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Saturday, May 1 2010: At the start of the "Railpath Ramble" Jane's Walk. This was a neighbourhood walking tour of the West Toronto Railpath, led by a local resident and Railpath user.

Great turnout for the walk, despite the rain. We all had a good time learning more about the path, some neighbourhood history, and meeting up with other people.

If you need a styrofoam head for any reason, go to Value Village near Bloor and Lansdowne. They're only $2.99 each.

Spring is in the air, and fresh rebar blossoms are poking out of the gravelly soil at the Brownstones on Bloor (Bloor St., east of Symington Ave.). Over the next few months, these baby bits of rebar will grow up into townhouse condos like their older brothers across the street.

Looking south over the Davenport Rd. bridge along the CN/GO Newmarket tracks.

Way back in the day (e.g. a century ago) there was a railway station here.

Some kind of manhole cover next to the railway tracks (CN/GO Newmarket sub) near Davenport Rd.

Another random photo from last week's after-work walk around the neighbourhood.

Another photo from last week's after-work walk around the neighbourhood.

This is the Davenport Diamond, where two railway corridors cross each other a little north-west of Dupont St. and Lansdowne Ave. in Toronto's west end. This also defines the north-east corner of the neighbourhood I live in, the Junction Triangle.

The east-west railway corridor is owned by CP Rail, and the north-south corridor used to be owned by CN, but was recently purchased by GO Transit / Metrolinx. GO Transit is expecting to increase traffic on the north-south corridor, which runs from Union Station to Barrie, sometime in the near future. They're contemplating a grade-separation for this diamond: make one track go over or under the other one, so that trains on one corridor don't delay trains on the other. In fact, shortly before I took this photo, a northbound GO train had to wait a few minutes for a CP freight train to move through.

A burned out T.V. set next to the Newmarket GO tracks at Dupont Street, same place as yesterday's photo.

Not sure why this person had a TV here, as there probably wouldn't have been any electricity available to power it. But maybe the copper was stripped for scrap...

Anyway, all I can think of now is the Black Flag song, T.V. Party.

Remnants from a burned-out "home" next to the Newmarket/Barrie GO tracks at Dupont St., taken while I was out for a walk last Thursday.

It looked like someone had constructed a small shanty out of wood, around what was probably some kind of small electrical station in the past. The ground was scattered with burnt up clothes, books, toys, electronics, knick-knacks, candles, and other stuff. A rat ran by while I was poking around taking photos.

Not sure if the fire was deliberate or accidental, but some person has even less of a home now.

Last Thursday, walking north along the Newmarket/Barrie GO tracks, north of Dupont St.

There's only a single active railway track here, but it's interesting to look at all the other bits of abandoned tracks along here. It's a narrow railway corridor (much smaller than the Georgetown corridor to the West of here), but it still used to have multiple tracks and spurs to service the industry along its path. Many of these old tracks and spurs just appear and disappear quickly into old factory buildings, piles of rubbish, or overgrown bushes.

Last Thursday's after-work walk around the neighbourhood. Here I was heading north along the GO/CN Newmarket tracks, north of Wallace Ave., next to Campbell Park.

Apart from all the litter and illegal dumping, this is a great place for walking, though the railway companies might disagree.