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Caption: On a sweltering hot July day, I decided to hike in to an area I considered 'off-limits' by walking on the opposite side of the tracks from said property (Barnes). There was a southbound train that was going to stop on the siding for a brake test back in there. Before I got to where I was heading, along comes a northbound 'caboose hop', I guess you could call it, heading for Guelph Jct. I heard him blowing for Parkside Dr crossing, and ran back; catching him just about to pass the old Waterdown North station. No chance at all to get cute with the shot, this was as good as it gets. Leader 8791 with CP 8737, a pair of MLW RS-18s, built back in 1958 and 1957 respectively. The station is still there, renovated for an office, I suspect.
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Wow, not too many shots out there from this line prior to the 2000s! Thanks for sharing this classic Watertown shot with us, Arnold. Always nice to see other’s photos from my hometown.
I honestly did not know that Waterdown North station was a thing – did it continue to exist in the train order days for registering prior to going downgrade?
Or was it in Barnes use for much longer than I am aware…
I’ll have to trek out there to get a shot, assuming it’s still shootable.. the trees on the south side certainly block views of it from the road, and it may be fenced in now.
Nice work Arnold !
Nice.
Here I go again Arnold, commenting on a photo posted years ago, but that’s the beauty of the “One of Our Best Images” part of the homepage.
Another great photo, and one that begs the question “where is this train coming from & going to?”
I suspect it’s a London bound van hop, because the Goderich job ran out of Hamilton at 2330 & it was changed to a Guelph Jct based job in 1985. It should be noted that Toronto based crews did not run beyond Streetsville on the Galt Sub in 1980,nor did they operate on the Goderich (now called Hamilton Sub) Sub at all back then. My best guess is that this power had taken a train of some sort to Aberdeen from either Toronto or London. An example would be maintenance of way equipment, like a rail or tie gang, or dimensional load(s) of some sort. The TH&B was a separate entity in 1980, and rail or tie gangs would only have been working the double track from Hamilton Jct, to Main Street or the very south end of the Goderich Sub. In such an instance, the van hop could be going back to London, or to Toronto if crews and/or power was needed there.
To Stephen’s comment, the station at Waterdown North was in use by Barnes when I started on CP in 1973.
As a rule of thumb, train registers were located at points of origin on any given Subdivisions or termination and at junction points where a train could enter a Subdivision at mid point. The exception was westward trains to the Galt Sub registered at Toronto Yard.
Examples of this on the Galt Sub were Quebec Street, Guelph Jct and Toronto Yard. On the Windsor Sub, Windsor & Quebec Street.
On the St Thomas Sub, Woodstock & Ingersoll. On the Goderich Sub, Aberdeen Yard, Guelph Jct & Goderich. Note that through trains on the Galt Sub did not register at Woodstock, but did at Guelph Jct in both directions.
All southward trains were required to do a brake test on The Goderich Sub,at Waterdown North before descending the grade.This was amended to Millgrove on the unit “rock” trains because the engine brakes couldn’t hold that train still at Waterdown North so as to do a test.There were no train registers at bother points on the London Division to my recollection.