Text by Godfrey Mallion, pictures by Michael Boone.

Construction of the Wilson Carhouse building began in October, 1975. The 60 acre Wilson Complex, located on the north side of Wilson Avenue and west of the Allen Road, is just east of the former Downsview Airport.

The Complex includes the Wilson Bus Garage, with storage for 254 vehicles. The garage began operations on March 14, 1976. By mid-summer of 1977 Wilson Carhouse and Yard began accepting subway cars. This was in anticipation of original fall of 1977 Spadina subway opening dates.

As constructed, Wilson Carhouse contained 7 through tracks for indoor maintenance. A substation is located at the north-western corner of the Carhouse building. The yard has a plant building and an overhead walkway from Wilson Garage to an Operator's and Service Personnel platform.

The Wilson subway facility has a capacity of 262 subway cars, the largest on the .T.T.C. subway system.

As the original Gloucester subway cars were retired, Wilson Yard added non-powered tracks for the storage, and eventual scrapping, of the cars. The Gloucester cars that didn't become subway maintenance vehicles were scrapped at Wilson between 1988 and 1991.

With the closing of Davisville Yard in July, 1993, until it's reopening in November, 2002 with the Sheppard subway opening, Wilson provided the vehicles for the operation of the Yonge-University-Spadina subway.

Additional vehicles were provided from Wilson when Downsview Station opened on March 31, 1996.

With the 1995 onward arrival of the Bombardier subway cars, Wilson now operates a mix of H-5 (5670-5807) and T-1 (5000-5371) cars for the Yonge-University-Spadina subway lines.

Wilson Yards Image Archive

	Wilson Yard can be seen from trains passing between Wilson and Downsview stations. Here, we see a covered bridge taking TTC workers from the yard offices (offscreen, left) to a narrow platform where they can pick up their trains.
	North of the shops building, a large staging area can be seen. Wilson Yards handles most of the subway trains operating on the Yonge-University-Spadina line these days.
	Before the extension to Downsview station, this tailtrack was the only part of Wilson Yard that could be seen from the public areas of the TTC (in this case, the now unused North Bus Terminal of Wilson station). The track, extending south of the yard, was used to move cars around while setting up trains.
	This picture nicely illustrates the dual use of the Wilson Complex. This photo, by Michael Boone, looks northwest across the yard.

Sources

• Boutilier, Robert, Bus Maintenance and Shop booklet, T.T.C., 1999.
• T.T.C. History Cards, City of Toronto Archives.
• T.T.C. Photo Collection, City of Toronto Archives.