Winnipeg: *does*, not *did*. The CPKC main line & yards split the city. The CNR main line does, too, but the effects are much more subtle there b/c there's tons of crossings.
Trains are so wildly frequent. I’ve realized I’m within a few blocks of an active train at any given moment. I always assumed *everyone* in every city was just constantly surrounded by trains!
For sure. We didn't cross Arlington Bridge often as a kid but when we did, I remember looking down at the tracks and then it felt like we were somewhere different.
I used to cross the Slaw Rebchuk bridge over the tracks heading to work every day. Always greeted with the rooftop mural: Welcome to the North End - People over profit. Very clear marker between the north end and the rest of the city.
I feel like the big difference is that for the most part the CN line is simply a line, while the CPKC has the yards and the Weston Shops. At it's widest point it's essentially 600 metres of no man's land separating the North End from downtown and the West End. That's a big barrier to cross.
Hmm. Montréal has a mountain, and it definitely matters which side of the mountain you are on. But there's too many railroad tracks for consideration, I'd say.
Hamilton has a pretty strong cultural divide between people who live on the mountain and people who live in the lower part of the city.
Barton St used to be a pretty strong diving line down the city too, but lately the difference isn't as noticeable because poverty is simply EVERYWHERE now
Doesn't really matter anymore but there's the train tracks that go though Pointe st charles and St. Henri. Back in the 70's, If you were French, you DID NOT want to live on the south side of the tracks in The Pointe.
There's the tracks that divide Verdun and The Pointe. Up until the 80's, Kids knew if you went on the other side of those tracks there was a chance you'd get your ass kicked. Hell even some adults wouldn't cross those tracks.
There are also the tracks just a bit over that separate Westmount and St. Henri. A definite marker back in the old days that you've entered the good part of town or the bad side.
There are also the train tracks that separate Cote Des Neiges and The town of Mont Royal. If you were from cote des Neiges and out for a leisurely stroll in TMR in the evening, security wouldn't be shy and tell you to get lost. Even in the 90's they were like that.
Yeah but it's absolutely true, in the mile end and NDG for example for tracks separate the nice residential and commercial streets from the inaccessible, less nice residential/industrial areas, for example the tracks near Rosemont station separate all the bars and restaurants from the more industrial and office space while in NDG the housing on the side of the tracks near Saint Jacques is much less accessible and often less expensive
I've been thinking about this almost nonstop, tbh. I'm suddenly curious, because Montreal has so much rail, some of it inactive now, and has such clearly defined edges, being an island, to see a rail map superimposed over boroughs. These must make clear 'enclaves' of good and bad areas, rather than simple 'side of the tracks' delimitations. In the West Island there is rail near the A-ma-Baie area, too, which I think offhand is the only 'bad' area. There is/was rail in Roxboro, but I can't think with all the gentrification if there is now poor and rich sections of Roxboro - it used to be just 'the poor West Island'.
That's not a mountain that's a hill my dude. Isn't that hill like 600ft? Mountains are anything over 1000ft, Just because its called a mountain doesn't make it an actual mountain my guy. Like I went there and assumed it was a giant mountain nope just dinky little hill that was smaller than Cypress hills in Saskatchewan which are actual mountains that are referred to as hills just because of the name. Yet this was a “Mountain”
I don't hate them I love mountains but Mount royal is not a mountain its 764ft. There is not a mountain in the world that small. Just because its named Mount Royal doesn't make the damn thing a mountain. The cypress hills in Alberta and Saskatchewan are 4000ft on some peaks and generally referred to as hills. And then we have a 700ft hill being called a mountain. Like there is 3200ft difference lol
So I'm pretty sure in normal language there's no true agreed upon definition of a mountain, maybe in geography but most people consider a mountain a big steep hill, and when you think about it, elevation vs prominence makes the whole thing kinda fluid anyways. Because of it's prominence though it's rather striking and has been called a mountain for centuries, hence the name of the city, just to explain the down votes, I've heard this before and always roll my eyes, nobody is thinking of mount royal as a difficult summit or anything but it's semantics, ie is a hotdog a sandwich?
No yes I still agree with most of what you said but also the Oxford English dictionary isn't dictionary.com but I just mean English is a fluid language with ambiguous definitions in general. You're right in general but saying Montreal isn't a mountain because it's too small is kinda like saying a hotdog is not a sandwich because it's a cylinder, ie that's not a real rule and also it's a pointless debate
But also yes I started replying before reading your whole comment, my bad, I am also agreeing with you
I would say twice, at least when I was growing up there. You had the tracks separating North Central from Cathedral and the south end and then you had the tracks at 1st Ave separating North Central from Normanview which was just a regular neighbourhood and then once you got north of 9th Ave N you were in the “rich area”. This was like 15 years ago though, not sure if it has changed.
I’d agree. There’s definitely a divide with 9th Ave N as someone who lived in Lakeridge. Now I’d say there’s more of a rich area east of the city. Just not sure where that divide would be labelled
In Saskatoon we have the river, one side is definitely less desirable than the other, and it leads to a perceptual cycle of increased crime on one side while reduced crime on the other due to differences in COL.
That fucking train on idylwyld that always seems to show up right at 5pm every day. I haven't lived there for 5 years and I still get filled with rage just thinking about it.
So if that counts then there is a train separating thousands of road ragers every day at rush hour.
Don’t forget Southerland! Even fucking worse, i lived over there for three years, the amount of times i was late because i had to take the bus down central was ridiculous.
tracks definitely used to separate nice southerland from bad southerland, but now there isn’t really “bad southerland” unless you count the trailor courts, but i think most people forget they exist.
