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Caption: Power for GIO Rail's new Cayuga Subdivision operation arrived in St. Thomas during the night in the form of LDSX 1597, a former CP GP9u that has had some work done, including a new GIO Rail paintjob, by LDS, and it would appear the unit is being leased long term from LDS. Making it's first run east today, the engine is seen approaching the village of Corinth east of Aylmer headed for Tilsonburg where it will down down at the yard.
This portion of the Cayuga has seen a lot of work by GIO over the last few months, including thousands of new ties and ongoing work on crossing protection systems for increased speed, requiring most crossings today to be flagged by GIO personnel.
Built as CPR 8687 in 1957, rebuilt to 1597 in 1985, to Larry's Truck and Electric in 2015, leased to the Delta Southern Railroad and later purchased and repainted in 2017, and finally to LDS.
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Have they restored the bridges? I thought that was the problem with this line.
Nice scene Jacob. Glad to see this was covered well.
Thanks Jason. I’m glad I was following OSR when I got the call.
Brad, not sure about the bridges.
Yes cn fixed the bridges some years ago, around 2016 when osr began operating the entire line november / december 2016
It was photographed by surprisingly few people. It was kept well under wraps by GIO Staff for sure. By the time anyone found out it was running it was too late to catch up.
CN redecked the bridge at Tillsonburg in 2016. First revenue run by OSR was January 5, 2017. I believe a bit of small bridge work was done between Springfield Road and Hacienda Road at a farmers crossing in 2016 as well.
Why did OSR give the line up then? Good on GIO rail. Wonder if they could ressuect the line up to Orangeville.
One can assume OSR likely gave up the line as it probably didn’t make financial sense to them to keep operating it.
Correct – Running a train from Salford to St. Thomas to Tillsonburg and back (requiring a recrew often) was a long, slow, and circuitous journey. It was more cost effective when OSR ran direct from Salford to Tillsonburg, but when the CP owned Tillsonburg bridge went out of service around 2017 they had to go around the long way. No one wanted (or still wants to) fix the bridge.