Caption: After climbing the grade out of the Welland Canal tunnel, a solid set of five MLW C424's are working hard as they smoke it up at the head end of a CP acid train, rolling around the curve at Netherby Road (Highway 25) at Brookfield. They're heading up the CP Hamilton Sub (former Conrail CASO Sub) bound for Montrose Yard and Niagara Falls. Units closest to furthest from the camera are CP 4222, 4209, 4204, 4207, and leader 4216. Photos from the same day suggest Reg chased this train from the Welland Canal to at least Montrose Yard.
Today this portion of the old Canada Southern line (formerly the mainline portion of the CASO/MCRR/NYC/PC/CR "Canada Division" to downtown Niagara Falls ON and into the US, note the right-of-way where a second mainline once ran) is now the lowly CP Montrose Sub, only running from Brookfield to a point south of the main downtown Niagara Falls area. The heavy mainline freights take a different routing to the US, and the Montrose Sub only sees a local that switches the few customers along the line and the Chippawa Industrial Spur.
Reg Button photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection slide.
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Marvelous Dan! Any idea how long the unit acid trains continued in service in Niagara?
That I’m not sure, perhaps one of the longtime locals like Mr. Mooney would know the answer…
Never Conrail CASO Sub.
One more correction if I may. This piece of track was never NYC. The NYC cut across Northeast from Welland to Niagara Falls. The original alignment was further East of here where the line makes a right turn towards Montrose. If you look on the map there is a hydro line that follows the old RofW from Hwy 140/East Main St.
Very nice! The acid trains didn’t last long after this… probably a year or two… certainly gone by the late-90′s.