Caption: "That's not my GO train, where do I tap the Presto on this thing?!?!"

One redeeming feature of the chaos at Bramalea GO station was it would occasionally drop random CN trains like this out of nowhere into your lap. Waiting for a morning GO train? Here's a CN local finishing work around Brampton to shoot, or a GEXR export special with 10 brand new Class 66's fresh from London (that one actually happened). Witness CN GP38-2 4700 and GP9RM 4110 in matching zebra stripes showing up at 7:46am and slowly crawling through the morning fog, heading eastbound through Bramalea GO on track #2 with a sizable local in tow past everyone waiting for the next Toronto-bound GO train to appear. Usually the local working this area went through the other way in the mornings, so I can only speculate this was an overnight or early morning #578 that had finished switching some Brampton/Bramalea industries and was making its way back to Malport amid the morning GO rush, likely waiting for a gap in traffic so the RTC could give it the light through Halwest and into Malport Yard.

CN 4700 (ex-5500, the class unit) in ratty zebra stripes was a regular on the locals in the area at the time. Around 2007 it would depart and return in a fresh coat of the modern CN "website" livery.

The crossbucks and weird railing setup next to 4700 were to corral the "Bramalea Marathon" runners safely over the unused Kuehne & Nagel siding by the south GO parking lot, known for multiple daily parking violations as spots filled up during the course of the day ("Fire route? Sorry, I need to catch the York University GO bus in 3 minutes or I'm late for that business finance exam at Schulich!"). More recent south parking lot renovations suggest this was all done away with, as most of the siding had been removed prior.