Caption: Brand new Toronto Transit Commission H1 subway car 5337 is shown on Canadian Pacific flatcar 313001, delivered by CN inside of the TTC's Davisville Yard at the unloading ramp waiting its turn to roll onto the TTC's subway tracks for the very first time.

TTC ordered 164 new subway cars from Hawker Siddleley Canada for use on the then under-construction Bloor-Danforth subway line in 1964. They would be built at the old Can-Car plant in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and numbered after M1's 5300-5335 built a few years earlier by Montreal Locomotive Works (for the University line). TTC H1's 5336-5499 were the first of a long line of subway cars built at the Thunder Bay plant (now owned by Bombardier), and 5336-5337 were the first "married pair" to be delivered: 5336 delivered the previous day (May 4th), and 5337 delivered May 5th as shown. They were also the only two H1's delivered to Davisville Yard, as the rest of the H-series cars were delivered to the new Greenwood Yard via a rail spur off CN's Kingston Sub. The H1's went on to see a good three decades in service on the Yonge-University-Spadina and Bloor-Danforth lines until the mid-late 90's, when the worn-out fleet were retired by new T1 subway cars built at the same plant the H1's were built at three decades earlier. While most were sold for scrap, a few made their way into work car service including 5336 and 5337.

The flatcars used to deliver these cars were interesting themselves: CP 313000-313007 were built from old chopped-down heavyweight sleeping cars, and equipped with deck rails and side support pedestals for loading and transporting subway cars. According to photos I've been able to find, three were initially done in the early 60's for delivery of the MLW M1's (418103, 418124, 418125), and by the H1 deliveries were joined by the eight 313's in 1965, until removal from the roster in 1976. Later H4 and H5 deliveries in the 70's were done with North American Car NIFX 1000-series flatcars.

A number of "standard gauge" tracks and sidings ran in the south-west part of Davisville Yard here, entering from a switch off of CN's Belt Line Branch (ex-Grand Trunk, originally built as the Toronto Belt Line Railway). New subway cars (including the Gloucesters, MLW M1's, the first two H1's, and even work car RT-10 "Tokyo Rose") and supplies were delivered to Davisville from the 1950's when the yard was built, until around 1969 when the Belt Line Branch east of the new Spadina Expressway was abandoned (its rails were pulled up beginning in April of 1970). The old right-of-way was sold to the City of Toronto a few years later and converted to a walking trail, which it remains today (the Kay Gardiner Beltline Trail).

John F. Bromley photo, Kodachrome from the Dan Dell'Unto collection.