Bay Lower Subway Station Tour, Toronto, ON

Gord and I did the Bay Lower Subway Station Tour today. It's something we've always wanted to do ... the tour is only offered four times a year.

Below the main platform for Bay Station is an abandoned platform, which was used for only six months in 1966 when the TTC experimentally ran trains whose routes included portions of both the Yonge-University and Bloor-Danforth lines. The experiment was deemed a failure, largely because delays anywhere quickly cascaded to affect the entire system. It's represented by the green line.

Lower Bay is now used to train new operators, to move trains between the two current lines, for platform-surface experiments, and to allow filming in the subway without disrupting public service. You can rent it for an event for about $20,000 ... Absolut Vodka had an event there in August 2009.

You get to it through a locked door at the platform level.

Then down the stairs ...

And you're there.

Mary and Sandy gave us the background ... and they were great in answering questions later.

And then we were able to roam around.


Old movie props ...

Danger ... do not enter? Of course, I had to check it out!

Here are Gord and I ...

And Gord, Mary and I ...

Testing floor and ceiling coverings ...

This is now a fake escalator.

As other escalators in the system broke, they would take pieces from this one 'til it was just a hole ... so they covered it with plywood.

We got a goodie bag of info at the end.

We went back up to the platform that is used.

And caught an eastbound subway.

It was an excellent tour ... you should check it out if you are looking for something different to discover.