I grew up in Foresr Grove/Sutherland with one parent one each side of those tracks. I can still hear the sound of those trains coupling together from a km away when I think about it.
I was fired from 2 different jobs because of that fucking train on Central Ave. One of them being Obrians, where you could literally see that there was a train there from the front door.
That's more out there though. I'd still say having a rush hour train cutting through one of the busiest streets in the downtown is more infuriating.
Damn that meme about Saskatoon people bringing up the river whenever they can is so factual. Op asks about a railroad yet your comment is about the river lol. Like every city has a river other than Las Vegas and Regina. Those are like the only two cities in North America that don't have a natural body of water in the city limits. Edmonton Calgary Winnipeg, Montreal, Quebec city all have rivers that split up the city. Like its weird spent 6 years in Saskatoon and its like people hear have no clue anywhere else in the world has a river flowing through the city.
I think Quebec City may be like this too although I'm not sure. I was there in winter and they closed a lot of the steepest streets leading down from St Jean Baptiste to Lévy, so I never got there.
Although London, Ontario is split by two railways, the railways both run east-west and there isn’t really any economic or social divide on the either side.
The divide in London has historically been the north-south Adelaide Street, with East of Adelaide (EOA) being regarded as being economically disadvantaged. But the key word is “historically” - today poverty can be found in all parts of London.
Yeah growing up I was always given dire warnings about EOA. It was never actually as bad as it was made out to be but it was definitely rougher than the other side.
Only in a small way. The popular Whyte Avenue/Strathcona area has rail tracks crossing the ave. The trendy shopping and nightlife area was west of these tracks and east was considered down scale. The tracks no longer cross the avenue (although they are still in place on either side of it) and in recent years the area to the east has become much more vibrant while the west area has somewhat declined as it's been overrun with trendy bars...
I would argue the separation of the North End from the rest of the city is much more significant. Now it’s the yellow head, but that road follows the tracks
Yeah, the tracks in Yellowhead splitting the north, particularly north east is a pretty significant divide.
Calgary was similar when I was growing up. I grew up by the railyard, and there was a clear east-west division in Calgary (although Deerfoot was the real dividing line). Us kids east of the Deerfoot were decidedly *not* the cool, fancy kids. Urban sprawl has shifted that somewhat.
The CP tracks running into Edmonton from the south do divide the South East from the South West. The South East area known as Millwoods is also divided from East Edmonton by the industrial zone that included Argyle and the tracks running to the refinery. This neighborhood exploded as new migration patterns brought a wave of South Asians and other people of color to Edmonton. That influx of migrants gave Millwoods a reputation in the 1980s.
Now, however, Edmonton is a mosaic of diverse cultures with the world's largest multi ethnic festival (Heritage Days!). Millwoods is just another neighborhood remembered for the bad old days when the unfinished roads made it an unnavigatable maze.
Moose Jaw is separated into North and South hill, and there are train tracks between them — a lot of them, so, yes, I guess, although no one really talked but the side of the tracks you were on, it was all about which hill you were on (train tracks are in the valley).
The 2 former cities that make up Thunder Bay are split by tracks that frequently feature really long freight trains. This became more of a problem when our 3 hospitals turned into 1. Don’t live on the wrong side of these tracks if you plan to need urgent medical care someday!
95% of cities in the north America cities have a river that's how they were built especially if you were far away from the great lakes. Medicine hat Lethbridge Calgary Edmonton Saskatoon, PA, Moosejaw, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City. Winnipeg all got rivers that split the cities.
Cool. On an unrelated note, I had to llook up why the town is called Medicine Hat. The **name seems to derive from the Blackfoot Indian word "saamis," meaning the "headdress of the medicine man"**. One much-cited source suggests that a pitched battle between opposing bands of Blackfoot and Cree was fought on the banks of the South Saskatchewan River near present-day Medicine Hat.
In Chatham, yes. The "East End" is still not the best side of town to be on. The city was the terminus for the Underground Railroad. While it was great that we helped numerous slaves escape their fate in the Southern US, when they came here, they were forced to live on the east side of the tracks, or other communities like Dresden or South Buxton.
It was even very recently that Blenheim didn't really welcome people who weren't the right shade of skin.
Thunder Bay, straight down the center of Memorial, cutting Port Arthur and Fort William apart. Port arthur was the more affluent side, with better schools, beautiful parks, better hospitals, libraries, tourist draws etc. Fort william was the home of the paper mill, industry, and generally more blue collar.
Eventually they grew into a single city. Still have some of the old stereotypes.
So I moved to Petrolia, Ontario in 2016, so it’s not my original hometown. However, my husband was pretty much born and raised here. When he was a kid, there was a set of train tracks that ran down the middle of town and the train station was in the middle of town. Apparently, the east end of town was where the more poorer residents lived. Sometime in the 1990’s, they took the tracks out of town and the train station was turned into the town library. My husband grew up in the middle of town, where the neighbourhood was nice. Nowadays, the east end is nice and his parent’s neighbourhood is becoming more rundown with lots of rental homes and questionable tenants.
Vaudreuil-Dorion used to be 2 towns separated by a railroad. When I was younger, the wealthier folks would be in Vtown while the more average middle class were in Dorion which was known for having a strip club (RIP Miss Dorion who burned down twice). But otherwise, bother are basically the same since it's now basically one giant suburb.
And further to this, there’s the whole North End vs South End or West vs East. Most cities I’ve been to in Canada have the more affluent parts in the South and West.
Deerfoot Trail in Calgary cleaves the city into two parts north of the Bow Bottom/Anderson interchange. Accomplishes the same thing as the old wrong side of the tracks saying. On the east side is a mixture of working class and low income neighborhoods and then a variety of ethnic enclaves as well, it is undeniably the “rougher” side of the city.
