Turn of Events
CN L568 passes the 1907 St. Marys GTR station as they approach their first customer of the day, Shurgain on the south side of town (timetable west).
Normally this job is based out of Kitchener, but because of track work on the weekend Friday's L568 set off two zebra Geeps in order for the Saturday crew to start their day in Stratford. However, both units were seen facing east, which would have meant LHF for the entire west portion of their run. Nonetheless, I decided to go for it. GP9s are one of the few locomotives that are acceptable in LHF configuration in my book.
When I arrived in Stratford, however, I was pleasantly greeted by a recently wyed solo 4116 working the yard and building their train. What would have been acceptable was immediately upgraded to near perfect. But where was the other zebra GP38 they set off? After building their train, they made their shove move onto the main to depart Stratford for points west. But, they seemed to take a while to get their work authority.
After a few minutes of not seeing any progress, they pulled up to reveal they had grabbed the 2nd unit that was set off the previous day and tied back onto their train. What was near perfect was now the cream of the crop for Southern Ontario railfanning in 2025, and the sun chose to play ball as well, which was very nice.
The 1957-built 4116 is one of the oldest locomotives still active on any Class 1 in North America, and it's honestly insane that we are still able to see these first-generation diesel Canadian GMD GP9s in action on the mainline.
Train: CN L568 with CN 4116 (GP9rm) and CN 4716 (GP38-2).
St. Marys, ON
CN Guelph Subdivision
Turn of Events
CN L568 passes the 1907 St. Marys GTR station as they approach their first customer of the day, Shurgain on the south side of town (timetable west).
Normally this job is based out of Kitchener, but because of track work on the weekend Friday's L568 set off two zebra Geeps in order for the Saturday crew to start their day in Stratford. However, both units were seen facing east, which would have meant LHF for the entire west portion of their run. Nonetheless, I decided to go for it. GP9s are one of the few locomotives that are acceptable in LHF configuration in my book.
When I arrived in Stratford, however, I was pleasantly greeted by a recently wyed solo 4116 working the yard and building their train. What would have been acceptable was immediately upgraded to near perfect. But where was the other zebra GP38 they set off? After building their train, they made their shove move onto the main to depart Stratford for points west. But, they seemed to take a while to get their work authority.
After a few minutes of not seeing any progress, they pulled up to reveal they had grabbed the 2nd unit that was set off the previous day and tied back onto their train. What was near perfect was now the cream of the crop for Southern Ontario railfanning in 2025, and the sun chose to play ball as well, which was very nice.
The 1957-built 4116 is one of the oldest locomotives still active on any Class 1 in North America, and it's honestly insane that we are still able to see these first-generation diesel Canadian GMD GP9s in action on the mainline.
Train: CN L568 with CN 4116 (GP9rm) and CN 4716 (GP38-2).
St. Marys, ON
CN Guelph Subdivision