501-Queen

The 501-Queen route runs along Queen St., the Queensway and Lakeshore Blvd. from Neville Park in the east to Long Branch in the West. On Queen St. and Lakeshore Blvd the Queen car runs along the street with traffic, but has a private ROW on the Queensway.

The Queen car travels through a variety of neighborhoods along Queen st. from the trendy "Beach" and "Queen West" areas to the more humble Leslieville and Parkdale neighborhoods. It also passes through the heart of downtown and a soon-to-be condo haven just west. The one thing all these parts of the Queen route have in common, is that they are very slow moving. The Queen streetcar is prone to delays and bunching - even though the headways (relative to other TTC streetcar routes) are wide.

A one way trip is over 15 miles and scheduled to take 90 minutes during the day (75 minutes after midnight). The route was extended west from Humber loop to Long Branch in 1994, incorporating the 507 route to provide a one seat ride from Long Branch to downtown. Still, there are long headways between Humber Loop and Long Branch since every second car runs from Neville Pk to Humber only.

From a railfan perspective the Queen car is rewarding since it passes both carhouses - Russell (at Connaught Ave.) and Roncesvalles. It also uses three off street loops (with Neville Park being the prettiest) for scheduled service and several others for short turns (Woodbine, McCaul, Wolseley). Service on Queen is provided by ALRVs with CLRVs on Sundays (except summer) and for occassional extras.

Also, railfans should note the short section of gauntlet track on Queen just east of Coxwell. The Queen-Coxwell Loop is used when a car coming south on the non-revenue track on Coxwell is to turn back north; its south side interlaces with the westbound track on Queen. Although streetcars on either track are going west while on the gauntlet, no crossover is provided between the two tracks; it isn't needed because the junction tracks in the Queen/Coxwell intersection provide the same moves. (Historically, until 1966 this loop was the sourthern terminus of a short streetcar route along Coxwell, just running to Danforth Ave. When the east-west subway was opened, the route was converted to buses. It's this same bus that's extended to Bingham Loop during the hours when the 502 does not run.)