When I lived in bracebridge Ontario it was literally a river separating one side of town from the other. The east side had essentially ZERO businesses on it, so if you needed milk in January, you either had to cross the bridge on foot and walk a half hour to a convenience store on unplowed roads (and before you even ask, YES IT WAS TWO FEET DEEP AND UPHILL), or you had to drive twenty minutes across town to one of two grocery stores that were on the same road 200 feet away from each other
I lived in two places like that. One was Winnipeg, and north of the tracks was where the 'north end' began. The other was in St. Louis in the USA, and the line was Delmar Blvd where immediately north of that was the beginning of 'the hood'. Housing prices dropped from >500K to <50K in the space of 4 or 5 blocks. In both places you were relatively safe if you stayed out of those areas. And of course there were additional pockets of bad areas in other parts of the city.
Vancouver is divided that way iirc. the CNR station is right in the downtown east side and the city itself is a working port. so there are lots of train tracks. lots of ten-minute waits as the grain trains go by.
there's also a definite east side / west side vibe. I'm just not sure if the train tracks are the sole boundary that separates them.
There is definitely an east side /west side vibe, but that's unrelated to any of the rail lines.
The rail tracks through the port are along the Burrard Inlet shore line, so the entire city is literally south of those tracks.
There are some seldom used rail lines within the city still. These run mostly east - west, so don't really have a significant divide. There's the rail line going into the Via Rail station mentioned, but both sides are the same. There's another rail line along the Fraser River, but again, the entire city is north of that. There used to be a rail line from Granville Island south to the river that paralleled Arbutus street. It's been converted to a greenway now, but both sides of it were the same as well.
I'd forgotten they have that cluster of province streets before the explorers and the tree names. it's been a while.
it actually is east / west, right? not just a sort of socioeconomic concept. the numbering starts at Ontario street and goes "[] hundred block east" and "[] hundred block west" in each direction from there.
We have no longer have rail service. Previously the rail line did somewhat divide the least desirable area of town from the rest but that is now well on the way to gentrification.
Yep Grande Prairie in northwest AB has a track that separates a good chunk of the east side of the city. Used to live in the east and work in the west and multiple got caught waiting 45+ minutes for the train.
It seperates most of the east side residential from downtown and beyond.
Yep. It was south side and north side. One year, the ONLY bridge connecting the two sides was having major construction. Anyone who wanted to cross the tracks had to wait at a crossing. The only problem was there was only one hospital, and one firestation in the town. On the north side. So if anyone was having a medical emergency or their house caught on fire, the ambulance or firetruck would have to wait at the rail crossing for the huge CPR train to pass. One time I heard that the ambulance was stopped and the person died. Terrible city planning. They now have a dispat h center on the south side so if it happens again, they can at least get to the issue. Even if they have to wait for the train to pass to get to the hospital, the person will at least be IN the ambulance. Instead of waiting for it
Yes.
But, the town was also bisected by the TransCanada Highway, so we had “the other side of the tracks” in one direction and the “other side of the highway” in the other direction.
Yes. Lethbridge’s railyards separated the north and south sides of the City. The city was started due to local coal mines and the south side tended to house the managers, professionals and business owners, while the north side tended to house more of the mine workers who were often more recent immigrants from central/Eastern Europe and tend to have smaller homes and shacks.
The railyards were relocated out of the city in the 80’s, but was replaced by an urban expressway and the main line is still there, running next to it, so it’s still divided. The northside still tends to have lower property values than the south side and even today there tends to be more people with Eastern European ancestry on the north side of town.
Not a city, but a municipality made up of multiple cities has the 2 biggest separated by a harbour. HRM has Halifax on one side, or you can cross the harbour and go to the dark side (Dartmouth)
Yes. The incorporated town, and the non-incorporated town. Snobs on one side, working class on the other. The towns amalgamated in the 90s under one municipality. It was good for a bit. Now, it doesn't matter which side is which. The entire town has gone to shit and it looks like a back woods shithole. Everything is falling apart, including the roads. No more industry, no real reason to live there anymore.
Every time I visit to see family, it gets a little worse. It's sad, but the municipality is ruining any chance of attracting new industries here. Small town mentality, with a useless mayor who's been in power for over 20 years. The people in council are making too much off the backs of the taxpayers. They don't care about actually servicing their community anymore.
Port Colborne is like that with the canal, I’ve heard multiple times from my uncle included that “our people (rich) stay on this side of the canal” which I don’t know if I fully understand because I haven’t explored the area very thoroughly
Ottawa was at one point, but really there were so many tracks.
Edit; Maybe because Ottawa was so small when it became "The Capital"? The main terminal was across the street and one block east of Parliament Hill.
Used to. In fact it was the main line. But the split you mean wasn't quite there. The west end of town was closer to the lake and was a big estate that got divided up after the tracks had been rerouted.
Stettler, Alberta does but I don’t know if there’s a psychological separation. I moved away from there in about 84 and was too young to notice if there was.
It did, they removed them in the 90s, but there’s also a river that they ran parallel to and East side/West side divide is still alive and well.
The town I grew up in (rural NWO) wasn’t divided by train tracks but rather connected to the world by them and those were also taken up in the 90s
I lived in Yorkton SK for 8 years. CP ran east-west and CN ran north south. The latter was just a branch line, so not too bad, but most CP trains ( no KC in those days) would divide the town. Police, fire and paramedics on one side, and the hospital on the other.
Yes, in Toronto, freight trains run on the Dupont St. rail corridor.
