User:Geo Swan/Lansdowne Carhouse

The Lansdowne Carhouse was a streetcar maintenance and storage facility, in Toronto, Canada. It was built in 1910 by the Toronto Railway Company, the private company licensed by the City of Toronto to run a streetcar system. When the City took over streetcar operations in 1921, the municipally run Toronto Transit Commission took it over, and used it until 1996.

It was, when built, the city's largest carhouse, at 465 ft long, and was able to store 104 streetcars. Louis Pursley described it as the TRC's "showpiece". Because it was the most modern, and in the best repair, the TTC continued to use the Lansdowne Carhouse far longer than its other legacy facilities. It was the first facility the new Peter Witt streetcars were assigned to.

In 1922 the TTC added fire equipment to its St. Clair Carhouse, Danforth Carhouse, Russell Carhouse and Lansdowne Carhouse.

When electric trolley buses were introduced in 1947, they were based at Lansdowne.

When the TTC opened the Bloor-Danforth Subway Line in 1966, Lansdowne Carhouse served as a base for a number of operating crews assigned to the nearby Vincent Yard. It continued in that role until Wilson Yard was opened on the Yonge-Spadina Subway Line extension.

The TTC began to store and maintain diesel buses at the facility in 1967 after its last two streetcar routes were withdrawn. Lansdowne Carhouse became an all-diesel division after the TTC phased out its trolleybuses in 1993.

The facility was last used in 1996. The city designated the carhouse a heritage structure, but hopes that it could repurposed proved vain. The building was demolished in 2003, and the site remained unused until at least 2015.