Caption: The time is 1225h as CNR daily except Sunday mixed train M329 departs Mildmay en route to Southampton with CNR 1560 getting the consist up to the 35mph track speed. The venerable H-6-g ten wheeler stabled at Palmerston will handle various switching duties along the way, meeting counterpart M330 (Southampton - Palmerston) at or near Paisley, where both are due at 1330h. Per the 1957 Employee Timetable, M329 would depart Palmerston at 1130h arriving Southampton at 1420h, while counterpart M330 departed Southampton at 1230h, arriving Palmerston at 1545h. Note the wig wag signals between the main track and siding, the vintage automobile waiting for the mixed to pass, and the house at upper right in the distance. This house, at 23 Absalom Street West would briefly become "The Station Tavern" in 1992 with a former CNR heavyweight passenger car trucked in from Harriston. The Southampton Sub had been lifted circa 1989. The car was scrapped after the tavern closed circa 2010.

Originally part of the Wellington, Grey & Bruce Railway which was chartered to build from the Galt & Guelph/Great Western Railway at Guelph to Southampton in 1864, what would become the CNR Fergus and Southampton Subdivisions was laid between 1869 and the end of 1872, with rails reaching Mildmay in early 1872. The station pictured is a Wellington, Grey & Bruce Railway standard Type B station - measuring 60 feet x 30 feet - built circa 1872 and would be demolished in 1971.*

CNR 1560 was built by MLW in 1912 for the Canadian Northern Railway as their 1370, renumbered to Canadian National 1370 in 1919, and to CNR 1560 in November 1956. Less than three years after this photo 1560 will meet the scrapper's torch in March 1960.

*Information per Peter Bowers' Two Divisions to Bluewater.
Original Photographer Unknown, Al Chione Duplicate, Jacob Patterson Collection Slide.