Old and New Toronto - Old Don Railway Station

This was a slightly more difficult photo to find an equivalent for, since it looks like the Don Valley has been significantly 'terra-formed' in this area. I had first found this picture (below) when looking at some old 'lost' railway stations in Toronto:

It was originally located just south of Queen St on the west side of the Don River. At that time, the Queen Street bridge was lower and just went over the river. This changed a lot when the new high level Queen Street bridge was built (starting in 1911). See also the Toronto Railway Historical Association's site.

I took the following from between a couple of new buildings just south of where Queen and King come together just west of the Don.

Although the central part of the bridge has a similar look to the first photo, it's not the same structure (and is probably about 20' above where the original was). There are still train tracks running along the road (Bayview extension) which is visible around the middle of this picture. So the original station was probably on the road between the front end loader and the back hoe. Update: Actually - assuming the river and the tracks haven't moved, then the true position would likely be on the other side of the tracks, where the stairs down to the walking trail are. Here's my best guess:

Turns out that Don Station had been saved and moved to Todmorden Mills in the Don Valley in 1969. Interestingly, we had gone there about 10 years ago (Oct, 2005) and I had taken pictures of it (see below).

Time to go take another look - but not at the same location it seems, since it was moved again in 2009 to a new location downtown. See it here at Roundhouse Park, or see this wikipedia article which has some more information including a picture very similar to mine.