Comments on: An eastbound freight for for the Belleville Sub, destination Smith Falls, belches out that trademark MLW smoke as the engineer throttles up at Nielson Road, just outside Agincourt Yard.

By: railwayguy

railwayguy — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 18:13:49 +0000

Robin, you are correct. The CNR-CPR passenger Pool Train agreement was terminated at the end of October 1965 leading to the demise of overnight locomotive hauled CPR trains between Montreal & Toronto (#’s 21 & 22), Ottawa & Toronto (#’s 33 & 34). These trains carried head end cars for mail, express, baggage and the short lived replacements for these trains lasted less than 6 months. CPR still had bulk mail contracts and CP Express was still in business, so head end cars as seen above were still used to carry these items on fast freight trains. Could be wrong, but think CP Express ended by 1970, and post office had changed to trucks and commercial air lines, cancelling all mail contracts with CP (and CN). Thanks everyone for your comments, John

By: mile27

mile27 — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:55:34 +0000

Sweet scene.

By: robin lowrie

robin lowrie — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 16:34:36 +0000

Just speculating here…..in the late 60′s, after the end of the Pool Agreement, CP did away with a lot of conventional trains. As a result, cares for Express traffic and bulk mail traffic were handled in hot freights. Since there are two baggage cars, one mail and express car and an express reefer, I am guessing that this is what is happening here. The M&E car is most likely one of many such cars that had the sorting equipment removed and the interior cleared out to handle express.

By: Stephen C. Host

Stephen C. Host — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 14:56:42 +0000

Very nice. What are the passenger cars for?