Comments on: Hurricane Agnes was a very rare storm that came inland and caused major destruction to upper New York State with major flooding. It washed out most of the Erie-Lackawanna which ultimately caused its bankruptcy. Due to the storm E-L rerouted its trains through Southern Ontario most notably over the TH&B and the CNR. Here we see a detouring E-L train lead by a pair of GE U25B’s up front (2501 and 2505, with C424 2412 trailing) heading through Bayview Junction, eastbound on CN’s Oakville Sub. Douglas Page photo, Collection of Tony Desantis.

By: mercer

mercer — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 15:37:00 +0000

I just found this photo as it popped up on the Header (while I was looking for something else…). I’m sure I provided the answer previously on a different detour image, but here goes, albeit 10 years late -
This train is EL TC-100 from Chicago to New York. It is operating as CN train C846 ( 844′s and 846′s were Extra trains out of Fort Erie at such time). Both CN and CP handled these detours but they basically came and went from Canada via the Niagara frontier, to/from the D&H at Rouses Point NY.
They were EL personnel with CN or TH&B or CP pilots.
This train is the final move for Day 3 ( of 17 days) of the detours.

By: James Adeney

James Adeney — Sat, 05 Apr 2014 00:45:38 +0000

Correct. They detoured via Montreal.

By: Stuart Streit

Stuart Streit — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 16:58:36 +0000

See Greg McDonnell’s U25B article in the September 1982 issue of Trains for additional information on the EL detours.

By: headtailgrep

headtailgrep — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 15:39:52 +0000

Not being too familiar with EL operations (before my time) I reference this system map:

http://www.erielackhs.org/images/stories/el/EL_sys_map_l.gif

And I would hazard a guess this is rerouted Chicago to New York traffic sent around the long way via Montreal. Would this be correct?

By: headtailgrep

headtailgrep — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 15:32:32 +0000

So I’m curious – how did these trains route through Ontario? Anyone know?