As a holiday present for my faithful readers, a selection of photos taken at nights on the streets of Toronto.

This set begins in 1967 and runs through to early 1972. During this period, a friend and I spent a lot of time chasing works equipment to various track projects around town. Standard M.O.: sit opposite Hillcrest gate waiting for the work cars to depart, follow them on their way, and set up for photos when they stayed put long enough.

Many of the PCC photos are from all-night charters, yes, I admit it, “fantrips” where a bunch of rail buffs of dubious sanity would not only stay up all night riding a streetcar and photographing it, but would charter a car for the purpose. Professionals have words for such people, and these tend to be dismissive at best suggesting that the “foamers” are unfit to comment on transit policy. I won’t say anything about the competence of those making such remarks beyond noting that I have a blog now, four decades on, and they don’t.