although it's actually shorter than that) — and it's a slightly earlier version of the bridge that's still there today. The current one was built in 1928. And, amazingly, they rebuilt the whole thing without shutting down service at all. The new sections were slipped in during the time between trains.
The whole line was originally laid down in the late-1800s as part of the Canadian Pacific Railway. It opened up the first CPR route directly into downtown Toronto. Before that, they had to go all the way west to the Junction and then literally reverse their way into the heart of the city.
The line was finally decommissioned in 2007. Today, it's unused and overgrown:
Torontoist has a post all about walking down the length of the line here.
Top photo comes via Mike Filey on the Toronto Railway Historical Association website here.
And the bottom photo comes via my own Instagram account, which you should be following if you aren't already: @TODreamsProject.
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