Tag Archives: infrastructure
20160530. Floating Flexity streetcar at TTC’s Leslie Barns Maintenance and Storage Facility.
20160528. Toronto’s first new Flexity LRV (streetcar) 4401 prepares for warp speed.
Ok, in reality it sits in the paint booth at the new TTC Leslie Streetcar Barns during Doors Open Toronto 2016.
20160515. An empty Gardiner Expressway in Toronto frames a shaded double conventional high pressure sodum lighting pole.
The highway is closed this weekend for annual Spring maintenance.
20160510. An aerial view of TTC’s original Eglinton Station bus terminal – soon to be a memory.
This is where the tunnel boring machines that have completed tunneling the western leg of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT will be extracted.
20160508. Octogon X. Minimal Aesthetic 89.
20160505. Go visit the Portlands Energy Centre during Doors Open Toronto!
20160502. TTC’s Davisville substation buildings provide a fine example of contextual design in shape, orientation and detailing.
Pardoning the architectural nomenclature, note:
a) how the base course on each building (the stone band running the length of the building) is at the same height;
b) the cornice of the newer building is at the same height of the older building with the additional height of the former in a different colour
c) the masonry is similar in colour and the stone bands equal in number
d) the windows are similar; and
e) although hard to see, the older building and the newer building are each trapezoidal in shape and both buildings fit into a combined trapezoid.
The result is a simple yet elegant addition to a historical building.
20160501. A shiny and just like new TTC automated entrance way. Can you guess which subway station?
20160422. Toronto’s Union Pearson Express, busier and cheaper than ever, is ready to take off from downtown.
20160421. The spectacular skylight and ceiling of the remarkable rotunda at Pittsburgh Union Station, now the Pennsylvanian residences.
20160413. A bird’s eye view of a smokestack perch at TTC’s Davisville Yard.
20160412. Under Pittsburgh’s Interstate 579, a younger and cleaner elevated expressway than Toronto’s Gardiner.
20160411. A man puts a highway overpass into scale (showing just how much space fast moving vehicles need).
20160407. A platform with a view.
20160313. A discounted UP Express train races below Toronto’s Bathurst Street bridge.
20160310. The cavernous Leslie station on the underused Sheppard Line.
20160302. Toronto’s modern classical 1953 decommissioned Commissioners St Incinerator building.
An excellent example of Modern Classical design with stone detailing and varied fenestration, the incinerator opened in 1955 with the capacity to burn 900 Imperial tons per day. It was closed in 1988 after a Department of Public Health reported that it generated dioxin and other carcinogenic chemicals. It now functions as a waste transfer station.
20160226. A reflection of two generations of power plants in Toronto’s Port Lands.
On the left is the Portland Energy Centr, a natural gas powered power plant that opened in 2008 and on the right is the Hearn Generating Station, a decommissioned coal-fired plant that opened in 1951 and closed in 1983.
20160223. A transmission tower that changes the direction of power.
20160127. 20 refueled GO trains get ready to go!
20160111. A matrix of scaffolding floats above the stairs in Toronto’s Union Station Great Hall.
20160109. Approaching the bright Dufferin Street underpass at night.
20160106. An east-facing GO train races westbound on the Lakeshore corridor.
20160103. Peering through steel bridge piers across the West Don River.
