A Toronto streetcar driver was in hospital with neck injuries and another was being treated for shock after a bizarre accident Tuesday afternoon just before rush hour.

Several passengers were also injured after the two TTC streetcars travelling north and south along Spadina Avenue collided around 3 p.m. ET at the intersection at Dundas Street in the heart of Chinatown.

An ambulance attendant prepares a TTC streetcar driver for a trip to the hospital after two streetcars collided at Spadina Avenue and Dundas Street.
(Dave Seglins/CBC)

The northbound streetcar veered off the track and smashed into the southbound streetcar in an accident that appears to have been caused by a switching problem, witnesses said.

TTC crews cleared the crash scene shortly after 5 p.m. and have removed the streetcars to a nearby transit yard for examination.

Passenger Darsh Ramjattan was thrown out of his seat by the force of the impact.

"All of a sudden, I just [heard] a bang. I didn't see it coming; it was just a shock," he said. "I was sitting in the front and I cut my hand."

Christina Paoletta, who was on one of the streetcars involved in the incident, said it all happened quickly.

"I was on the single seat sitting by the window. All of a sudden it seemed like the nose of the streetcar came right towards us, from the left-hand side," she said. "You can see that … behind the driver's side, it's crushed in."

As paramedics took away the injured, TTC work crews were trying to figure out what happened.

Ramjattan said the driver of the streetcar he was riding, who is now in hospital with neck injuries, told him the northbound streetcar was supposed to have veered east to turn away from the oncoming traffic.

"The driver said the connection switched or something," Rajmattan said. He added that the problem appeared to have "something to do with the track."

Both 23-tonne streetcars rested on the pavement with their wheel carriages twisted in the middle of the busy Spadina-Dundas intersection for about two hours, blocking traffic, before the scene was cleared.