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UPDATE: I was requested by the Renderosity board authorities to remove the disparaging moniker that I prefer to use with respect to Toronto's current serving mayor. In the interests of maintaining the general peace of the sight, I have done so as this editing does not impact on the posted photograph. I would also like to apologize for any offense taken by any innocent viewers of this posting. Thank you for your patience.

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Greetings people. It's the civic holiday today in Canada so I'm not working - which is a good thing. And, during the last few weeks, I've also had some time to practice more urban photography - which is also a good thing. Some people love to capture old and/or grand buildings. Some seek out the urban art form of graffiti. Others still prefer documenting human dynamics against the quasi-static city back drop. As for myself, I have always been enamored with streetcars - otherwise named trams, trolleys or light rail. Specifically, the surface rail vehicles which ply the roads and right-of-ways of Toronto. A passion, I might add, that is definitely not shared by Toronto's current mayor, snipped. He doesn't like graffiti very much either and actually had a city commissioned (and payed for) mural painted over. He says it was just a mistake, but most of us know it was naked spite on his part. Fortunately, snipped has not, as yet, "mistakenly" torn up any streetcar track. But back to the here and now. The classic maroon and cream liveried car 4549 glides through the south-to-east curve from Bathurst Street to Queens Quay West on the Harbourfront Line (Route 509). The streetcar is a Presidents' Conference Car (PCC) - one of two such trams still in use by the TTC, the other can be viewed in my gallery - TTC PCC 4500 On Broadview Avenue. Toronto's extensive PCC fleet was largely retired and sold off (well given away in many cases, which was very generous actually) in the early 90's after a half-century of service, systematically replaced with the more modern CLRV streetcars that are now commonplace in Toronto. The remaining two PCCs are used now only for tours, special events and the weekend/holiday free service along the lake shore. Which is what car 4549 is doing in this shot, shuttling patrons for free from Exhibition Place to Union Station by way of the tourist centres on Queens Quay. Purists may note the tram's customized and non-standard destination sign. When the PCCs were the work horses of the TTC, they bore a two segment back lit, destination roll sign (linens) - visible in my previous PCC photo. Prior to the advent of the CLRVs: the left segment would have displayed the streetcar's turning point on it's current run, the right segment displayed the routing name for that run. After the introduction of CLRVs: the left segment then displayed the route number for the current run, the right segment represented the run's turning point. So in the old days, this car's destination sign would have read as follows, depending on the era.

UNION STATION - HARBOURFRONT
    509         UNION STATION
    604         UNION STATION

Though, I should point out, the Harbourfront Line did not exist prior to the CLRV era, so no PCC ever displayed the top routing option. And for a time the Harbourfront Line's route number was actually 604 to make it different from the more common mixed traffic streetcar lines of the day. Harbourfront tracks are on their own right-of-way and more like rapid transit as a result. But this designation was dropped when the Spadina Line (Route 510) was completed. Well before the Harbourfront tracks were extended to Bathurst Street and the Exhibition grounds. Though both lines operate on their own right-of-ways. Notes: TTC - Toronto Transit Commission CLRV - Canadian Light Rail Vehicle PCC - Presidents' Conference Car