Caption: CP Rail C424's 4229 and 4219 head southbound on train #90 "The Moonlight", rolling through downtown Brampton in the afternoon on the way to Streetsville. They've just crossed Queen Street West and the former station site, and are approaching Jessie Street crossing near Mile 7.5. In tow at the head end are two flatcars of brand new Caterpillar machines, built at the Caterpillar Brampton assembly plant at Sandalwood Parkway and Hurontario Street, and lifted from their rail siding. The first car appears to have three log skidders, the second a wheel loader and a log skidder.

Caterpillar's Brampton assembly plant opened in 1983 at the northwest corner of Hurontario and Sandalwood in the community of Heart Lake, and built small rubber-tired machines, including some of Cat's 900-series wheel loaders (e.g. the 926), IT-series Integrated Toolcarrier loaders (IT18/IT28), and 500-series logging skidders (518/528). It had a rail spur and runaround on the property to ship parts in and completed machines out. Cat had had another plant in Missisauga (Dixie, off the CP Galt Sub) that formerly did this manufacturing, but after assembly work was moved it continued to supply the new Brampton plant with parts for machine assembly. In the mid-80's, it was announced the Mississauga parts plant would be phased out and operations consolidated in Brampton.

By the late 80's, things weren't looking good for the Brampton plant. News sources at the time mention production at Brampton had declined 50% since 1988 partially due to the economic downturn, and more than 80% of the plant's production was being shipped to the US and also overseas (on the flip side, CAW union leader Bob White countered with Cat's overall sales outside the US made up 55% of the company's total sales at the time, despite Cat only having employment of 30% outside the US).

Cat made the decision to close Brampton and move production to a new factory in Raleigh, North Carolina, which according to officials had a lower cost of manufacturing. The Brampton plant, having undergone a significant modernization with new equipment prior to the decision, had that new equipment shipped to Raleigh (it may also be relevant to note the Brampton plant was unionized, and the Raleigh plant was not (right-to-work state)).

The Brampton plant was closed in early 1992, and the property sold to the Woolworth/Woolco department store chain for warehouse use (that eventually became Walmart Canada when they bought Woolworth Canada to enter the Canadian market in 1994).

Peter Jobe photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection slide.