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FWIW you could head over to places like infiltration.org who have actually entered, explored, and photographed many of the hidden away parts of the subway system. Not that I'm encouraging this type of behaviour but the information is out there.

Remember that the subway is many decades old and areas that used to be in public use have been closed off or walled in, while other areas have opened up. I think there was a discussion a while back about the union connection to the subway station that was in the arrivals area of the station which had been closed down.
 
Don't forget the kilometres of steam tunnels running throughout the downtown area, notably at U of T. Most of the grates and trap doors you see at U of T and adjoining sections of College are associated with U of T's steam tunnels. I've been in them myself...neat stuff!
 
Root said:
Surely there must be more "beta lines" or "Bat caves" (failed designs, empty tunnels, etc, blocked from public access) than the current subway maps say there are.

I am aware of Lower Queen and Lower Bay. But I suspect St. Clair West, Eglinton West (yes, there's tunnels that go right to keele, they're buried, probably still accessible somehow), College, all over the downtown core.

I'm a skeptic when it comes to this stuff. This is surely something that has the potential to be exploited for all rail, transit fans and historians.

Ever wonder where those "Vents" commonly seen on the subway line's streets above, lead to, when they aren't on Yonge, Bloor/Danforth or any other street the subway passes underneath?

I don't think all of them link to building ventilation shafts. There are quite a bunch of small houses and two-story buildings on college st passing spadina, yet those vents exist. Quite a few of those along St. Clair Ave West (that too, doesn't have many large buildings, but mainly small properties grouped close together) so there must be an explanation for it all.

So what do you make of this? Could the subway lines be much bigger than originally planned?
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Is this rootbrian? LOL
 
adma said:
I thought you were going to link to the Rochester or Cincinnati systems...
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Piddly 3 and 3.5 km-long abandoned tunnels, respectively? Ha. Soviet Russia scoffs at the capitalist pig-dogs and their weeny secret subways.
 
I heard that there was a secret unfinished subway tunnel in Montreal as well extending west from Snowdon into the Anglo sections of West Montreal. Can anyone corroborate this?
 
Fresh Start said:
I heard that there was a secret unfinished subway tunnel in Montreal as well extending west from Snowdon into the Anglo sections of West Montreal. Can anyone corroborate this?
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Yup, there's a longer-than-usual tail-track west of Snowdon station (about 800 m long and mostly under Queen Mary St., IIRC), which was built under the assumption they'd be extending the Blue line (as originally planned) out to Montreal West as soon as more money came up. The demergers by anglo muncipalities like Hampstead have meant it's slid waaaay down the STM's priority list, though. Can't seem to track down a website about it at the moment.
 
Bumping this because I managed to snap some good/blurry photos, night shot mode, from the platforms, of the north cavern, at St. Clair West.

Too bad, since I was hoping to get a shot from the subway, front cab door open that is. But that isn't allowed. If somebody could get some shots from the actual work cars facing South in the northern caverns, track level, entering the station, that would complete the following photos, as I haven't seen what it really looks like in bright good detail.

Mind you, I didn't enter track level at all to get these photos, as it would be illegal. PS. Not all of these photos are clear or satisfactory, as without a tripod and leaning over the balcony, wasn't the most stable idea I could think of. Also extending my arm into the tunnel wasn't easy either. If this camera had a remote, the photos could've been sharper.

All of these are from Twitpic, if any of you've used it before, it doesn't embed at all. Trying to even view the image's actual location on the server prompts the browser to save it. Not a chance for a direct-embed either as I tried 3 times.

http://twitpic.com/22typc/
http://twitpic.com/22tzea/
http://twitpic.com/22tztb/
http://twitpic.com/22tzq6/
http://twitpic.com/22tzv5/
http://twitpic.com/22u08j
http://twitpic.com/22u0dg
http://twitpic.com/22u0g6
http://twitpic.com/22u0ow
http://twitpic.com/22u0un
http://twitpic.com/22u102
http://twitpic.com/22u1li
http://twitpic.com/22u1lz
http://twitpic.com/22u1q8
http://twitpic.com/22u1vp
http://twitpic.com/22u2t2
http://twitpic.com/22u563
http://twitpic.com/22u6rw
http://twitpic.com/22u72q
http://twitpic.com/22u7al
http://twitpic.com/22u7k8
http://twitpic.com/22u7zm
http://twitpic.com/22u87n
http://twitpic.com/22u8gd
http://twitpic.com/22u8p4
http://twitpic.com/22u8ui
http://twitpic.com/22u97h
 
