Comments on: The sun briefly came out just in time for Bill McArthur to catch VIA Rail train #9, The Canadian (Toronto-Sudbury run, reinstated back in June) departing downtown Toronto Union Station at Bathurst Street. Rebuilt VIA FP9ARM 6313 leads F9B 6618 and a mix of ex-CN and ex-CP equipment (curiously with no Skyline dome) heading up the CN Weston Sub for the Newmarket Sub. October 6th of 1985 would be a Sunday, and the sun angle suggests an afternoon departure. Bathurst North Yard is empty, while a weekend GO consist is seen near John Street interlocking tower in the distance. Some of the old CN/VIA Spadina Roundhouse servicing facilities can be seen to the right in shadow, not long for this world as they would be demolished for construction of the Skydome (Rogers Centre) in a year or two. VIA 6313 was one of the CN Pointe St. Charles remanufactured “FP9ARM” units done in 1983-1984, rebuilt from VIA/CN 6526, and would be sold to Ohio Central upon retirement in the early 2000′s. It would become most familiar to many here as Canadian Pacific 4107, after CP purchased it and 6307 (CP 4106) from OHCR. At some point in the 70′s it acquired those unique square-ish numberboard housings, probably after a collision or wreck, and it got its “Canadian Farr” vertical slat radiator grills off CP 1400 (and beaver crest) when CP rebuilt it as 4107. Bill McArthur photo, Dan Dell’Unto collection slide.

By: cp5756

cp5756 — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 03:51:39 +0000

This is very cool! You can see the current searchlight signals being cut in & the modernization of the rail corridor really taking shape

MrDan — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 17:09:31 +0000

Thanks for mentioning that John, I was hoping someone would chime in as all the changes VIA did to the Canadian during that period got confusing.

CN9317 — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 03:54:49 +0000