Doors officially open at TTC's Leslie Barns

May 26, 2016

This Sat., May 28, TTC Chair Josh Colle and Beaches-East York MPP Arthur Potts will officially open the TTC's newest streetcar carhouse - the state-of-the-art Leslie Barns at the corner of Leslie St. and Lake Shore Blvd. E. The official opening of the new facility will kick off the TTC's participation in this year's Doors Open Toronto presented by Great Gulf.

Visitors can tour the 26,000-square-metre maintenance and storage facility that features a green roof, state-of-the-art streetcar simulator training room, numerous storage tracks, a substation and a storm water management pond.

Several generations of streetcars, including the heritage Peter Witt and PCC, and the newest accessible cars, will be on display. There will be children's activities, music and refreshments for purchase in support of the TTC/United Way campaign.

Who: TTC Chair Josh Colle and Beaches-East York MPP Arthur

When: Saturday, May 28, 2016

- Opening ceremony at 9:45 a.m.

- Doors Open Toronto - 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Where: Leslie Barns, 1165 Lake Shore Blvd. E.

How to get there: Line 2 (Bloor-Danforth) to Donlands Station and take the 83 Jones bus southbound to Leslie St. and Lake Shore Blvd. E.; or take the 501 Queen streetcar to Leslie St. and walk south or take the 83 Jones bus southbound at Leslie St.

Please note that the 501 Queen streetcar will be replaced by buses east of Connaught Ave. due to construction work at the Neville Loop.

The TTC thanks the City of Toronto for providing funding for the Leslie Barns Facility with assistance from the Federal Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario.
 
And on a side note, I'm really frustrated by the limited hours of Doors Open. The Jane's Walks went on all day long, ranging from early in the morning to late in the evening. They even had a bunch of them on Friday too. But with Doors Open, nothing is open earlier than 10:00 am, and everything closes by 5 pm at the latest. Some buildings are not even open on both days of the weekend, including Leslie Barns which is guaranteed to be popular (in fact the TTC will increase service on the Jones bus because of it).

With only a few hours a day, I never have time to visit more than a small handful of buildings by the time I travel to them, wait in line or do a tour. I probably won't have time to see Leslie Barns either because there are too many other building that I want to visit, and it's quite far from downtown.
 
A real sad empty yard and it was save by the CLRV & ALRV either to be repair or scrap.

Photos will be up later in the week as I still have a backlog in front of them.

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And on a side note, I'm really frustrated by the limited hours of Doors Open. The Jane's Walks went on all day long, ranging from early in the morning to late in the evening. They even had a bunch of them on Friday too. But with Doors Open, nothing is open earlier than 10:00 am, and everything closes by 5 pm at the latest. Some buildings are not even open on both days of the weekend, including Leslie Barns which is guaranteed to be popular (in fact the TTC will increase service on the Jones bus because of it).

With only a few hours a day, I never have time to visit more than a small handful of buildings by the time I travel to them, wait in line or do a tour. I probably won't have time to see Leslie Barns either because there are too many other building that I want to visit, and it's quite far from downtown.
It's all volunteer work which means it would be hard to get enough staffs to spend their evenings at the barn instead of being with friends and family. The facility would need to be cleared out so some vehicles can return from service. Doors open prevents them from doing their maintenance work too. Although some of us wouldn't mind if we got a whole bunch of ALRVs on the 510 the next day can't they can't do their routine work. The 510 had more ALRVs than usual today with only one new car on the 509 on a Saturday.
 
From DOT, which was profoundly neat:

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I'm wondering why they went to the effort and expense of embedding all of the outdoor yard tracks in concrete, while also deciding that they needed a green roof.

Not that I think the outdoor tracks should have been filled in with grass, but gravel or something that lets rain water through would been fine.
 
A bunch more.

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A couple of things One How did poel get into the barn to walk around. I didn't see any signs pointing it out just ones to ride the streetcar and locations of washrooms.

Alos I have a couple of videos from it too if anyone is interested.




 
My three favourite parts of the driving tour at doors open were:

1. The vehicles kept announcing "this train will be short turning" over and over...like a commute from hell...
2. The operator was using the mic to point out information about the facility...but in typical ttc fashion it was hilariously unintelligible and garbled to the point it was like they were doing it on purpose...
3. They had a ttc streetcar station sign on a post held up with a sandbag, which was nowhere near where the vehicle stopped and was slightly falling over...
 

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