A set of former streetcar tracks has stood as a relic of the past for almost three decades, a distant reminder of a bygone era when TTC vehicles lumbered along a quiet midtown street, travelling to and from a long-disused carhouse.
Take a stroll along Wychwood Avenue, and you’re sure to notice the cutoff streetcar tracks starting from south of St. Clair Avenue West and leading approximately 240 metres along the tree-lined street before cutting off at the former St. Clair Carhouse, now known as Artscape Wychwood Barns.
Aside from being a minor hazard for cyclists, these tracks act as a linear monument to the street’s former importance to the TTC.
The St. Clair Carhouse was constructed by the Toronto Civic Railways in 1913. Built to service streetcars on the TCR’s 1911-opened St. Clair route (which forms a portion of the modern-day 512 St. Clair), the carhouse’s paint was still basically fresh when it was taken over by the TCR’s successor, the Toronto Transportation Commission, in 1921.
These streetcar barns survived generations of changes to the local transit network, including the Toronto Transportation Commission changing its name to the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) in 1954 and several generations of streetcar fleet replacements before finally being phased out.
As many streetcar routes relying on the carhouse were converted to buses, the facility’s importance began to dwindle by the late 1970s. With just two streetcar routes left using the carhouse, the TTC removed its St Clair division in April 1978 and relocated all operations to the Russell Carhouse on Queen Street East.
St. Clair Carhouse on July 10, 1924. Fonds 16, Series 71, Item 3253.
The TTC held onto the St Clair Carhouse as a storage facility for another 20 years but ultimately closed the mothballed and rapidly deteriorating building in April 1998.
Track switches at both ends of the streetcar spur were plugged up the following month, and later ripped out entirely in the 2000s.
The southern connection with the carhouse was torn up during the building’s redevelopment around 2007, while the switches linking the spur with St. Clair Avenue West at the north end were removed around 2009 as part of the construction of the dedicated right-of-way serving the 512 streetcar.
Prior to its closure, the carhouse was sold to the City for just $1 in 1996. The facility would spend the next two decades abandoned and falling into disrepair before it was reopened as Artscape Wychwood Barns in November 2008 after undergoing an extensive renovation.
In 2025, the remaining tracks leading from St Clair to the barns appear more or less as they were throughout the 20th century. The only real difference on this orphaned stretch of track is the lack of streetcar traffic.
They might not lead anywhere these days for transit vehicles, but these tracks still offer a fun trip down memory lane.
