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Over the past two decades, the Waterloo Spur has seen its fair share of change. From the arrival and departure of the fallen flag Waterloo-St. Jacobs Railway (WSJR) to now tourist hauler Waterloo Central Railway (WCR) as well as becoming an integral section of the ION light railway network. Also from being serviced by CN, then throughout the following years under the Goderich-Exeter Railway (GEXR) and then two years ago back to CN. 

Thanks to a reportedly faulty switch on the ION, CN L566 had timed-out overnight with CN 4102 with the crew making it as far as Randall Drive in north Waterloo. A daylight curfew prohibits CN movements on the ION portion of the spur, so in turn L566 couldn’t resume its trip back to Kitchener until 23:00 with a fresh crew. Thankfully, the seemingly endless winter overcast had parted briefly to illuminate CN 4102 as it idled away at the crossing as seen just after 13:00. Now much like decades prior, CN GP9RM’s are still operating on the spur despite all the changes that have occurred to the line. However, unlike the 1990’s it now takes an extreme circumstance to photograph one in daylight between Kitchener and Elmira. Let’s hope there will be more in 2021.
Copyright Notice: This image ©Jason Noe all rights reserved.



Caption: Over the past two decades, the Waterloo Spur has seen its fair share of change. From the arrival and departure of the fallen flag Waterloo-St. Jacobs Railway (WSJR) to now tourist hauler Waterloo Central Railway (WCR) as well as becoming an integral section of the ION light railway network. Also from being serviced by CN, then throughout the following years under the Goderich-Exeter Railway (GEXR) and then two years ago back to CN.
Thanks to a reportedly faulty switch on the ION, CN L566 had timed-out overnight with CN 4102 with the crew making it as far as Randall Drive in north Waterloo. A daylight curfew prohibits CN movements on the ION portion of the spur, so in turn L566 couldn’t resume its trip back to Kitchener until 23:00 with a fresh crew. Thankfully, the seemingly endless winter overcast had parted briefly to illuminate CN 4102 as it idled away at the crossing as seen just after 13:00. Now much like decades prior, CN GP9RM’s are still operating on the spur despite all the changes that have occurred to the line. However, unlike the 1990’s it now takes an extreme circumstance to photograph one in daylight between Kitchener and Elmira. Let’s hope there will be more in 2021.

Photographer:
Jason Noe [916] (more) (contact)
Date: 01/15/2021 (search)
Railway: Canadian National (search)
Reporting Marks: CN 4102 (search)
Train Symbol: L566 (search)
Subdivision/SNS: Waterloo Spur (search)
City/Town: Waterloo (search)
Province: Ontario (search)
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Photo ID: 42826

Map courtesy of Open Street Map

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5 Comments
  1. Most interesting picture Jason, good picture of CN 4102 and informative comments, thank you. Is that the Commonwealth Plywood Distribution siding switch in the background and do they still receive shipments ? Nice way to start 2021, John

  2. @John, yes that siding you see in the background dose indeed serve Commonwealth Plywood Distribution and during GEXRs time they’d receive occasional but pretty rare box car loads of plywood off that spur but we all have pretty high doubts they’ve had a single car since the CN takeover.

    They were the least serviced customer of the 4 along this spur anyway in the GEXR era, by the time maybe 2008-2010ish rolled around they were probably only getting like 5-6 carloads a year max and even that continued to gradually decrease overtime, by 2015+ it was probably only down to like 1 car load or 2 a year max if they were still getting any, we know for fact that during GEXRs last year in 2018 they didn’t have a single car from them (only thing ever set off in that siding were the LRVs for the region stated by the crewmen themselves) and ‘to-date’ no one else is aware of any boxcars for Commonwealth from CN.

  3. Thanks for the comments John and Graydon.

    Also, I believe CN L566 had set-off some ballast cars one night in the Commonwealth Plywood siding this summer for extensive track work north of Waterloo.

  4. Yes that seems pretty right Jay.
    In the past Waterloo Central even stored a piece or two their equipment in that siding from time to time.
    So I guess odds are it’ll remain in place as long as freight service exists on this line, for occasional storage of MOW equipment when needed, a ‘set off’ spot for ballast cars whenever touch-ups of ballast are needed and of course one extra storage spot for WCR whenever they need it.

  5. Until the switch needs to be replaced and it’ll be coming out :)

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