For the past eighteen months, visitors to Transit Toronto have seen many new photos by transit enthusiast and photographer Richard Glaze covering Toronto’s transit operations from the 1950s to the 1990s. The work of his friends in preserving and bringing his collection to us has opened a window on Toronto city life during the last half of the twentieth century.
But Richard’s collection didn’t just include photographs. Among the cases were reels of 16mm film, over two miles of it, shot during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. After donating reels of American transit operations to relevant transit historical associations in the United States, we still have around six hours of footage of interest to Toronto transit fans.
It’s one thing to scan photos and slides. Scanning 16mm film requires equipment we can’t afford to buy, and digitizing it is an expensive proposition that’s beyond our resources, but this is where you can help.
We have launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds to digitize Richard Glaze’s 16mm film collection. Starting with a goal of $6,900 to cover a quarter of the film available, we hope to raise enough to put all (or as much as possible) of Richard’s material onto our YouTube channel for all rail and transit fans to enjoy. Kickstarter also allows us to offer rewards in return for your generous giving.
So, if you would like to see Richard’s film library of Toronto transit operations in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, please consider donating what you can to our Kickstarter campaign.
You can see some of the videos we made from test scans of Richard’s footage here. For more information and updates, please consult our Kickstarter campaign page, or watch the video Transit Toronto videographer Damian Baranowski produced below using some of Richard’s film.