My videos cover a variety of topics, including Toronto, railroads, history, transit, and cats. Anything I find interesting is fair game. You never know what might come next, but if you subscribe and turn on notifications, KZread will be sure to let you know!
Tell all your friends to check out my channel, Not Smooth Steve (but without the spaces)!
And if you want to help pay my TTC fares for getting out and about shooting these videos, well, that's what the Thanks link that KZread displays with each video is for! Or have a look at the Amazon wish list I've linked on this page.
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Good video! Audio quality excellent. This is so close to being a great video, just an hour of editing. Pop in some eye-candy, or a photo of an item being talked about, every time the sentence changes. Thankfully B-roll is easy, and everybody loves watching that.
The ski hill is a top of a dump.I remember seeing garbage trucks dumping their loads as a kid as we went by in my father's car on THE DVP.
Solid axle for single points? Don't all rail vehicles have solid axles? Also, long ago, Toronto had bidirectional streetcars. The first of the new streetcars came with trolley poles, in addition to pantograph, as a temporary measure, while the overhead wiring was converted. The rest of the fleet came with pantograph only. When on the old wiring, using the trolley pole, the streetcars were limited in how much power they could draw, as the wires were a smaller gauge. Trolley poles also have a carbon block, which must be replaced regularly. As anyone who's been near streetcar lines can tell you, trolley poles frequently came off the wire, particularly at intersections, where the track branched off.
Wow! I never knew these existed. I live in a different city in canada and I looked up the substations in my city. Turns out we have some in buildings and some in the giant chain linked areas. I would have never known that some buildings were substations unless I looked it up!
This wasn’t in my feed even though I’m subbed
Darn that dastardly algorithm! Somewhere on the page where it says you're subscribed (probably different depending on app vs. browser) there's an option for what notifications you get, and if you set it to "all" notifications from my channel hopefully that may help. I only release a video every couple of weeks so you needn't fear being deluged with notifications from me :-)
They got the idea from king of the hill
Thank you for an informative video. I've been a railfan for nearly sixty years, but I'd never heard of Toronto gauge until today. But I live in the UK and have never visited Toronto.
Awesome video! Thanks.
Aww she's fearsome! 😂
This is so cool! There's an out-of-place looking house a couple blocks from where I live and I previously only knew it had something to do with electricity. Thanks for sharing !
And when the transformer is no longer needed, they convert the fake house to a reL house at a hefty profit!
You sure have a SWELL!!! locomotive T-shirt 🚂 , plus i am enjoying ALL!!! your films as well . So Long! - 7/26/2024 🤠
I don't always have a t-shirt that fits a particular video, but when I do, I make sure to use it!
I enjoy all your content looking forward to the next one
Is the new system already is in operation ? where to go and try it if is? Anyone? cheers from High Park!
Still not open. Still no opening date. Still running lots of vehicles on it for testing/training. Still very frustrating!
@@notsmoothsteve Oh, Thank you Sir. Thank you also for the time you are giving to us with the priceless info about our City. There is an old sign on the bridge over Queen/Dufferin street on the North side East " subway....' sorry but forgot ... Interesting. I love Toronto since 1983...and unfortunately many old buildings still disappearing :lately King/Bathurst....
This video, and others would be great for school classes for kids.
TIL: why its called Muddy York Brewing.
I suppose there is a certain beauty to the complex inefficiency that was imposed by the drive for profit, but it is baffling to me.
your editing style reminds me of the old body break commercials. hella nostalgic.💪
Always enjoy your video's for the insight due to great research and a willingness to share it like you do. So even you 1:39 get a pass for a rare pause and stumble trying to remember every detail. (and having the character not to edit it out) Keep up the great work.
Yeah, this whole "narrate from memory for a couple of minutes" thing isn't as easy as the pros make it seem!
@@notsmoothsteve Cheers Steve. I appreciate your videos a lot. Do you take new topic requests?
@@deeg8849 not officially, but people do occasionally make suggestions, and if it's something I think I could turn into an interesting video, I might put it on the list of ideas.
next time somebody tells me "it's Churrono not ToRonTo", I'll say, "ummm actually it's 'muddy york'"
Lol. I now live in the US. When I tell people where I'm from they often remark how much they like "Toe-RON-Toe"
There's one of these houses on Mill St. south of York Mills just east of Yonge, it looks like kind of an old farm house, if it's still there. It's still there in the 2021 street view.
Hamilton is getting its rails back.... Eventually...
You know of you're looking for an answer to the question of which explanation for the gage, you can always do a seance at Mackenzie House.😊
Toronto's Tom Scott 👀
Love these videos! Also love that you don't edit out any mistakes for the namesake of your channel!, lol
Such a cool insight into the history of Toronto!!
Your confidence in your narrations is improving Steve! 👍
You could say he's getting... Smoother
Can you do a video on the Junctions prohibition?
Oooh, thanks for an interesting idea! No promises, but I've put it on my list of possible future videos.
thank you again for another entertaining and educational video!!
Another great video!
