Comments on: Nice late afternoon at Bayview. Often freight traffic was delayed until the GO rush to Hamilton was over, and as a result I often left the Junction early rather than wait around a couple of hours. In retrospect, I suppose I should have spent a bit more time and film on GO. Here’s 9804 heading to Hamilton; this was the last year for these locomotives to be numbered in a four digit series. Shortly after this image, 9804 became 504, as part of the series 9800-9807 becoming 500-507. It doesn’t quite seem like ‘yesterday’ but it certainly doesn’t feel like 50 years ago.

By: Ian Malenfant-Picard

Ian Malenfant-Picard — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 22:27:38 +0000

Nice catch, GO Transit sure had an interesting roster back then!

By: MrDan

MrDan — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 18:21:04 +0000

It was during the transition era when GO was renumbering a lot of its equipment, I guess they hadn’t shopped it for new numbers yet (it wasn’t the same unit number though, one was 50-something, the other was 980-different something).

By: awmooney

awmooney — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 15:40:18 +0000

How do we get a 9800 and a 500 next to it? Now THAT is weird. They were supposed to be one and the same.

By: awmooney

awmooney — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 15:39:00 +0000

Thanks, MrDan: I wondered; as I assumed they were that black scheme and I thought they would be renumbered when they got repainted. Not so.

By: MrDan

MrDan — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 15:28:11 +0000

Those were unique units.

I’ve got a mid-1975 slide around here of one numbered as a 9800, parked right next to one still a 500! They came back in that green and white livery after their rebuilding/refurbishing in Montreal (at CN PSC?) still numbered as 9800′s in 1974-75, but didn’t last long.

By: Todd Steinman

Todd Steinman — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 13:17:17 +0000

Classic.