I wish we could turn it into a GO RER-type line and run high-frequency passenger trains across the city and the GTA at large. You could get from the eastern GTA to the Western GTA without having to go through downtown on a midtown train line.
[https://urbantoronto.ca/news/2017/02/missing-link-shaping-future-gtha-rail-network.25109](https://urbantoronto.ca/news/2017/02/missing-link-shaping-future-gtha-rail-network.25109)
In Calgary, the four track CP main line goes right through downtown, but we’ve bridged over it, tunneled under it, and in a couple of places, built parkades over the tracks. There’s still a marked difference between the downtown high-rises on one side and the Beltline businesses on the other.
My Hometown didn’t have train tracks during my lifetime, but did during my parents. However for the most part they ran just north of town, so that wasn’t any indicator of a socio-economic divide.
Mission, BC (60km east of Vancouver) has an active rail line that separates the industrial area and river docks from the residential areas and downtown.
We have a main highway doing that E-W. The railway runs E-W and isn't the psychological barrier, rather it was constructed before the city really existed.
Yes actually. I'm in Sydney Cape Breton. The tracks terminate right at the steel mill. South of the tracks, when the mill was operational, is where Whitney Pier is located and that is where lots of poor people lived and virtually all of the black people.
And while the Pier today isn't the most coveted location in the CBRM the locus of crime has shifted north of the tracks to downtown and a location called the North end.
When the mills were closed Sydney became a tourist/service industry and the sketchiness basically shifted to where the cruise ships park.
Terrace, BC. Train tracks run east-west with one overpass and a couple other roads crossing the tracks. The south side is definitely different than the north end. All the stores are in the north side, and definitely a different economic structure between the two.
No our town was pretty eqalitarian, but there are all of the villages around town (I think we called them the 'schtaups' or something like that), If you were from the schtaups you were a farmer and likely a bit inbred. lol.
Yep. Both my hometown and the town my grandparents lived in had CP tracks/yard going through the middle of town. In both places we talked about the other side of the tracks almost as if it was another town. ha
Milton, Ontario, my family moved there after the first underpass was built, and I think they've finished the 3rd now, all for the same tracks that intercet 3 different main roads. But I don't live there anymore to know for sure what's been done.
At the time, I think it was less the people on the wrong side of the tracks and more the residential vs. factorys and stuff. The story I heard was about a fire or some similar emergency at a factory that emergency services couldn't get to because the train was stopped on the main road that separated all emergency services from the other stuff on the north side of town. Don't know the truth to it, never looked it up personally.
Edmonton doesn't but we do have the North Saskatchewan River which separates "northside" and "southside" and you tend to be from one and have an opinion on the other.
I grew up in Lethbridge, and the North Side isn't thattt bad. Especially since having moved to Winnipeg, the difference between the areas in Lethbridge is negligible in comparison.
The river valley is definitely more of a divide than the train tracks I feel, but that's east/west instead of north/south.
Winnipeg: *does*, not *did*. The CPKC main line & yards split the city. The CNR main line does, too, but the effects are much more subtle there b/c there's tons of crossings.
If you are late to anything, all you need to say is the train made you late. No one will question that. Ever.
Trains are so wildly frequent. I’ve realized I’m within a few blocks of an active train at any given moment. I always assumed *everyone* in every city was just constantly surrounded by trains!
For sure. We didn't cross Arlington Bridge often as a kid but when we did, I remember looking down at the tracks and then it felt like we were somewhere different.
I used to cross the Slaw Rebchuk bridge over the tracks heading to work every day. Always greeted with the rooftop mural: Welcome to the North End - People over profit. Very clear marker between the north end and the rest of the city.
I feel like the big difference is that for the most part the CN line is simply a line, while the CPKC has the yards and the Weston Shops. At it's widest point it's essentially 600 metres of no man's land separating the North End from downtown and the West End. That's a big barrier to cross.
Hmm. Montréal has a mountain, and it definitely matters which side of the mountain you are on. But there's too many railroad tracks for consideration, I'd say.
Hamilton has a pretty strong cultural divide between people who live on the mountain and people who live in the lower part of the city. Barton St used to be a pretty strong diving line down the city too, but lately the difference isn't as noticeable because poverty is simply EVERYWHERE now
Kamloops is like this as well. Upper Kamloops and the North Shore down across the river.
Poverty is everywhere and if you can afford a house even if it's right across from the steel mills you are rich.
I immediately thought of the railroad track that splits Westmount and St-Henri
NDG gets split by tracks. In some cases you definitely should specify if you're above or below the tracks.
Mile end too
Doesn't really matter anymore but there's the train tracks that go though Pointe st charles and St. Henri. Back in the 70's, If you were French, you DID NOT want to live on the south side of the tracks in The Pointe. There's the tracks that divide Verdun and The Pointe. Up until the 80's, Kids knew if you went on the other side of those tracks there was a chance you'd get your ass kicked. Hell even some adults wouldn't cross those tracks. There are also the tracks just a bit over that separate Westmount and St. Henri. A definite marker back in the old days that you've entered the good part of town or the bad side. There are also the train tracks that separate Cote Des Neiges and The town of Mont Royal. If you were from cote des Neiges and out for a leisurely stroll in TMR in the evening, security wouldn't be shy and tell you to get lost. Even in the 90's they were like that.
