Caption: Young Beauty and an Old Beast.

By some odd coincidence, this happened: a brand new GO MP40 (perhaps being picked up from Mimico for some warranty work in Welland?) coupled backwards on the head end of a work extra powered by a CN GP9RM and slug, with a ton of ballast hoppers and boxcars behind, sitting in the Union Station Rail Corridor in the afternoon.

I'm not sure what they were doing there, or why GO 601 was leading rear-end-first, but seeing it from the Gardiner Expressway was enough for me to walk from Union Station to Bathurst Street to get some photos. The train wasn't positioned well for shots from the bridge above, but the Fort York area to the west was open and working around the high chain-link fence, a few shots were had of this odd lashup.

The streamlined MPI MP40PH-3C was built in Boise ID for GO Transit commuter service a few years ago. The utilitarian GM GP9RM, 7227, was built as CN 4563 in the 50's and was likely pressed into passenger service with steam generator cars a few times before being rebuilt for yard service in the 80's. The torch has been passed, but the 7227 will probably get the last laugh: I can't see MP40's surviving in 50 years downgraded to freight service.