Caption: The first twelve years or so GO Transit was a rather modest operation, Lakeshore route Pickering to Oakville only. Ten car GO Trains were week day rush hour only, off peak and weekend service was sparsely patronized and handled by two or three car self propelled Hawker Siddeley built units ( pics out there by anyone?) numbered in the 'D' series (D100 to D108). At that time almost all GO equipment was new, except for the rebuilt ACPU ex ONR F units, so with GO basically uninteresting these negatives were exposed while waiting for Via CN Rapidos', Bonaventures', Execs', Capitals' powered by Cab Units: FPA4's and FP-9A's that could be in either new Via colours or even better in the CN stripes – by far more interesting. So for a spring Saturday operation these ten car Go Trains was a surprise. The reason for the Saturday (and Sunday) rush hour sized trains: increased patronage generated due to the new Major League Baseball team's home games at Exhibition Stadium – the rest of course is history but certainly credit the Major League for the public discovering the convenience of using GO for pleasure travel, in addition to the standard daily Monday to Friday business travel grind. The hourly GO schedule provided a 'meet' between Danforth and Scarborough Stations, so these negatives (compete with unexpected colour shift – minor correction attempted) with 700 and 901 leading respective westbound and eastbound trains were exposed June 1977, only minutes apart, near the top of the Scarborough grade (eastbound uphill). And this GO equipment is not new now, it is history. So, the first twelve years or so of GO looked like this. ASA100 Kodak colour negatives transported by a Nikon Nikkormat EL. Photographer S. Danko.
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One other change to this scene and an obvious sign of GO’s success… this stretch of the Kingston Sub is now triple tracked. As always, wonderful shot!
Classic GO action! And an example of the forethough of GO not being successful: buying freight locos that could be sold to freight RR’s. Ironically, that’s just what happened to this unit when it was retired.