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Red Rocket 4106 curves north to west from McCaul onto College Street. McCaul Street - running north-south - has tracks along its entire length but only minimal streetcar service. The routing is used for access to the downtown McCaul Loop and as an equipment shunt or detour between revenue trackage. This day construction has detoured this Dundas Line (Route 505) streetcar north from Chinatown and onto the College Street tracks near the University of Toronto. It will carry on west to Bathurst Street where it will curve south and follow the Bathurst tracks back to Dundas. All this rerouting was a consequence of track reconstruction at the intersection of Spadina Avenue and Dundas Street. Preparation for the introduction of the new LFLRV streetcars on the Spadina Line (Route 510) this Sunday - 31 August 2014. So my friends, we have reached the end of an era. Tomorrow, with two LFLRVs entering revenue service, the CLRV model of streetcar will no longer be the 'modern' Red Rockets for the City of Toronto. Starting with the Spadina Line (Route 510), the late 70's vintage trams will be systematically replaced by two hundred (200) thirty metre long, five segment, low floor trains - the 'LF' in LFLRV. Like their PCC predecessors some thirty-five years ago, the CLRV streetcar will be gradually retired. Streetcar transit will endure and grow in Toronto - in spite of the best efforts of one petulant and ultimately cartoonish mayor - but its standard bearer will not be the same. It is an exciting though just a little bit sad time. My mother has seen and rode through all three eras of Red Rockets. The Peter Witts or "bone shakers" as her generation called them - retired by the 1960's - the PCCs - retired in the mid 90's - and then the CLRVs. But for me, I have few memories of the PCCs in their hay day and the CLRVs are the only Toronto streetcar I have ever known as "Toronto's streetcar". At the risk of over-the-top hyperbole - hey if the mayor can do it - we have reached the "Undiscovered Country" from my point of view. It will be hard to watch the humming, perky, little trams of my youth slowly disappear. And with the CLRVs the last transit vehicles in all of Ontario sporting back lit roll signs will disappear. Virtually every transit vehicle now has light up pixel board destination signs - the in coming LFLRVs will be no different. This change I have never liked. First, the pixel boards are ugly, monochrome and always of poor resolution - someone's trying to save money there. Secondly, transit planning has become terribly ad hoc since the pixel boards appeared. Transit systems - especially those that are bus only - no longer have to wait or invest any time or effort into printing new "linens" for new routing. Destination signage can now be edited day to day if desired and so can the routes they represent. Like the replacement of streetcars for buses, this "purely aesthetic" retrofit seems like the modern thing to do but I believe will ultimately be found to be short sighted. Anyways, I would like to offer my congratulations to the CLRV on their pending retirement. A job well done. You will always be "my Red Rocket". For more images of the Toronto CLRV streetcar, please visit my 'Streetcars, Trams and Light Rail' album here on Rederosity - album id 81. Off topic: Guess which album is album id 1. NOTES: CLRV - Canadian Light Rail Vehicle LFLRV - Low Floor Light Rail Vehicle PCC - Presidents' Conference Car

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UPDATE: Here is a nice article about the unveiling of the new LFLRVs today. 'New TTC streetcars hit the road on Spadina'

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