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| The CP/TH&B Goderich Turn pauses while switching with TH&B 77 &401 at Guelph Juntion, near Campbellville, ON, on July 18, 1984. Reg Button photo, author's collection. |
Today’s Throwback Thursday takes us back to July 18, 1984;
it’s late in the day at Guelph Junction, located 39.2 miles up the Galt Sub
from Toronto. Guelph Junction is an interesting place on the Galt Sub, and is
the location where the Hamilton Sub joins the Galt Sub (from the south) and
where the Goderich sub branches off northward to Guelph (cut back from Goderich
in the late 1980’s). What remains of the Goderich Sub is owned by the city of
Guelph (the only municipally-owned common carrier railway line in Canada) and
now operated by shortline Ontario Southland Railway. Interestingly, the two
branches are not directly connected to each other, but a pair of wyes (facing
north and south) are used to bring trains on or off the Hamilton/Goderich
subdivisions. Guelph Junction also marks the end of CTC territory originating
in Toronto, and where OCS track warrant territory continues another 74 miles to
London (except for CTC islands at Wolverton and London). A GO transit storage
facility was located here for a number of years, used to store GO commuter
trainsets used on the Milton line in the evenings or on weekends. Discontinued
a few years ago when a new layover facility was constructed in Milton, use of
the yard is now confined to OSR/CP interchange to the shortline. At one time,
the Goderich sub featured a daily-except-Sunday passenger train from Hamilton
to Goderich, usually powered by one of the road’s quaint 4-4-4 Jubilee engines,
and included an unusual reverse move at the junction to cross the Galt sub (northward
train would pull around south wye, back down the Galt sub, and carry on
northward around the north wye and onto Goderich). If a Jubilee wasn’t
available, or if the regular engine broke down, a spare engine stationed at the
junction would be used to power the local passenger train. Often this was a P-1
or P-2 Mikado, which made for quite the interesting little passenger train!
Additional passenger service was provided by a CP gas-electric doodlebug based
out of Guelph, and often made several round trips between Guelph and the
junction (about 15 miles) per day.
Through the viewfinder, we observe a pair of TH&B geeps,
GP7 #77 and GP9 #401. The subject train (though apparently absent of cars this
day) is the Goderich Turn, operated north out of TH&B’s Aberdeen yard to
its’ namesake port on Lake Huron. An interesting operation, the train commonly
operated with TH&B-supplied power, often with just a single unit. This is
especially interesting considering the steep descent down the Niagara
Escarpment from Guelp Junction and the TH&B units’ lack of dynamic brakes. The
pair of units on today’s train is an interesting anomaly, considering TH&B’s
common practice of using borrowed engines to power its’ own trains. It appears
that the train is making a switching move at the time of this photo – note the
conductor with his large shoulder-slung radio appears to have just lined the
main line switch back to the normal position. Most of what is visible in this
photo is now gone – the CP Chevy van undoubtedly disposed of after years of
service, and the station demolished to make way for additional GO Transit storage
tracks, the TH&B geeps, and even the train order semaphore, a Guelph
Junction landmark for decades. But for at least a moment back in July 1984 we
can imagine what the geeps’ 567 engines sounded like while switching at the Junction.
‘Til next time,
Cheers,
Peter.
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