Metrolinx shows off spooky video of Toronto's 'other' abandoned TTC station
While the TTC's long-abandoned Lower Bay (officially Bay Lower) subway platform has served as the backdrop for TV shoots, art installations, and military exercises, there's another spooky station that lurks deep beneath the transit system that often gets overlooked.
In a hair-raising video released to coincide with Halloween, Metrolinx highlighted the TTC's restricted underground streetcar stop beneath Queen subway station, known as Lower Queen.
Despite never seeing a transit vehicle pass through, the station is set to be brought back from the dead to eventually serve as Ontario Line infrastructure.
When Queen Station was constructed in the early 1950s as part of the initial Yonge Line of the TTC subway, a lower interchange platform level was roughed in to serve the planned but never-constructed Queen Street Rapid Transit streetcar line.
Rumour has it that Freddy Krueger visited this spooky underground streetcar station at Queen. Called "Lower Queen", it never actually opened as a streetcar stop & has been abandoned ever since. It will eventually become part of Ontario Line infrastructure. Happy Halloween! 🎃 pic.twitter.com/qucjU7LwgN
— Ontario Line (@OntarioLine) October 31, 2023
The streetcar terminal would permit east-west movements to flow through the city without being impacted by the traffic synonymous with the downtown core.
The separate line was proposed to run from Trinity-Bellwoods Park in the west to Logan Avenue in the east, dipping underground as it moved through the chaotic downtown core.
However, as travel patterns shifted, preference was given to the Bloor-Danforth line, and dreams of the hollowed-out streetcar terminal slowly faded into the past.
Seldom photographed and sealed off from commuters, it's no wonder why there's a widespread rumour that a scene from A Nightmare on Elm Street film was shot in the spooky station.
Now, the never-used platform is tucked away behind a metal door in the walkway between the north and southbound subway tracks, sealing it off from most commuters who have no idea that the terminal even exists.
Derek Flack
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