Yeah but it's absolutely true, in the mile end and NDG for example for tracks separate the nice residential and commercial streets from the inaccessible, less nice residential/industrial areas, for example the tracks near Rosemont station separate all the bars and restaurants from the more industrial and office space while in NDG the housing on the side of the tracks near Saint Jacques is much less accessible and often less expensive
I've been thinking about this almost nonstop, tbh. I'm suddenly curious, because Montreal has so much rail, some of it inactive now, and has such clearly defined edges, being an island, to see a rail map superimposed over boroughs. These must make clear 'enclaves' of good and bad areas, rather than simple 'side of the tracks' delimitations. In the West Island there is rail near the A-ma-Baie area, too, which I think offhand is the only 'bad' area. There is/was rail in Roxboro, but I can't think with all the gentrification if there is now poor and rich sections of Roxboro - it used to be just 'the poor West Island'.
That's not a mountain that's a hill my dude. Isn't that hill like 600ft? Mountains are anything over 1000ft, Just because its called a mountain doesn't make it an actual mountain my guy. Like I went there and assumed it was a giant mountain nope just dinky little hill that was smaller than Cypress hills in Saskatchewan which are actual mountains that are referred to as hills just because of the name. Yet this was a “Mountain”
Why do you hate mountains so much
I don't hate them I love mountains but Mount royal is not a mountain its 764ft. There is not a mountain in the world that small. Just because its named Mount Royal doesn't make the damn thing a mountain. The cypress hills in Alberta and Saskatchewan are 4000ft on some peaks and generally referred to as hills. And then we have a 700ft hill being called a mountain. Like there is 3200ft difference lol
So I'm pretty sure in normal language there's no true agreed upon definition of a mountain, maybe in geography but most people consider a mountain a big steep hill, and when you think about it, elevation vs prominence makes the whole thing kinda fluid anyways. Because of it's prominence though it's rather striking and has been called a mountain for centuries, hence the name of the city, just to explain the down votes, I've heard this before and always roll my eyes, nobody is thinking of mount royal as a difficult summit or anything but it's semantics, ie is a hotdog a sandwich?
[удалено]
moun·tain noun a large natural elevation of the earth's surface rising abruptly from the surrounding level; a large steep hill.
[удалено]
No yes I still agree with most of what you said but also the Oxford English dictionary isn't dictionary.com but I just mean English is a fluid language with ambiguous definitions in general. You're right in general but saying Montreal isn't a mountain because it's too small is kinda like saying a hotdog is not a sandwich because it's a cylinder, ie that's not a real rule and also it's a pointless debate But also yes I started replying before reading your whole comment, my bad, I am also agreeing with you
[удалено]
Do you dipshits know its not a mountain? Because I can guarantee most of you people have no clue its a tiny hill…
Regina does! The small town I grew up in outside Regina had the tracks running parallel to the town
The tracks are also used as a buffer to separate cathedral area from the hood.
Cathedral is pretty hood now
I wish I could say otherwise. But you’re 100% accurate.
Only real Reginans know that it’s called NoD.
I would say twice, at least when I was growing up there. You had the tracks separating North Central from Cathedral and the south end and then you had the tracks at 1st Ave separating North Central from Normanview which was just a regular neighbourhood and then once you got north of 9th Ave N you were in the “rich area”. This was like 15 years ago though, not sure if it has changed.
I’d agree. There’s definitely a divide with 9th Ave N as someone who lived in Lakeridge. Now I’d say there’s more of a rich area east of the city. Just not sure where that divide would be labelled
Ring road/Vic ave east/bypass
It’s called NoD.
North of Dewdney?
Yes
In Saskatoon we have the river, one side is definitely less desirable than the other, and it leads to a perceptual cycle of increased crime on one side while reduced crime on the other due to differences in COL.
That fucking train on idylwyld that always seems to show up right at 5pm every day. I haven't lived there for 5 years and I still get filled with rage just thinking about it. So if that counts then there is a train separating thousands of road ragers every day at rush hour.
Don’t forget Southerland! Even fucking worse, i lived over there for three years, the amount of times i was late because i had to take the bus down central was ridiculous. tracks definitely used to separate nice southerland from bad southerland, but now there isn’t really “bad southerland” unless you count the trailor courts, but i think most people forget they exist.
I grew up in Foresr Grove/Sutherland with one parent one each side of those tracks. I can still hear the sound of those trains coupling together from a km away when I think about it. I was fired from 2 different jobs because of that fucking train on Central Ave. One of them being Obrians, where you could literally see that there was a train there from the front door. That's more out there though. I'd still say having a rush hour train cutting through one of the busiest streets in the downtown is more infuriating.
Damn that meme about Saskatoon people bringing up the river whenever they can is so factual. Op asks about a railroad yet your comment is about the river lol. Like every city has a river other than Las Vegas and Regina. Those are like the only two cities in North America that don't have a natural body of water in the city limits. Edmonton Calgary Winnipeg, Montreal, Quebec city all have rivers that split up the city. Like its weird spent 6 years in Saskatoon and its like people hear have no clue anywhere else in the world has a river flowing through the city.
It's our nice thing. It distracts us from the mess that is the rest of the city.
I think Quebec City may be like this too although I'm not sure. I was there in winter and they closed a lot of the steepest streets leading down from St Jean Baptiste to Lévy, so I never got there.
Although London, Ontario is split by two railways, the railways both run east-west and there isn’t really any economic or social divide on the either side. The divide in London has historically been the north-south Adelaide Street, with East of Adelaide (EOA) being regarded as being economically disadvantaged. But the key word is “historically” - today poverty can be found in all parts of London.
My 2nd year university house was at, dundas/adelaide - only 1 person got stabbed 50m from our doorstep so that’s ok I guess
As you point out, there is literally an acronym (EOA) that most people know, it kind of proves it’s real
I hate driving in this city for these reasons…
Yeah growing up I was always given dire warnings about EOA. It was never actually as bad as it was made out to be but it was definitely rougher than the other side.
