Caption: Notorious freight car photographer Bill Grandin couldn't resist a photo or two of this: the Toronto location of the Victoria Station restaurant at 190 Queen's Quay East at Sherbourne Street, featuring a selection of old retired freight cars as part of its dining establishment along Toronto's harbourfront to the east of Yonge Street, amid old industrial port buildings and warehouses.

The Canadian Trackside Guide lists the equipment's lineages as five 50' boxcars of Illinois Central or Gulf, Mobile & Ohio origins, plus one bay-window caboose (former Southern Railway X3103). Repurposed railway equipment was pretty common back in the day, with old streetcars, passenger cars, and freight cars (especially boxcars and cabooses) being bought by private interests and incorporated into various dining, business and leisure purposes (McDonald's prominent restaurant cabooses come to mind, along with CP's Village Station Restaurant in Leaside, Weber's in Orillia, and a few retired TTC streetcars that became dining and retail establishments).

Online sources indicate Victoria Station was a railway-themed steakhouse restaurant chain that started off in the US during the 1960's, and grew to over 100 locations before its decline and eventual bankruptcy problems in the mid-80's. The Toronto location, later operating as the Town & Country Buffet Restaurant, was closed and demolished near the end of the 2000's for redevelopment, a trend that continues today as much of the old industrial building along this stretch of Queen's Quay get torn down for waterfront high rise office towers and condos.

Bill Grandin photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection negative.