As the railway lands west of Toronto's Union Station expanded in the early 1900s, a 'switching bottleneck' was created around Bathurst Street. Freight and passenger trains were almost always delayed: for example, CPR trains often needed as many as ten moves to negotiate and switch on the Galt, Weston, Brampton Subdivisions, the 'Fez,' CP Parkdale, Queen's Wharf, and the huge CPR Freight Shed on Front Street. Grand Trunk Railway, later Canadian National Railways, had tough times switching into and out of York, the CNR Spadina Coach Yards, the leads into their roundhouse, onto and off the 'high lines,' the Weston and Oakville subs, the storage and trailer tracks, and the Bathurst Street Yard and Express sheds.

Switch tenders were on the job 24 hours a day at Bathurst Street. These men manually turned the switches to line the trains into and out of the Toronto Terminals Railway (TTR) area trackage. A combination of over 20 underground tunnels and channels existed under this trackage, with tenders running up and down narrow stairways to 'bend the iron'. Delays to passengers trains could be from five minutes to 45 minutes. And, a 'call for signals' from the trains to Cabin 'D' just west of Bathurst Street did not improve the situation. This 'creep-and-crawl' for all trains existed for many years.

With the formation in mid-1960s, and the operation of GO Transit commuter trains that replaced some of the CPR and CNR passenger trains and VIA taking over the larger routes outside Toronto, delays to the passenger trains were increasing. Often ten minutes passed before they could enter or exit Union Station. By 1973, delays into and out of Union were becoming intolerable to GO and their commuter patrons; with GO Transit service also planned for expansion into the Georgetown and later Milton Corridors, '... something had to be done.'

In 1976, GO Transit released an artist's interpretation (right) of how the congested trackage west of Union Station, specifically around Bathurst Street, could be dramatically improved to diminished and virtually eliminate the congestion and delays to their GO trains, as well as to CPR, CNR, ONR, TH&B, and VIA trains.

Beginning in 1980, the landscape of the Railway Lands changed forever, and a unique railway solution was developed - the 'flyunder.'

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