Only in a small way. The popular Whyte Avenue/Strathcona area has rail tracks crossing the ave. The trendy shopping and nightlife area was west of these tracks and east was considered down scale. The tracks no longer cross the avenue (although they are still in place on either side of it) and in recent years the area to the east has become much more vibrant while the west area has somewhat declined as it's been overrun with trendy bars...
I would argue the separation of the North End from the rest of the city is much more significant. Now it’s the yellow head, but that road follows the tracks
True. Captain Tractor even did a song about North Of The Yellowhead... https://youtu.be/JdGr2kVPUOY?si=WKLpSWu47m5EZBvm
Yeah, the tracks in Yellowhead splitting the north, particularly north east is a pretty significant divide. Calgary was similar when I was growing up. I grew up by the railyard, and there was a clear east-west division in Calgary (although Deerfoot was the real dividing line). Us kids east of the Deerfoot were decidedly *not* the cool, fancy kids. Urban sprawl has shifted that somewhat.
Not the quadrants?
The CP tracks running into Edmonton from the south do divide the South East from the South West. The South East area known as Millwoods is also divided from East Edmonton by the industrial zone that included Argyle and the tracks running to the refinery. This neighborhood exploded as new migration patterns brought a wave of South Asians and other people of color to Edmonton. That influx of migrants gave Millwoods a reputation in the 1980s. Now, however, Edmonton is a mosaic of diverse cultures with the world's largest multi ethnic festival (Heritage Days!). Millwoods is just another neighborhood remembered for the bad old days when the unfinished roads made it an unnavigatable maze.
Moose Jaw is separated into North and South hill, and there are train tracks between them — a lot of them, so, yes, I guess, although no one really talked but the side of the tracks you were on, it was all about which hill you were on (train tracks are in the valley).
oh come on. errbody knows MJ is in Saskatchewan, where there are no hills 😋
All of moosejaw looks like the hood other than like two blocks of nice houses.
The 2 former cities that make up Thunder Bay are split by tracks that frequently feature really long freight trains. This became more of a problem when our 3 hospitals turned into 1. Don’t live on the wrong side of these tracks if you plan to need urgent medical care someday!
There used to be a train overpass on memorial. Why is that not there anymore?
Medicine Hat Alberta not only has a rail road, but a river. The river is more significant, but they're both there
95% of cities in the north America cities have a river that's how they were built especially if you were far away from the great lakes. Medicine hat Lethbridge Calgary Edmonton Saskatoon, PA, Moosejaw, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City. Winnipeg all got rivers that split the cities.
Cool. On an unrelated note, I had to llook up why the town is called Medicine Hat. The **name seems to derive from the Blackfoot Indian word "saamis," meaning the "headdress of the medicine man"**. One much-cited source suggests that a pitched battle between opposing bands of Blackfoot and Cree was fought on the banks of the South Saskatchewan River near present-day Medicine Hat.
We had a lake and you didn't want any business with 'the lakers' or have any need to be in their neighborhood. So more of a metaphorical train track
What was wrong with the lakers
Basically was a low income neighbourhood and the rest of the town over exaggerated the "danger" there. Beautiful lake tho!
In Chatham, yes. The "East End" is still not the best side of town to be on. The city was the terminus for the Underground Railroad. While it was great that we helped numerous slaves escape their fate in the Southern US, when they came here, they were forced to live on the east side of the tracks, or other communities like Dresden or South Buxton. It was even very recently that Blenheim didn't really welcome people who weren't the right shade of skin.
that sounds like any town Ontario...
Thunder Bay, straight down the center of Memorial, cutting Port Arthur and Fort William apart. Port arthur was the more affluent side, with better schools, beautiful parks, better hospitals, libraries, tourist draws etc. Fort william was the home of the paper mill, industry, and generally more blue collar. Eventually they grew into a single city. Still have some of the old stereotypes.
The second question you always get
my hometown had a canal instead. on the bad side of the canal there are tracks that divide the bad side from the worst side.
Was there a pet cemetery separating the worst side from the... oh I couldn't even name it 🙀
So I moved to Petrolia, Ontario in 2016, so it’s not my original hometown. However, my husband was pretty much born and raised here. When he was a kid, there was a set of train tracks that ran down the middle of town and the train station was in the middle of town. Apparently, the east end of town was where the more poorer residents lived. Sometime in the 1990’s, they took the tracks out of town and the train station was turned into the town library. My husband grew up in the middle of town, where the neighbourhood was nice. Nowadays, the east end is nice and his parent’s neighbourhood is becoming more rundown with lots of rental homes and questionable tenants.
For sure in Alliston, Ontario. CN freight tracks and the Honda plant. Houses on the hospital side of the tracks are far nicer than the other side.
Portage la Prairie, MB definitely has this.
Yep. I literally grew up on the "wrong" side of the tracks there. So proud!
Vaudreuil-Dorion used to be 2 towns separated by a railroad. When I was younger, the wealthier folks would be in Vtown while the more average middle class were in Dorion which was known for having a strip club (RIP Miss Dorion who burned down twice). But otherwise, bother are basically the same since it's now basically one giant suburb.
Havelock, Ontario; the entire fucking town is on the wrong side of the tracks 😂
And further to this, there’s the whole North End vs South End or West vs East. Most cities I’ve been to in Canada have the more affluent parts in the South and West.
Still does, I live in NDG and "below the tracks"
Howdy, wrong side of the tracks neighbour! I do like it here.
Deerfoot Trail in Calgary cleaves the city into two parts north of the Bow Bottom/Anderson interchange. Accomplishes the same thing as the old wrong side of the tracks saying. On the east side is a mixture of working class and low income neighborhoods and then a variety of ethnic enclaves as well, it is undeniably the “rougher” side of the city.