I was born in 1950 in Oshawa & remember riding streetcars in Ottawa. It's a shame they got rid of streetcars in 1957 in both Ottawa & Vancouver. When I was in Australia in 1987, I noticed there was triple-gauge track in Peterborough, South Australia Broad, standard & narrow (i.e. 4 rails). Being a "train-a-holic" I have traveled over 250,000 km by rail since 1955 including 51x on "The Canadian" dome train. Thanks for the explaining the Toronto gauge. Cheers from Vancouver.
I'm not as enthusiastic about trains as you are but I do find them fascinating. Anyway, I'm finally doing the Agawa Canyon Tour this year and I couldn't be more excited. Have you been? If yes, how was it?
@@conradmcdougall3629 I did not take that train, but my father did.
I did the Agawa Canyon train and enjoyed it greatly, but that was a couple of decades and a couple of changes of ownership ago so I don't know what it's like these days. The scenery's great, though!
Was the sky brighter back then ?
On a related note, dual gauge track between the TTC gauge and standard gauge is not possible except where there is enough lateral clearance for interlaced track. The Toronto network is also large and interconnected and this guaranteed that the TTC gauge would remain. A major omission from this video is why changing the TTC width to standard gauge is more complicated than it is worth and why it is more costly and disruptive than, say, migrating from trolley-pole to pantograph current collection.
Interesting! And yeah, I would much rather have one of these hydro "fake houses" as my neighbour that my real neighbours.
That explains how RT trains were bought by Detroit. I had this question running thru out the video and then you said they were standard system.. great 👍🏻
A few other places, including Vancouver, also bought these.
Good info on the old train system - I like videos like this. My brother in Toronto does something similar using his Strava, but more with buildings. Love those paving stones at the beginning that look like rail tracks...what an awesome idea. I think what would help people who aren't from Toronto would be an overall map. At the beginning and maybe interspersed at key places.
Thanks for the feedback - you're not the only person to make that suggestion, and I've been putting more maps in videos as a result (that video is from 2022, the year I started doing these videos).
I just love hearing about the history of Toronto that I live.
Love your content!
Is there a timeline for removing the RT or will that loop be there forever like ghost streetcar tracks all over the city?
I think they are gonna make a it walkway/park/trail kinda thing.
It's going to be an eyesore no matter what they do with it.
The immediate (and I use that term loosely) plan is to run replacement buses along that right of way until the subway extension opens ... but what form exactly that will take or when it will happen seems to be up in the air. And after that, I'm sure council will have a debate for several years about whether to tear it down, turn it into an elevated linear park like New York's high line, or something else.
The premier of Ontario was Bill Davis who insisted on the now defunct Scarbrough LRT. At the time I was thinking this was a big mistake but not extending the subway line. Fast forward to today and they decommissioned the LRT to build a NEW subway extension costing billions of dollars.
In fairness, in 1985, Scarborough wasn't big enough or dense enough to warrant a full on subway. It just ended up that way. Building the line 2 extension back then made no sense. We just couldn't have foretold that it would be needed in the future. Plus, had we gotten our original Scarborough RT using streetcar vehicles, we wouldn't have needed to close it most likely.
Great 👍🏻 video love the content and history
Good job Steve. I would add more labels like you did at Kennedy Station for all locations you record just to help viewers know where you’re set up. A beneficial improvement IMO.
I agree... for purely selfish reasons because I was born and raised in Toronto but moved away in the early 90s. Some of those locations look vaguely familiar but a location tag would be great.
Thanks for the feedback. I usually put a caption if I'm talking about the location of the shot, and don't if I'm not - and most of the locations in this video are just places where there's a streetcar in the background. I'll keep that in mind, though.
@@notsmoothsteve Oh The Urbanity on KZread uses a lot of footage of different areas across Canada (and the US), and they always put a location caption even if the footage is only tangentially related. It doesn't detract from the video at all, and it helps curious viewers learn more.
well researched and presented as always. thank you for your content.
Third! Very informative!
Awesome - thanks so much for creating this great slice of history.
First!
I think you're the first first, too - I don't remember anyone doing the "first!" thing on any of my previous videos :-)
@@notsmoothsteve It's an honor 🫡 keep up the good content!
And here's the video I promised about Toronto gauge: kzread.info/dash/bejne/Y3ms2NGAf6e0nps.html
I’m curious as to what the long term health conditions are or where for the people that lived next to and around these sub-stations.
1:45 I'd fully expect these fake houses to turn into crackhouses or methlabs now that everyone knows they're fake 🤣🤣
I'm from BC and we had one of these on my street as a kid, which was built in the 70s. We figured out one Halloween that it was cleverly designed to have the only access be through the (oddly large) garage door. No front door - a gate in front of the "porch" obscured that fact. They serviced all the utilities from that big shed-style house and you'd never have known just walking by. We also have one near me now, that looks a bit more obvious thanks to an addition now, but used to look just like a house.
Very nice. Thanks.
There’s a fake house in Oakville that I pass by all the time. It has a high voltage sign on the door, I assume it’s also for electrical. It’s a very interesting concept … and it makes total sense!