Toronto Union Station Revitalization | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto | NORR

[Richard White]

So this image was posted by Shawn Micallef on Twitter earlier this evening.

Any ideas as to what they are using to clean with? At first I thought they were shampooing the walls...

 

[innsertnamehere]

Lazer cleaner likely. Burns the upper layer of the limestone off, leaving clean limestone behind. Works similar on steel for removing surface rust.

 

[Richard White]

Lazer cleaner likely. Burns the upper layer of the limestone off, leaving clean limestone behind. Works similar on steel for removing surface rust.

I doubt laser cleaning would require or produce massive amounts of white (presumably cleaning) materials. My understanding is that laser cleaning burns it off clean.

If this is laser cleaning it is obviously being treated with some sort of a solution

 

[steveintoronto]

Any ideas as to what they are using to clean with? At first I thought they were shampooing the walls...

My understanding is that laser cleaning burns it off clean.

Burning would leave it black or highly discoloured. It must be hot enough and of the right wavelength and focus to *vapourize* the accumulated material (much of it metal in many forms, mostly oxide). How specific can laser removal be? It can remove tattoos on human skin, and leave only the slightest of burns, like a mild sunburn, and leave the skin as clear as it was before the tattoo was applied.

 

[DSC]

I doubt laser cleaning would require or produce massive amounts of white (presumably cleaning) materials. My understanding is that laser cleaning burns it off clean.

If this is laser cleaning it is obviously being treated with some sort of a solution

And few pages back someone (Interchange?) posted an amazing video of laser cleaning of the Parliament building in Ottawa. They seem to be doing same here. The video is worth looking at and does not seem to involve any solutions.

UPDATE: Here it is: http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/citepa...habilitation/parlement-parliamentary-eng.html

 

[steveintoronto]

And few pages back someone (Interchange?) posted an amazing video of laser cleaning of the Parliament building in Ottawa. They seem to be doing same here. The video is worth looking at and does not seem to involve any solutions.

That's not laser cleaning. It's most likely a poultice or gel being applied: (it might be post laser to correct and stabilize the yellowing of laser cleaning)
http://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/poultices/poultice.htm

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Interior of dug down Bay Concourse, by Katia Osokine:

https://twitter.com/katiaosokine/status/841459260227756034

AoD

 

[crs1026]

So very cool

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...rough-torontos-union-station/article34294467/

- Paul

 

[Richard White]

So very cool

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...rough-torontos-union-station/article34294467/

- Paul

I work as a volunteer at the Toronto Railway Museum, we actually have one of these in our collection albeit a little smaller and not controlling anything. They are impressive devices but for obvious reasons we have to keep the lower half of it behind Plexi otherwise someone would pinch their fingers.

I love the one we have but I am glad they are phasing it out. Computerisation is far better with these sorts of things.

 

[innsertnamehere]

^yup. As cool as it is, it is ultimately a machine that has a far better replacement to do the same job.

 

[crs1026]

You can't beat progress - but it's impressive just how technically complex the original machine was, considering when it was designed.

There are aspects of digital logic that were figured out decades before the computer, and while the new equipment is electronic and much more programmable, the underlying principles are still the same.

- Paul

 

[Ross W]

I work as a volunteer at the Toronto Railway Museum, we actually have one of these in our collection albeit a little smaller and not controlling anything. They are impressive devices but for obvious reasons we have to keep the lower half of it behind Plexi otherwise someone would pinch their fingers.

I love the one we have but I am glad they are phasing it out. Computerisation is far better with these sorts of things.

A friend of mine's father retired years ago from CPR. He had collected several VHS tapes of all types of trains,steam,diesel,rail lines etc. One tape was the operations of the Toronto Terminal Railway dated 1997,but there were clips showing before that like when freight was still going through the station.It shows the operation of the three control stations that operate the switches and signals and how they work.
My friend gave me about 25 tapes,as he had to start clearing his father's house,as it had to be sold due to that he was in a nursing home.
I bought an Elgato VHS to USB to capture the videos,then saved them all on to a 32gb Sandisk Extreme card.I have a card slot on the side of my TV that I plug it into,and all videos play as good as the tapes did,if not better.

 

[animatronic]

A friend of mine's father retired years ago from CPR. He had collected several VHS tapes of all types of trains,steam,diesel,rail lines etc. One tape was the operations of the Toronto Terminal Railway dated 1997,but there were clips showing before that like when freight was still going through the station.It shows the operation of the three control stations that operate the switches and signals and how they work.
My friend gave me about 25 tapes,as he had to start clearing his father's house,as it had to be sold due to that he was in a nursing home.
I bought an Elgato VHS to USB to capture the videos,then saved them all on to a 32gb Sandisk Extreme card.I have a card slot on the side of my TV that I plug it into,and all videos play as good as the tapes did,if not better.

Put them on YouTube! They'd probably be popular with foamers. The train museum might also want them.

 

[mdrejhon]

^yup. As cool as it is, it is ultimately a machine that has a far better replacement to do the same job.

Fantastic engineering marvel for its time, that even computers of the 80s couldn't yet be quite trusted with.

This machine needs to be preserved somewhere in one of our Top museums.

We should have a well known historian photographer/videographer film these machines with a 4K (or 8K!) camera while they are still on their final days of operations -- then bring the whole thing to a museum, with the videos playing on a big projector in the background. The track board and lights flashing too, in sync with what's going on in the nearby big screen. While people walk around and crawl through the machine...(maybe plexiglas for the inside "tunnel" of the big machine, for safey). Fun for our kids!

If Toronto can't afford to take it in full preservation, perhaps the revitalized Museum of Science and Technology in Ottawa? They are doing an $80M overhaul there, gut-renos, redone exhibit space, and getting a fancy new facade. They have a mega train exhibit and probably would gladly make space for an entire unmodified Union train control space, with preservation in entierety. Donors would very gladly help out, I am sure.

 

[Freddy]

Any updates on the Bay Concourse? The interiors i mean. The most recent I found were from August 2016.