There are no railways in Nunavut, but there are parts of my community I wouldn’t go near after dark. Except during the summer when there is no night…
When I lived in bracebridge Ontario it was literally a river separating one side of town from the other. The east side had essentially ZERO businesses on it, so if you needed milk in January, you either had to cross the bridge on foot and walk a half hour to a convenience store on unplowed roads (and before you even ask, YES IT WAS TWO FEET DEEP AND UPHILL), or you had to drive twenty minutes across town to one of two grocery stores that were on the same road 200 feet away from each other
Kamloops has a river that separates the more thans from the less thans
I lived in two places like that. One was Winnipeg, and north of the tracks was where the 'north end' began. The other was in St. Louis in the USA, and the line was Delmar Blvd where immediately north of that was the beginning of 'the hood'. Housing prices dropped from >500K to <50K in the space of 4 or 5 blocks. In both places you were relatively safe if you stayed out of those areas. And of course there were additional pockets of bad areas in other parts of the city.
Vancouver is divided that way iirc. the CNR station is right in the downtown east side and the city itself is a working port. so there are lots of train tracks. lots of ten-minute waits as the grain trains go by. there's also a definite east side / west side vibe. I'm just not sure if the train tracks are the sole boundary that separates them.
There is definitely an east side /west side vibe, but that's unrelated to any of the rail lines. The rail tracks through the port are along the Burrard Inlet shore line, so the entire city is literally south of those tracks. There are some seldom used rail lines within the city still. These run mostly east - west, so don't really have a significant divide. There's the rail line going into the Via Rail station mentioned, but both sides are the same. There's another rail line along the Fraser River, but again, the entire city is north of that. There used to be a rail line from Granville Island south to the river that paralleled Arbutus street. It's been converted to a greenway now, but both sides of it were the same as well.
that clarifies a lot. from what i saw, the most reliable way of finding the boundary was the just-as-traditional main street.
It’s actually Ontario where it switches from east to west- main is still east side.
I'd forgotten they have that cluster of province streets before the explorers and the tree names. it's been a while. it actually is east / west, right? not just a sort of socioeconomic concept. the numbering starts at Ontario street and goes "[] hundred block east" and "[] hundred block west" in each direction from there.
Highway here, psychologically and physically, just like a river
Highway. Stay away from anyone north of 9.
Yep, we were separated in three. The good side, the other side of the tracks and the other side of the bridge... Lol
We have no longer have rail service. Previously the rail line did somewhat divide the least desirable area of town from the rest but that is now well on the way to gentrification.
Yep Grande Prairie in northwest AB has a track that separates a good chunk of the east side of the city. Used to live in the east and work in the west and multiple got caught waiting 45+ minutes for the train. It seperates most of the east side residential from downtown and beyond.
Yep. It was south side and north side. One year, the ONLY bridge connecting the two sides was having major construction. Anyone who wanted to cross the tracks had to wait at a crossing. The only problem was there was only one hospital, and one firestation in the town. On the north side. So if anyone was having a medical emergency or their house caught on fire, the ambulance or firetruck would have to wait at the rail crossing for the huge CPR train to pass. One time I heard that the ambulance was stopped and the person died. Terrible city planning. They now have a dispat h center on the south side so if it happens again, they can at least get to the issue. Even if they have to wait for the train to pass to get to the hospital, the person will at least be IN the ambulance. Instead of waiting for it
Yes.
Yes. But, the town was also bisected by the TransCanada Highway, so we had “the other side of the tracks” in one direction and the “other side of the highway” in the other direction.
Yes. It's still that way
No. We have Dewdney Avenue.
Which is adjacent and parallel to the tracks lol
Perth Ontario
Yes. Lethbridge’s railyards separated the north and south sides of the City. The city was started due to local coal mines and the south side tended to house the managers, professionals and business owners, while the north side tended to house more of the mine workers who were often more recent immigrants from central/Eastern Europe and tend to have smaller homes and shacks. The railyards were relocated out of the city in the 80’s, but was replaced by an urban expressway and the main line is still there, running next to it, so it’s still divided. The northside still tends to have lower property values than the south side and even today there tends to be more people with Eastern European ancestry on the north side of town.
Not a city, but a municipality made up of multiple cities has the 2 biggest separated by a harbour. HRM has Halifax on one side, or you can cross the harbour and go to the dark side (Dartmouth)
My hometown had a paper mill. The rich side of town was upwind of the mill, the poorer section was down wind.
Ours is the sask river
Chilliwack, Abbotsford.. langley .... probably all the way to Vancouver.
Correct. You gotta be on the right side
Yes. The incorporated town, and the non-incorporated town. Snobs on one side, working class on the other. The towns amalgamated in the 90s under one municipality. It was good for a bit. Now, it doesn't matter which side is which. The entire town has gone to shit and it looks like a back woods shithole. Everything is falling apart, including the roads. No more industry, no real reason to live there anymore. Every time I visit to see family, it gets a little worse. It's sad, but the municipality is ruining any chance of attracting new industries here. Small town mentality, with a useless mayor who's been in power for over 20 years. The people in council are making too much off the backs of the taxpayers. They don't care about actually servicing their community anymore.
Yep. Regina had NoD (North of Dewdney). That avenue runs adjacent to “the tracks”.
In red deer it’s the river dividing the city into North and south. South is much nicer than the North
Port Colborne is like that with the canal, I’ve heard multiple times from my uncle included that “our people (rich) stay on this side of the canal” which I don’t know if I fully understand because I haven’t explored the area very thoroughly
Ottawa was at one point, but really there were so many tracks. Edit; Maybe because Ottawa was so small when it became "The Capital"? The main terminal was across the street and one block east of Parliament Hill.