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Root said:
Too bad, since I was hoping to get a shot from the subway, front cab door open that is. But that isn't allowed. If somebody could get some shots from the actual work cars facing South in the northern caverns, track level, entering the station, that would complete the following photos, as I haven't seen what it really looks like in bright good detail.
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As explained before, immediately north of the St Clair W station is a pocket track long enough to fit a subway train. During the morning rush hour, every other northbound train dumps all their passengers at St Clair W and goes into the pocket track from where it is then sent south as a gap train to address the significantly higher demand south of St Clair than exists north of St Clair. You can watch this process yourself from the station platform. Even see the empty train leaving the pocket track and entering the southbound platform.

If you really want to see the pocket for yourself, occasionally some poor sap heading north has their headphones on too loud, misses the announcements for all passengers to leave the train, is oblivious to all passengers leaving the train and ends up riding the train into the pocket.

Usually though the conductor and driver make a final check once the doors are closed at the platform to ensure there are no further clueless folks on board. But you might get lucky.
 
There is no mystery at St Clair West.

First of all, there is a secondary fare concourse above the north cavern, probably almost 100 metres north of the north end of the platforms and probably over part of the storage track as well.. It's the same argument with the "cathedral station" argument seen elsewhere. Once the station is excavated it's cheaper to leave the space open than backfill it. Hence the cavern.

Second, St Clair West is in a very unusual situation in that the station itself is very deep, but the tunnel on either side of it is not. This is because it is built in what is essentially a filled in ravine, with much of the station actually being above the original ground level. There are the mystery doors leading into the ravine by the bottom of the St Clair southside exit. These are only 1 level, about 1.5 storeys, above the track and exit essentially level into the ravine. In such a unique situation there was again the need for wedge-shaped "fillers" at the ends of the stations, where it was simply cheaper to leave it open than do anything else with the space.

Third, where would anything important up there go? There are many highrises in on all sides of the station, many of which predate the subway so couldn't have been built around tunnel, and their foundations block anything useful from using the space above the station as the tunnel could not drop quickly enough to clear them. Then it runs through residential areas, lying just north of a road wide enough for subway construction to occur directly on the road itself with little disruption. What you spotted on St Clair itself was probably a utility vault of some sort, there are some of those up here. The subway station itself lies entirely under the St Mike's field, for orientation, and the storage track starts just north of Heath Street (there is a ventilation shaft there that looks down on it). There is nothing on the surface which indicates anything significant lies east or west of the playing field or the loblaws above the bus loop.

IF you really want to be a conspiracy nut, the Spadina expressway was supposed to run through there and I believe (but am not sure) that they left provisions for the highway within the station structure.

If you really want to be sure they're demolishing and replacing the complex at Heath and Tweedsmuir, directly east of the station. Go take a look when they excavate the foundations, which will probably 2be in a year or so, to prove that there's nothing there. South of the complex is a school and a church that both predate the subway by decades; west is St Mikes which also predates the subway by decades, and a somewhat newerd seniors building. (1980s?). Nothing runs east or west of the station, and the ravine blocks anything being hidden north or south of the station.
 
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lafard said:
South of the complex is a school and a church that both predate the subway by decades; west is St Mikes which also predates the subway by decades, and a somewhat newerd seniors building. (1980s?). Nothing runs east or west of the station, and the ravine blocks anything being hidden north or south of the station.
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Yeah, but what about the ancient Iroquois / Huron aboriginal subway tunnels that run beneath those old churches and schools? The ones the government doesn't want us to know about?
 
grey said:
Yeah, but what about the ancient Iroquois / Huron aboriginal subway tunnels that run beneath those old churches and schools? The ones the government doesn't want us to know about?
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This leads to more discussions. Possible they were used? (Sorry to try and inflate a flat tire/thread or to revive a dead sewer rat that's been electrified by the third rail, I needed to answer the question with a reply.)
 
sauobeatbath said:
Another note: The station (when it was in service) was above the platforms and that hole was the end of the platforms.
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There must be a stairway on each side of the (current) platforms that leads to the defunct ones above.
 
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