Caption: Well, the last week of GEXR's Guelph sub has certainly been interesting. On Monday 431 was generally on-time but a broken rail around Mile 39 caused a 1 hour delay, and the Trainmaster made the call to park 431 at Kitchener and 580 would return light power bringing no cars. Usually GEXR would call over a rescue (night Stratford job) to switch out Kitchener cars and take the balance of the train to Stratford but that did not happen, it sat in Kitchener all night. So on Tueday 432 picked up where 431 left off and in the morning, switched the yard before departing west at around 1030. After arriving at Stratford, and after VIA 85 passed, the same crew departed east and ran to P&H Shantz Station elevator (around mile 56) to make a setoff of grain hoppers, and then returned back to Stratford light power in the mid afternoon. They did not run to Toronto.

Sundays 432 also did not run to Toronto, instead running to the CP Interchange at South Jct in Kitchener with a pair of four axle units (photos to come later - I chased the bejeebuz out of this) and returning to Stratford with some RCPE loads

Today's train ran normally, until they departed mac at 1515, with ZERO time to spare on the clock (any delay would cause a serious problem - normally GEXR has to park at mac if they don't depart by 1430)... well.. 435 pulled a drawbar at Georgetown blocking their access to the Guelph sub so yeah, game over, and as I type this at 2100.. 431 is still sitting at Peel.

It's any guess if tomorrow's final run will be a one way trip to Stratford with 432 taking a taxi to peel or if they find a crew to move it tonight.. and run a regular round trip tomorrow. Because at Midnight Friday, it's over folks and it'll be CN moving traffic after that..

For photographers, the unusual is a silver lining, and the snow fell overnight into Tuesday and it was beautiful, serene, and still windless. Everything was white and just unique looking. I had to get SOMETHING, and I was expecting to get 432 in G&W Orange at around 0800. I've seen this before and usually by 0800-0900 any snow like this would blow off as the wind picks up and this serene, pretty scene is all gone making shots like this quite difficult to pull off. Thanks to a tip by rp.ca member Kevin Flood, 432 was switching Kitchener yard facing west with the ex SP leading with this pretty, windless scene intact, the sun trying to come out (adding a bit of colour) and only because operations aren't normal on GEXR was this even possible. A silver lining for sure.. thank you GEXR.