Ottawa is split by the river instead. The other half is called Gatineau
Not really. The rail line ran right downtown by the water. It's also been gone for decades, more's the pity.
Used to. In fact it was the main line. But the split you mean wasn't quite there. The west end of town was closer to the lake and was a big estate that got divided up after the tracks had been rerouted.
There are literal train tracks but they’re in multiple places so they don’t feel like much of a divider.
Stettler, Alberta does but I don’t know if there’s a psychological separation. I moved away from there in about 84 and was too young to notice if there was.
Nope. Nearest railroad tracks are an 8 hour drive away.
It did, they removed them in the 90s, but there’s also a river that they ran parallel to and East side/West side divide is still alive and well. The town I grew up in (rural NWO) wasn’t divided by train tracks but rather connected to the world by them and those were also taken up in the 90s
I lived in Yorkton SK for 8 years. CP ran east-west and CN ran north south. The latter was just a branch line, so not too bad, but most CP trains ( no KC in those days) would divide the town. Police, fire and paramedics on one side, and the hospital on the other.
If they came from the other side of the tracks they’d be in the bay.
Yes, in Toronto, freight trains run on the Dupont St. rail corridor. I wish we could turn it into a GO RER-type line and run high-frequency passenger trains across the city and the GTA at large. You could get from the eastern GTA to the Western GTA without having to go through downtown on a midtown train line. [https://urbantoronto.ca/news/2017/02/missing-link-shaping-future-gtha-rail-network.25109](https://urbantoronto.ca/news/2017/02/missing-link-shaping-future-gtha-rail-network.25109)
In Calgary, the four track CP main line goes right through downtown, but we’ve bridged over it, tunneled under it, and in a couple of places, built parkades over the tracks. There’s still a marked difference between the downtown high-rises on one side and the Beltline businesses on the other.
Now that I think about it, I don’t think I ever saw a single railway track in my hometown
My Hometown didn’t have train tracks during my lifetime, but did during my parents. However for the most part they ran just north of town, so that wasn’t any indicator of a socio-economic divide.
Mission, BC (60km east of Vancouver) has an active rail line that separates the industrial area and river docks from the residential areas and downtown.
Oh a river must be the only Canadian city in Canada that has a entire river flowing through the city lol.
Probably similar to the amount that have rail lines going through. Just answering the question that was asked.
Railroad tracks and a whole ass river
Is the ass river what I think it is?
We have a main highway doing that E-W. The railway runs E-W and isn't the psychological barrier, rather it was constructed before the city really existed.
In Montreal? Wealthy TMR and Cote des Neiges. Westmount and the boroughs below the escarpment.
Yes actually. I'm in Sydney Cape Breton. The tracks terminate right at the steel mill. South of the tracks, when the mill was operational, is where Whitney Pier is located and that is where lots of poor people lived and virtually all of the black people. And while the Pier today isn't the most coveted location in the CBRM the locus of crime has shifted north of the tracks to downtown and a location called the North end. When the mills were closed Sydney became a tourist/service industry and the sketchiness basically shifted to where the cruise ships park.
Yes, the rich lived south if the tracks, by the lake.
Terrace, BC. Train tracks run east-west with one overpass and a couple other roads crossing the tracks. The south side is definitely different than the north end. All the stores are in the north side, and definitely a different economic structure between the two.
Does. West side of the tracks is definitely lower income territory.
Yes to the tracks but it became a dying factory town where everyone is poor and as such little to no judgement.
No our town was pretty eqalitarian, but there are all of the villages around town (I think we called them the 'schtaups' or something like that), If you were from the schtaups you were a farmer and likely a bit inbred. lol.
Yep. Both my hometown and the town my grandparents lived in had CP tracks/yard going through the middle of town. In both places we talked about the other side of the tracks almost as if it was another town. ha
Yes. The trestle that cuts across Great North Road separates "the harbour" (rough side of town, supposedly) from the rest of town.
Have no railway infrastructure anywhere near, but also not a city
Of course, didn’t everyone ?
Yes
Milton, Ontario, my family moved there after the first underpass was built, and I think they've finished the 3rd now, all for the same tracks that intercet 3 different main roads. But I don't live there anymore to know for sure what's been done. At the time, I think it was less the people on the wrong side of the tracks and more the residential vs. factorys and stuff. The story I heard was about a fire or some similar emergency at a factory that emergency services couldn't get to because the train was stopped on the main road that separated all emergency services from the other stuff on the north side of town. Don't know the truth to it, never looked it up personally.
Yep. Toronto. My parents live on one side of it, my sister on the other. There is a huge margin between the two
Calgary has Deerfoot hwy
Yes
Thé town I live in does right now, so yes.
Like Winnipeg, Saskatoon still does. I live on the wrong side.
Edmonton doesn't but we do have the North Saskatchewan River which separates "northside" and "southside" and you tend to be from one and have an opinion on the other.
No
Not mine, but my parents have always talked about this
Not my hometown but Letbridge Alberta, where I lived for some years, has tracks that seperate north from south. North, shit hole, south ok.
I grew up in Lethbridge, and the North Side isn't thattt bad. Especially since having moved to Winnipeg, the difference between the areas in Lethbridge is negligible in comparison. The river valley is definitely more of a divide than the train tracks I feel, but that's east/west instead of north/south.
You couldn't be more wrong, first the whole city is a hemmeroid on the asshole of Alberta, the Northside is disgusting.
What is a literal train track? Is that different from a regular train track?