Canadian Railroads > CN - Before the wide cabs invaded

I shot all of these in my hometown of Paris, Ontario, in 1972. I had started to shoot slides at this time, but knew little of the operational side of things, hence there aren't any train numbers. Feel free to guess.

1. May 20 - SD40 5008 and a leased C&O geep head up an eastbound in the morning. This is just a tad west of the shot Bill Miller posted of a pair of CLC CPA16-5's. http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,2906167

2. May 20 - FPA4 6787 leads a westbound evening passenger train past my backyard. Now I know there are those that will consider this blasphemous, but in my opinion this was one of the sharpest passenger schemes around. Although these machines were delivered in yellow, green and black, most of their operational lives on CN were spent in this scheme, and it still looks as fresh as the day it was unveiled. That's quality design.

3. May 20 - M636 2323 and a GP9 accelerate west a short time later.

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4. July 29 - GP9 4601, and three others, hammer west through Paris Junction. At the time, lash-ups like this were common.

5. Sept. 9 - It was always interesting to catch one of the Tempo RS18m's on a train of conventional equipment. Here 3153 and an F9B cross the Grand River with an eastbound. Note the lack of guardrails on the bridge.

James Adeney
Toronto

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Very nice nostalgia. Thanks for posting.

BNSF3450

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BNSF3450 Wrote:
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> Very nice nostalgia. Thanks for posting.
>


+1

Great batch of photos. Thanks for posting - more if you have them, please!

Very enjoyable. Not merely before the wide cabs, but also before the stripes on freight units.

KG



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/12 19:58 by kgmontreal.

Great stuff!

Yukon Yeti

The good ole days-not a GE in sight!

Great photos-thanks

Mike Bannon
St Catharines, ON

James, any idea why the passenger train is displaying white flags? Was that the May long weekend?

- Paul

crs1026 Wrote:
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> James, any idea why the passenger train is
> displaying white flags? Was that the May long
> weekend?
>
> - Paul


Most likely it was still 'train order' territory, any "extra" non scheduled train would display white flags, also the freight trains are displaying white flags "run extra". If I recall correctly, during the early days of CTC, trains displayed white flags and ran as extras. Also notice the "tell tales" at the over head bridge. Wondering what year these pictures were taken?? Doug

I think the Dundas sub was CTC'd sometime between 1969 and 1971, and I recall that most trains still displayed white flags, running extra. Guess I should have had my second cup of coffee, noted the image dates were in 1972. I used to hang around the Dundas station in the era. Doug

James, as I mentioned to Roger in another post, I love seeing these "work-a-day" scenes from the past.

I sometimes wonder what I am not photographing today that is common, or that I don't really pay attention to, that I will regret not having photographed when they are no longer there.

Anyway, enough of my babble, thanks for the share.
Karl

crs1026 Wrote:
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> James, any idea why the passenger train is
> displaying white flags? Was that the May long
> weekend?
>
> - Paul

Paul, it may have been. I'll have to look closely at my other slides of the time and see if others were white flagged. I'll be posting more.

James



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/12 08:45 by chatnoir.

< "I think the Dundas sub was CTC'd sometime between 1969 and 1971, and I recall that most trains still displayed white flags, running extra." >

Also, CTC ended just to the west (at "Paris West"), with current of traffic ABS double track from there west to Sarnia, and dark single track from Komoka to Windsor, which influenced the display of flags.

Really nice photo of the CNR GP9s notching up. Thanks for sharing.