Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

They were not windows. Just openings. And IIRC the panels were installed partly for noise, but mostly to keep the elements out and reduce maintenance.
That's not quite what they were for or how it all went.

Once it was realised that the subway was not going to use the bridge carrying Bloor over the Rosedale Ravine, a number of designs were floated about for a new bridge carrying the subway tracks across the valley, all of them completely open.

The residents of Rosedale were not enthused, and requested that the TTC enclose the tunnel, so that their homes were not disturbed by the noise of passing trains. And, because it was Rosedale, the TTC relented and built a mostly-enclosed tunnel with just the openings in the roof for ventilation.

Fast forward 50 years, and the TTC is busy upgrading the ventilation system throughout the subway. It was very quickly realised that those openings were a very serious liability to any upgraded ventilation system, as they would allow oxygen to continue to flood into the tunnels in the event of a fire. So it was decided to seal the openings, and from a ventilation standpoint the bridge is now just another section of tunnel.

Dan
 
I can't picture where this creek is. Happy to see a location if anyone knows where it is.

Tweet from OL:

Introducing the largest tunnel on the Ontario Line (so far)! It's 15 metres deep, 94 metres long and 1.5 metres in diameter. This tiny tunnel was dug using a microTBM to create a sewer overflow culvert - or drainage pipe - under the CP rail corridor near Wamsley Brook.

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Today from the Leaside bridge. Don Valley Crossing Bridge (DVCB, that presser last week was good for something!) future portal site

Portal
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DVCB future crane site, with no discernable change
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And finally the works on the north side of the valley
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Edit: typo
 
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Thorncliffe Park area around here or so https://maps.app.goo.gl/CXqxdRMaojXegQzX8

Helpful perspective here of the location.


Our first Ontario Line tunnel is now complete!

Using a micro-Tunnel Boring Machine (mTBM), the Connect 6ix team dug a new tunnel underneath the CP tracks near the Leaside Business Park in Thorncliffe Park to replace a nearly century-old culvert. That culvert has been doing the job in the area, flowing water into Walmsley Brook, but is at the end of its functional life. The new culvert will help protect the site from the next century of rain and storms.

Here’s the work, by the numbers:

Depth of tunnel: up to 15 metres below ground level
Length of new tunnel being built for the culvert: 94 metres
Length of each section of tunnel: 3 metres
Diameter of each section of tunnel: 1.5 metres
Weight of each section of tunnel: 7100 kg
Trains passing over the construction work: 6-8 per day
Number of monitoring instruments installed to track any movement of the CP tracks above the tunnelling work: 88
Amount of movement shown on the CP tracks: 0 mm
Length of mTBM machine: 5 metres

The team constructed a launch shaft, lowered the mTBM into it, and started the tunnel excavation. As the mTBM advanced, three-metre concrete pipe segments were lowered into place by a crane and pushed into position in the tunnel by hydraulic jacks. The pipes were joined by rubber gaskets and the compression of the pipe jacking, extending the culvert pipe the full 94-metre length to the extraction shaft, where the mTBM was removed.

This trenchless method minimizes surface disruption, making it ideal for tunnelling below the rail corridor. A great piece of engineering to make the Ontario Line ready for the future.
NGE Canada Hitachi Rail Plenary Americas Transdev Webuild #OntarioLine

(more pictures in the post; just posting the pictures that show a new perspective)

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Helpful perspective here of the location.




(more pictures in the post; just posting the pictures that show a new perspective)

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Didn’t one of these get lost underground at Jane and Bloor and it took a few million dollars to retrieve it?
 

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