| Roncesvalles Carhouse | |
| Style: | TTC |
| Address: | 20 The Queensway |
| Borough: | Toronto, Ontario |
| Country: | Canada |
| Coordinates: | 43.6394°N -79.4478°W |
| Structure: | Streetcar carhouse, maintenance and storage facility |
| Rebuilt: | 1921 |
| Operator: | Toronto Transit Commission |
The Roncesvalles Carhouse is a storage and maintenance facility for the streetcar network of the Toronto Transit Commission. Located at the northwest corner of the Queensway and Roncesvalles Avenue in Toronto, Ontario, west of its downtown core, it is the oldest of the TTC's three active carhouses. The carhouse serves vehicles on routes 501 Queen, 504 King, 505 Dundas, 506 Carlton, 511 Bathurst, and 512 St. Clair.
Yard entrances/exits are on the Queensway and Roncesvalles Avenue. The Roncesvalles Avenue entrance in conjunction with the special work at the intersection of Queen Street, King Street, the Queensway and Roncesvalles Avenue can serve streetcars from and to any street at that intersection. The Queensway entrance cannot serve streetcars to or from Humber Loop.
The Toronto Railway Company opened the Roncesvalles Carhouse on January 22, 1895. It was located facing Roncesvalles Avenue on the west side of the street just north of Queen Street. Like most other TRC facilities maintenance had been deferred as its contract with the city came up for renewal. When the City took over streetcar operations in 1921, its new transit agency, the Toronto Transportation Commission, determined the existing facilities should be torn down and replaced. The replacement carhouse opened in 1923, with the tracks realigned north-south.
In 1927, the TTC took over operation of the Port Credit radial line which at that time ran west from Humber Loop. After converting the line from standard gauge to the streetcar system's broader gauge, the TTC closed the old Toronto and York Radial Railway carhouse near Grenadier Pond, and housed the Port Credit radial cars at the Roncesvalles Carhouse. This arrangement continued until February 9, 1935 when the Port Credit radial (then running west from the Long Branch Loop) was permanently replaced by bus service.
By 2013, 26000square feet of new maintenance capabilities were added to the carhouse to handle the new low floor Flexity streetcars introduced in 2014. Unlike the TTC's legacy streetcar fleet, where the vehicle's serviceable parts were under the floor, the low-floor vehicle house the serviceable parts above the ceiling. This requires a different infrastructure for servicing and maintaining the vehicles. As an addition to the Roncesvalles structure, the TTC added a new one-track service bay capable of providing some maintenance for the new low-floor streetcar vehicles. This was the only facility built to service the first of the new vehicles in service, before the Leslie Carhouse opened, in 2016.
In February 2018, Roncesvalles Carhouse closed for major construction work with all streetcars operating from this carhouse being moved to Russell Carhouse and Leslie Barns. In January 2019, Roncesvalles Carhouse partially reopened to service some of the Flexity Outlook streetcars used on routes 501 Queen, 504 King and 512 St. Clair.[1] [2] The carhouse returned to full capacity after completion of all remaining work. The work included:
In separate instances in August 2019 and January 2020, a streetcar going along the S-curve at the middle of the north end of the yard hurled its trolley pole shoe through the window of a nearby building outside the yard. The TTC suspected the cause of the two incidents was speed and perhaps an improper attachment of the shoe to the trolley pole. The shoe is made of brass and weighs NaNlbs. To prevent further incidents, the TTC has since required drivers to go around the S-curve at 5km/h with the pantograph raised and the trolley pole lowered.[3]
This is an anticlockwise streetcar loop, exterior to the southwest corner of the carhouse property. It is used to turn back westbound 501 Queen and 504 King streetcars, which can only enter the loop westbound from the Queensway and exit southbound on Sunnyside Avenue to return eastbound.
