Wow such a nostalgic sound. I remember that when I was a kid that these were the types of horns that I would clearly hear from my own driveway. These magnificent horns were commanding, attention getting, and powerful in ways that the K5CA-LS of today couldn't compare to. I remember hearing these horns going off every day with the echoing. I used to be able to clearly hear 20+ horn blasts each time a train passes through the Stouffville line and each of those blasts would fill the quiet air around the neighborhood with this chilling yet relaxing sound never heard from anything else. Those horns had character and emotion in them. Hearing it, you felt that the train was really telling you that it was crossing a crossing with the long, long, short, long pattern done perfectly. Now the characterless and quiet horns are not as powerful and don't demand the same attention unless they're put in emergency horn mode but that just makes them sound like an angry screaming animal or a choking elephant trying to hock a loogie. I miss the K5LAs of the old days completely. When I was really young, I never really paid attention to how the trains looked. But I do remember one time when I saw an old cab car leading and it shocked me. "How the heck is that train supposed to be travelling in reverse?" I immediately went home and found out over the internet about push-pull operation. That was one of the things that sparked my interest in trains. With the new cab cars, it looks like as if the cab car was pulling the whole train instead of having a locomotive push it at the end. If it weren't for the old cabs, then I would have never been interested in trains. Anyway, those old cab cars and the F59PHs became what I immediately visualized when I thought of "GO train". Those cab cars were iconic and they were easily recognizable. Now the new cab cars are too generic and boring looking. I will always remember those times when GO Transit was dominated by L10 sets completely in the old paint scheme consisting of an old cab car at the front with a legendary K5LA and an F59PH at the back. This is what you call a GO Train! Thank you for making and uploading this amazing video. It was a well-spent eight-and-a-half minutes. Too long didn't read: GO Transit old cab cars, K5LAs, and F59PHs were the best and this was a great video.
I can’t agree any more. I remember watching these trains with the absolute best K5LAs on F59PHs, and old cab cars. These K5-CAs don’t have a great sound at all. It will never beat the sound of a REAL train horn. I remember hearing the K5LA horns and thinking, “Well, that’s a train horn!” And now whenever I hear K5-CAs I think that’s a lame old boring restricted horn. There are a lot of great sounding K5-CAS, (such as all the F59PHs horns) but that’s about it. I wish bombardier put K5LAs on cab cars and only locomotives because Transport Canada only mandated locomotives. I hope I can hear these horns again whenever I see another railroad.
This is the kind of Barrie Line action I grew up with and miss dearly. And I was here early enough to remember the days where the entire line was still F59PHs only.
I agree with both of you. We used to live near the tracks and I’d sit by my window and watch the trains go by everyday with old cab cars and F59PHs back in 2010 Really miss the old days.
Now this is *TRUE* GO Transit. The horns here truly speak excellence for themselves in a way the mentally disabled horns today can't. Losing these great horns was a huge factor in why I utterly despise the CEM Cab Cars and felt it was completely justified to show the Old Cabs pitchfork and torch the CEM Cabs in my recent "Crash Energy Management Cab Cars in a Nutshell" video.
Superbaddy4 Yes sir, yes it is. I never really minded the K5CAs on F59PHs, since they didn’t sound terrible. But still, every K5LA beats it. I can’t wait to hear these horns again when I get to see other railroads.
Great video!! All the K5LAs are amazing, even the fouled ones. Wish I had old video of the K5LAS. Hopefully my video of the old cab cars come out soon!
Tyler M Yes 100% agreed! I don’t mind the older E-Bells like the one at Rivermede road. But the cab cars on GO can still have K5LAs but now Bombardier puts them on every cab car that is sent in for maintenance.
