The opening of “Canada’s First Subway” on March 30th, 1954 forever changed the city of Toronto. Former mayor Allan Lamport called it “the day the modern Toronto was born”. The city was in the midst of a boom in the early 1950s and the opening of the Yonge Subway with its fleet of shiny red trains suddenly launched a young industrial city into the same league with international metropolises such as London and New York.
Toronto’s original Red Rockets came to be known as the “G” trains, so nicknamed for their equipment designation, “G”, which was based on the name of their builder, the Gloucester Railway Carriage & Wagon Company of England.
The development of this unique model of rapid transit cars and their history is described with comprehensive detail in this impressive 264 page, 8” x 10 ½” full-colour publication, which includes 212 photo images, diagrams and maps, 166 of which are in colour.
The expansion of the subway system and subway fleet as it affected the G trains, illustrated with photos from more than three decades, is fully described. The appendices provide detailed technical information, including diagrams, a fleet roster, descriptions of the equipment used on the cars, yard operations and a detailed description of a G train operating a round trip on the Yonge-University subway with photographs along the line.