This absolutely 100% made my day. I spent hours on the Spadina (pronounced Spa-Dye-Na) bridge watching this action. I loved the cool paint scheme on the Tempo locos
I lived in Mississauga in 1978 and saw many of the trains shown in your video. Took the GO train single decker many times to Union Station, and the three cars train to Belleville. Great video.
My dad was a Trainmaster for CN in Toronto and he used to take me around these yards when I was a kid. Cool to see this era again. I worked on the Supercontinental as a VIA Rail Dining Car waiter as a summer job. Also I believe Capreol is CAY-preol. Thanks for sharing!
Awesome video. When I would ride the Dayliner from Peterborough to Toronto, the views in the railyards of the big city were always a feast for the eyes. There were every kind of locomotive and rolling stock imaginable and it was glorious. That was also the last time I can remember seeing natural cut-grass in the Union station rail corridor.
I rode the Dayliner too. It was a wild ride on those iffy tracks. Neil Young's dad Scott would get on at Cavan. One morning as we passed through the Agincourt train yard I saw a line of CP hoppers. Piled inside were the mangled tank cars from the Mississauga Train Disaster. Miss those days 😊
@@jamesstuart3346 I remember that time in Mississauga. A forgotten part of Canadian history that happened in our time. There is still talk of GO commuter rail between Peterborough and Toronto. In the days of the CP/VIA Dayliner that train travelled between Havelock and Oakville.
I remember being really young and seeing that old changing CFTO-TV billboard when driving along the Gardiner Expressway with my family... hehe .. funny memory!
I know the folks at CFTO-TV (in the 1970s) had one or two billboard signs that were located north of the train tracks (and--of course--north of the Gardiner Expressway). THAT STATED, who were all of the individuals....in....the 3 or 4 ads that were shown in that (revolving-type?) billboard?
Back in the 1970's, I used to work in the accounting department of Toronto Terminal Railways on the fourth floor of Union Station overlooking the rail yards. Quite a difference today from then. The old central heating plant and car washer are long gone. Who would of thought the rail yards of those days would be replaced by condominiums.
Just like here in Manila the main station was become a mall and the yard was move 4 to 5 blocks away from the old station, The wide yard was gone when lots of equipment park side by side
You wouldn't believe the stories that abound in coach yard at those times For example when a passenger train arrived at Union Station a yard switch generally a 8500 Alco After coupling on the yard crew would walk through the cars This one yard foreman would go through the bar cars and pore any left over drinks into one glass then drink it On one occasion his yardman said to him that he found a 5 dollar bill after that the yard foreman wouldn't allow him to walk though the coach's first On the roof of the yard office at the coach yard There was dozens of empty liquor bottles as well as full ones in lockers even the yard master at times had wine with his meal
The good old days before the Rail companies tried to kill rail passenger travel. I remember the old single decker GO trains. I was just a kid but I remember them.
I remember that. Used to visit the whole waterfront with my Dad often. At 1:02 there's 151 Front St, which is the most connected building in Canada. It's a data centre, which uses the rail line to house fibre in and out of the city.
Maritime Railfan this video is amazing. Do you know if the full length version allows the viewer to see the entire train pass, for example the Super Continental? This video clipped it before I could see the whole consist. Thanks
I got to ride on non-stop "Rapido' from Brockville-Oshawa in 1975 because the Ottawa-Brockville train I was on was delayed by a truck driving into loco @ Moodie Dr We weren't derailed luckily. Only the water tank on loco was slightly damaged, but truck driver died. Got a seat in Club car on Rapido as a result. I also got a free trip on Air Canada a year later because estate of truck driver sued CN for negligence? & I was a key witness from Vancouver! (DC-8)
This is not even slightly true. Union Station is busier today than it has ever been, and the freight yards in this area weren't just replaced with roads, they were replaced with parks, apartment towers, office towers, sports stadiums etc, as well as new modern freight yards on in the suburbs where most of the heavy industry had relocated.
I used to railfan at the bottom of Port Union Rd. in East Scarborough Ont. just east of Rouge River....the Go train stopped at Pickering and you had to bus it to Oshawa....
Maritime Railfan this video is amazing. Do you know if the full length version allows the viewer to see the entire train pass, for example the Super Continental? This video clipped it before I could see the whole consist. Thanks
Great video. Brings back lots of memories of that period and amazing to see tha changes that have happened over the years. One point of critisism, Spadina is pronounced SPAD(EYE)NA, not SPAD(EE)NA. I lived around Toronto all my life and spent many hours in and around Spadina. it was a great spot now under the Skydome (or rogers Center if you prefer)
@@johnmcgahern3946 The engine terminal is named after the street which is pronounced Spad-EYE-na; ask any Torontonian. The mansion that the street is named after, is pronounced Spad-EE-na House
@@robwillie226 The engine terminal & washers are named after the street which is pronounced Spad-EYE-na; ask any Torontonian. The mansion that the street is named after, is pronounced Spad-EE-na House
I was just as shocked as you are CN and CP have been replaced by VIA which runs close to nothing but GO has grown INSANELY both in service patterns and in train size
Doesn't exist anymore. Ironically at the time of this video it was only a few years old and operating out of its Agincourt studios. They still exist but are now CTV and TSN studios
This is why the 60's had good cameras, most of the searchlights in this video were replaced by the searchlights still existing today (as of this comment)
Kevin Howard i don’t believe they are using any of the old 1954 CN equipment but they are using the CP 1955 Budd equipment, primarily on their flagship train. :)
My understanding is that the railroads made decisions to build new yards in the north end of the city that were more accessible to the highways. The rail corridors leading to Union were left for the use of Via Rail and Go Transit, leading to more efficient passenger service. I could be wrong on this and welcome corrections from anyone that has a more complete understanding.
downtown lands are too valuable for other uses, tourism, convention centre, condos, offices, sports centres/recreation, and very busy passenger train service for satellite cities (Burlington, Oakville, Pickering/Ajax, Oshawa, Richmond Hill, Georgetown, etc...) Now it is more developed and relatively more posh than freight-train yard.
The John Street and Spadina yards were shut down and are now largely condos, the CN Tower and Skydome. CN's yards are now in Vaughan just by the 404 and 407. CP is up in Agincourt
From circa 1980 onwards, a number of businesses/industries/etc that needed to use various freight cars--and were in downtown Toronto or thereabouts--closed down (or moved). There was, therefore, no need for a large number of certain freight cars; to be in the various rail yards between the Don River & Bathurst....
Great footage spoilt by three things: Narrator cannot pronounce several Canadian names correctly such as Spadina. The sound dubbing is poor with several instances of EMD sound on MLW units. The commentary has some appalling mistakes such as calling a distinctive MLW Tempo RS18 a GP9
I still can't fathom why there were decent trains in the 70's and utter garbage 50 years later. It's a crying shame the endless Canadian and provincial governments have reduced the passenger rail service to the marginal service that it is today.
Wanna bet that none of that filmed Rotton-Ø turf was decontaminated prior to erecting the shameful walls of sub-par housing, most of which are bound to disastrously fail by the 2030s? :pfft:
In France yes, but in Toronto we say it the way he said it, age in court, or Ay Jin court In Toronto we pronounce Spadina like Spad eye na, not Spadeena, even if we're wrong, we just do.
Hey great video, nice and clean, just like most of the trains ! I rode some of those trains and my Father serviced many of the CN passenger FP4 and FP9 units out of Halifax. Sweet! Lots of good memories here.
