While having dinner at Acadia (50C Clinton Street) recently, I remarked to owner Scott Selland that the amuse of pickled eggs, confit potatoes and bits of greens and okra reminded me of the beach. I don’t think he really got the correlation, and I’m sure I didn’t explain it well, it was just one of those neuron-firing events where something pulled up images of something else within my brain. So I dug up some photos to see if I could explain it visually.
I seldom sit at the front of the bus or streetcar. Part of it may still stem from a rebellious youth where the cool kids all gravitated to the back of the bus, although it’s likely more from an innate politeness, since the front seats are generally meant to be reserved or given up to elderly or infirm passengers.
So it was an atypical decision the other day when I got on the streetcar and took the seat two spots behind the driver. I looked down and there was sand all over the floor.
While Torontonians are devoted to their Red Rocket, the things are not particularly modern in design. To create extra traction for the brakes, each vehicle distributes sand onto the tracks as it drives along. The sand is located in a large box underneath the seat directly behind the driver. It is kept in large storage boxes at the turning loops at the ends of the line, where the driver scoops up a bucket of sand, then brings it onboard and lifts up the seat to dump it into the holder. The driver has a lever that will open the sand container from the bottom, allowing them to distribute the sand in small quantities, not dump huge mountains of it in the middle of the road.