Take a ride on the rails!

All around the world, from massive cities to small towns, there are public transit companies. These are the agencies that oversee things like the buses, streetcars, subways, and even trains that carry people from one place to another. In Toronto, it's called the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). Lately, the TTC has been working on expanding its services, adding things like brand new streetcars like these ones in August 2015.

Pretty flashy, no? But one of the bigger projects in the city is the expansion of its subway system.

Building underneath a city

As a city like Toronto grows (and it definitely is growing), its transit system needs to grow, too. But in the case of building something like a new subway route (which runs underground), that is one big project. After all, above ground, there's already a big city there, full of roads and buildings that aren't going anywhere. So when the TTC decided to build six new subway stops called the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Expansion, it was always going to be difficult.

Construction needed to be slow and careful. Giant boring machines (no, not that kind of "boring") dug huge tunnels in the earth that stretch for 8.6 kilometres (5.3 miles). Then workers had to reinforce the tunnel walls with thick concrete, build drainage and ventilations systems, and construct six new underground stations for passenger to board the subway trains.

And oh yeah. Don't forget to lay all of those new tracks!

Almost complete. Let's have a look!

Construction on this expansion has been going on since around July of 2008. And even though these new stations won't be open until next year, the tracks are now finished enough that a train can ride on them. And that's where the fun begins. Wanna see what it looks like? Of course you do!

This video (sped up, of course) takes you on a complete journey of the new line in about two and a half minutes. You can see the new stations are about half finished, but the tunnels and tracks are pretty much completed. All aboard. Zoom!