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The Bingham to Long Branch Car

In response to comments in another post about service from Bingham to Long Branch Loop, John F. Bromley left the following:

One car per week from Bingham to Long Branch actually operated for a very short time in 1966 (Feb 26 to May 21), when QUEEN was split at the east end to operate evening and weekend cars alternately to Neville and Bingham. The last QUEEN of the day from Bingham, before the 22A COXWELL night bus took over on Kingston Rd) made that trek. 4745 made the last Bingham-Long Branch run at 1.02 AM on May 15. The car was 1 minute late arriving at Bingham and my planned 8 second exposure was cut to just over a second as the doors slammed open and shut and he took off.

4745-bingham-loop-660515

 

5 thoughts on “The Bingham to Long Branch Car”

  1. Yes, hence “historically minded” in my comment. I believe I read about this in “Fifty Years of Progressive Transit”.

    As for the once-weekly service back then, well the city has grown and all, so could we please have BI-weekly service? Oooh.

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  2. Those ex-Birmingham PCCs were my favorite with regards to their overall look. I remember many a time riding them on DUNDAS or LONG BRANCH.

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  3. Early in 1953 Toronto Transit Commission purchased forty-eight PCC cars from Birmingham, Alabama. These cars were built by Pullman-Standard in 1946-1947 and were only six years old when they were shipped to Toronto in May 1953. The ex-Birmingham cars (800-847) were renumbered with TTC numbers 4700-4747. All cars were extensively rebuilt to conform to TTC electrical, safety and appearance standards, including painting over or removing the “Colored Section” signage. The last car was removed from service in 1981. (Outlasting the buses in Birmingham they replaced.)

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  4. Wow – a photo! Is that a first?

    Steve: There’s the odd photo elsewhere on this site, but I concentrate on the text.

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  5. Another historical curiosity about this run, according to 50 Years/Bromley, et. al. is that it was the longest run on the system at that time. Surely, that has been eclipsed by such runs as the 54 LAWRENCE EAST to Starspray, no?

    Steve: According to the current service summary, a one-way trip from Neville to Long Branch is 24.43 km. Bingham Loop is a bit further north and east, so let’s call in 25 km.

    The one-way trip on the 54A to Starspray is 26.85 km. There are a few others that are in the same range, but many of them include mileage outside of the 416. Of course there’s also the Yonge subway at 30.22 km from Finch to Downsview.

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