The developer behind the restoration of Toronto's midtown railway station and Summerhill clock tower wants to build a 100-seat restaurant spanning the Canadian Pacific Railway overpass, right over Yonge Street.
 
Diners would look south through the heart of the city, while sitting right next to passing freight trains.
 
Canadian Pacific has signed on and Woodcliffe Development Corp. hopes to get city approvals for a 2009 opening.

"We're proposing to build on an active railway bridge, over Yonge Street, and that doesn't occur every day," said developer Paul Oberman as he showed off a model of his glass-walled restaurant.

The architect's illustration shows what the new restaurant on the railway overpass near Yonge and Davenport would look like.
(Artwork courtesy of Woodcliffe Corporation)

He said the restaurant will be "somewhat reminiscent of the original canopies that were there when the train station was in use back in the teens and '20s."

Oberman said it's taken the railway, neighbours and the city some time to warm up to the idea of putting diners on a working rail overpass.

"You see down this corridor of buildings straight down Yonge Street to the lake on a clear day, and at night you see a ribbon of lights in both directions."

Jennifer Ayres of the Summerhill Residents Association is skeptical.

"I just couldn't understand someone spending $200 a plate to be shaken to bits sitting on the top of that platform there.

"My house shakes, especially in the wintertime, and I cannot see any kind of engineering that would change that type of vibration when you are actually on the bridge," she said.

To receive final city approval Oberman still needs to address zoning, safety and parking issues.