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Underground geekery.
Feb. 25th, 2007 06:56 pmI went up to Yorkdale today - not because I needed to for any particular reason, but because I wanted to ride the subway.
"So what?" some of you may be thinking. "Don't you do that regularly?"
Yes, but this was the first weekend of the Bloor-Danforth Weekend Tunnel construction.
(For those who aren't familiar with what I'm talking about, the TTC is doing construction on the roof of the tunnel between Bay and St. George stations on the Yonge line.)
Again, you may be thinking, "Big deal!" Ah, but the construction means that subway trains going along the Bloor-Danforth line have to bypass Bay station and turn onto the Yonge-University-Spadina line, going to Museum station via Lower Bay (aka Bay-Cumberland), which hasn't been used in something like 40 years, except as a generic subway station in movies, TV shows and commercials. (I think the Listerine breath strips' commercial, with the gingivitis monster, may have been shot there.) Then everyone has to change trains at Museum, as the eastbound and westbound trains reverse and head back the way they came.
( A graphical representation of what's going on. )
The trains aren't stopping in Lower Bay - they're just continuing through on the way to Museum. The TTC have turned the lights on in the station, though, so we can see what it looks like. Alas, Lower Bay station doesn't look much different than Bay station on the Bloor-Danforth line (aka "Bay-Yorkville"), except that it seems not to be kept in as good repair as stations that are actually used. Two odd things that I did notice, however: first, the signage on the platform is relatively new. There are signs at the staircases indicating that they lead up to Bay-Yorkville station which look like they were only hung there in the past few years, as the style matches signage used in other stations. The other odd thing that I noticed is that the lettering on the walls with the station name says "Bay-Yorkville," just like they do upstairs, instead of "Bay-Cumberland" as I expected. The only reason I can think of for that is that originally, the station on the Bloor-Danforth line was just called "Bay," and the one on the Yonge-University-Spadina line was called "Bay-Yorkville" - they only added the "Yorkville" onto the walls of Bay station a few years ago. I always wondered why they bothered doing that -![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gurudata, do you have any idea? Were there plans at some point to open up Lower Bay (hence the newish signage)?
I tried to get a picture on my cellphone as we were going through Lower Bay, but all I managed to get was a section of blank wall.
Anyway, that's enough subway geekery out of me. Time for dinner, then maybe I'll listen to the Oscars while I surf in case anyone makes a controversial acceptance speech.
"So what?" some of you may be thinking. "Don't you do that regularly?"
Yes, but this was the first weekend of the Bloor-Danforth Weekend Tunnel construction.
(For those who aren't familiar with what I'm talking about, the TTC is doing construction on the roof of the tunnel between Bay and St. George stations on the Yonge line.)
Again, you may be thinking, "Big deal!" Ah, but the construction means that subway trains going along the Bloor-Danforth line have to bypass Bay station and turn onto the Yonge-University-Spadina line, going to Museum station via Lower Bay (aka Bay-Cumberland), which hasn't been used in something like 40 years, except as a generic subway station in movies, TV shows and commercials. (I think the Listerine breath strips' commercial, with the gingivitis monster, may have been shot there.) Then everyone has to change trains at Museum, as the eastbound and westbound trains reverse and head back the way they came.
( A graphical representation of what's going on. )
The trains aren't stopping in Lower Bay - they're just continuing through on the way to Museum. The TTC have turned the lights on in the station, though, so we can see what it looks like. Alas, Lower Bay station doesn't look much different than Bay station on the Bloor-Danforth line (aka "Bay-Yorkville"), except that it seems not to be kept in as good repair as stations that are actually used. Two odd things that I did notice, however: first, the signage on the platform is relatively new. There are signs at the staircases indicating that they lead up to Bay-Yorkville station which look like they were only hung there in the past few years, as the style matches signage used in other stations. The other odd thing that I noticed is that the lettering on the walls with the station name says "Bay-Yorkville," just like they do upstairs, instead of "Bay-Cumberland" as I expected. The only reason I can think of for that is that originally, the station on the Bloor-Danforth line was just called "Bay," and the one on the Yonge-University-Spadina line was called "Bay-Yorkville" - they only added the "Yorkville" onto the walls of Bay station a few years ago. I always wondered why they bothered doing that -
gurudata, do you have any idea? Were there plans at some point to open up Lower Bay (hence the newish signage)?I tried to get a picture on my cellphone as we were going through Lower Bay, but all I managed to get was a section of blank wall.
Anyway, that's enough subway geekery out of me. Time for dinner, then maybe I'll listen to the Oscars while I surf in case anyone makes a controversial acceptance speech.
