With Crosstown LRT work stretching east-west across Toronto, amazing changes are happening at the various stations and stops being constructed under Canada’s biggest city.

As our photos of the week, we’re featuring ‘before and after’ images taken in 2018 of the progress at Avenue Station, at the intersection of Avenue Road and Eglinton Avenue West. One shot was taken in January and the other in December, and give an idea of the depth and complexity of the project.

The photos show the mining progress at the northeast entrance. In early 2018 (before), you can see that it was basically a small cavern in a wall. In late 2018 (after), mining had progressed to the area directly under the roadway – in line with the existing bored tunnels.

Avenue station is one of three mined stations, being constructed without initially cutting into the ground and digging down over the platform area. To do this, crews are using specialized mining equipment to cut into the earth from the entrance excavation sites. The station is the deepest on the line due to the elevation of Eglinton in the area, with about 32 metres of depth at the secondary entrance. In addition, Avenue Station is an especially long station, as it will house a crossover and a storage track – all underground. This makes it a pretty important station for line operations; once the Crosstown is operational, if trains ever need to be short turned, the crossover east of station’s platform could theoretically be used for that.

For more revealing before and after photos of the Crosstown LRT project, as well as updates — follow @CrosstownTO on Twitter.