Toronto's Second Union Station

When the first Union Station was built in 1858, there were about 40,000 people living in Toronto. By 1911, that many people were using the station every single day. By then we'd had to build a second, bigger Union Station. That's the one in the photo above, pictured here in 1873. It opened on Canada Day of that year, on the land just to the west of the current station (between York and Simcoe). As Wikipedia points out, "The main entrance and façade faced the harbour rather than the city, underscoring the continued importance of boat travel on Lake Ontario." For 50 years, as the population of our metropolis boomed, it was one of the main points of arrival for new Torontonians. One of the exits was a bridge out of the station at the corner of Front & Simcoe. It became known as the Bridge of Sighs. One of Toronto's most important early photographers, William James, took many shots of new immigrants as they arrived. Kevin Plummer wrote about it for Torontoist here.

By the early 1900s, it was already clear that Toronto would need to build an even bigger train station. When the Great Fire of 1904 destroyed many of the neighbouring buildings, the Grand Trunk Railroad seize the opportunity to grab the land. Construction of a new building was delayed by the First World War — as well as the usual arguments — but the third Union Station finally opened in 1927. It's the one we're still using now. And in 2014, more than a quarter of a million people use it every day. 

The Railway By The Brickworks in the early 1920s

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.

The Very First Steam Locomotive Ever Built in Canada

This is the "Toronto", the very first steam locomotive ever built in Canada. It was made in 1853, in a foundry near Queen Street & Victoria, and ran from here to Aurora and back. It was massive by 1853 standards, 25 tons, specifically built to withstand the punishing Canadian climate. (This is another photo I'd posted on Facebook a while ago, but hadn't gotten around to sharing here.)