Caption: Departing out of the east entrance/exit tunnel into the underground St. Clair West Subway Station loop, TTC railgrinder PCC's W30 and W31 head east out onto St. Clair Avenue East. In the distance, one of the two PCC's painted for Toronto's Sesquicentennial 150th Birthday (4536 or 4545) is seen heading eastbound near Bathurst, about to duck into the station.
St. Clair West Subway Station opened in 1978 as part of the Spadina Line extension, and included an underground bus/streetcar loop with approach ramps in the middle of St. Clair Avenue for transit vehicles to enter and exit. Station entrances for patrons are visible on both sides of the street. The Loblaws pictured has since been replaced by a larger building in the parking lot area, straddling the north subway station entrance. Part of Holy Rosary Parish's church buildings are also visible on the bottom right, in this photo taken from a nearby apartment.
Both yellow railgrinders W30 and W31, converted from TTC 4600-series A11-class PCC's (originally built for Cleveland in 1946) for grinding rails across the streetcar network, still exist at the Halton County Radial Railway museum in Rockwood ON (W30 has been retrofitted with seating and gives museum patrons rides, while W31 is on static display inside of the barns).
Original photographer unknown, Dan Dell'Unto collection slide.
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