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Caption: My information on exact location and train number scanty due to misplacing necessary information around here; as the CN Tower looks as though it was "planted" just to spruce up the image. Not so. A lot of changes along the Toronto waterfront areas since this photo was taken back in 1979. The "Canadian" has only been running in its first year out of Toronto, and links up with the Transcontinental version at Sudbury. Lead unit VIA 1402, former CP 4101, along with one of a kind MLW RS-10 x-CP 8558, makes for a most unusual power combination. The 1402 was retired in 1983, the 8558, never really accepted, was gone by 1981.
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Arnold, great shot. This should be just north of the Strachan Ave grade crossing (which recently became an underpass) in Toronto, where the old Massey Harris/Ferguson plants were located, across from CP’s Parkdale Yard. All redeveloped here as well.
Another great shot Arnold. Classic.
Awh!! Thank you, MrDan. That was the name I was looking for….Strachan….seems to me back then there was a watchman’s tower at that crossing ……. unrecognizable area today.
There was a crossing shanty there on stilts until the mid-80′s or so. There was also a CP “Tecumseh Tower” further east that controlled CP’s movements in/out of the yard and across to the King St. freight shed lead I think. And then further east of that was where ol’ Cabin D interlocking tower was until they moved it to the roundhouse in 1983.
Elevated shanty. Right. It is still hard for me to get everything as it was in perspective these days. Just to the west of Strachan was the CN and CP Parkdale Stations almost across from each other. The CN station I believe made the trek by truck over to Sunnyside to be restored, but once it got there,the local dickheads burned it to the ground. Don’t know what became of the CP station. Just razed, I guess. Seems as though most of us shot images from Bathurst Br. (I remember Cabin D vividly)but west/north of there was no-mans land. Appreciate you jogging my memory, whats left of it.
I’ll just agree with the others on what a great shot this is with the old Massey factory buildings as a back drop and the new CN Tower and First Canadian place glimmering in the far back ground..
That’s understandable, it was an industrial oasis out here for years, with the MF factories on the north side of the tracks, and the Inglis complex and Liberty Village factories on the south side with CPR’s yards. Not exactly a welcoming area.
Hmmm, another neat thing: the CP 2200 series smoothside coach trailing. Apparently VIA got some of those from CP, but they were old clunkers and weren’t used often – none were ever repainted VIA.
If CN Newfoundland’s ‘Caribou’ had not been cancelled in 1969 and survived until the VIA takeover, the paint scheme of the 8558 is what probably would have been applied to the narrow gauge NF210′s. A great shot Sir!
It’s actually the Super Continental, as VIA flipped the routings and the names on the western transcontinental trains twice back in those early days. And there was, indeed, an elevated gatekeeper’s shanty on the north side of the Strachan Avenue grade crossing that sat between the tracks of the CP Galt Sub and the CN Weston Sub.