While I passed through Kipling station frequently, it was rare for me to personally collect transfers there.

The station has a roughly west-east orientation with three levels. The subway platform is in the middle, with the tracks to the next station heading out to the east. The bus bays are located on top for the full length of the subway platform. The (then only) pedestrian entrance, where the transfer dispensers and collector booths are, is through descending stairs and escalators from the west end of the subway platform.

I and my grandparents arrived on the 112 West Mall bus, which stopped at the west end of the bus platform. This put us some distance away from the front of the train at the east end of the subway platform. Sitting at the front of the train was ideal since we got off at Spadina station, and the stairs and escalators at Spadina were right there.

Of course, for me the allure of the front was the "railfan seat".

As a terminus station, there tended to be a train at the platform when we arrived and there was always some uncertainty whether it was newly arrived or about to depart. Thus, getting to the front of the train precluded a detour to the transfer dispensers.

I'm sure the sight of children dashing for the front of the train with elderly and long-suffering guardians in tow is a familiar one for train crew!

Things were probably easier on the return trip, assuming a bus wasn't in the bay already.

Speaking of the railfan seat, it seems the new generation of Toronto subway trains have none. Alas, such is the price of progress.

Whereas I tended to arrive and depart from Kipling station by bus, at Islington I tended to arrive and depart by car. The transfer dispensers were on the mezzanine by the stairs heading down to the eastern end of the subway platform; this was conveniently near the area where I and my grandparents would wait inside the fair-paid zone for my parents to show up.

Some of the Runneymede transfers replace the large TTC logo with the text "TTC".