Man buys legacy Toronto streetcar to preserve on his Ontario farm

A young man just bought the last available legacy TTC streetcar to preserve on his family’s farm.

Alex Glista, a recent grad of Dalhousie’s urban planning program, brought the iconic red CLRV streetcar home to his family’s property in Priceville, Ontario this week.

“I’m thrilled to have saved CLRV 4187 from the scrap heap!” Glista tweeted.

Welcome home, CLRV 4187! pic.twitter.com/KFHI5Stmv7

— Alex Glista (@AlexanderGlista) August 1, 2020

• See also:
  • TTC’s legacy streetcars making their last run this weekend
  • A railway museum in the US bought one of Toronto’s CLRV streetcars
  • Someone created a cross-stitched TTC legacy streetcar (PHOTO)

TTC spokesperson Stuart Green congratulated Glista on securing the final streetcar, saying it will function as a “monument to our transit past.”

#TTC CLRV 4187 makes its final trip to a farm in Priceville, ON where it will live as a monument to our transit past. Congrats to @AlexanderGlista on securing this piece of history. This is the last CLRV to leave Toronto. We’ll keep two for posterity and use two as work cars. pic.twitter.com/pmMg9080d5

— TTCStuart (@TTCStuart) July 31, 2020

This was the final legacy streetcar to be sold. The TTC is keeping four of them to honour memory of the vehicles that shuttled Torontonians around the city for more than four decades. Two of those four will also be used as work cars, Green said.

Malcolm MacPherson, the TTC’s Chief Supervisor, shared photos of the heritage car being loaded onto a massive truck to make the two-hour journey to Priceville.

“Safe and sound and its new home,” MacPherson tweeted, with the streetcar settled in at Glista’s farm as the sun set on July 31.

Safe and sound at its new home. pic.twitter.com/L8QxyXPKPr

— Malcolm M (@TTC146Eminem) August 1, 2020