Caption: Sitting in suburban Scarborough at the border between industrial areas and residential neighbourhoods, Canadian Pacific RS3 8445 awaits its next duties switching the Scarborough Industrial Spur, on one of the leads near the Ashtonbee Team Tracks at Bertrand Avenue and Thermos Road. The single-level suburban houses visible in the background are located off Birchmount Road, and the large factory in the background is the Federated Metals plant.

The Scarborough Industrial Spur was built in the early 1950's to serve the industrial post-war boom in the "Golden Mile" area of Scarborough, one of the fast-growing inner suburbs surrounding the old city of Toronto proper. It branched off CP's Belleville Sub at Mile 201.36, crossed Warden, and ran south parallel to Warden and Birchmount (serving a few businesses that sprung up along Howden Rd enroute) to reach industries in the Golden Mile north of Eglinton Avenue East, which included Volkswagen of Canada, Link-Belt, Canadian General Thermos, Kaiser Aluminum, and Canadian General Electric's Scarborough plant (formerly English Electric / Inglis). There was also a branch that ran up Underwriters Road, and a few sidings and ramp for a team track at Ashtonee Road (see 1957 CofT aerials here and here). The Golden Mile industries on the south side of Eglinton were served by CN via their "GECO branch".

CP's Scarborough Industrial Spur was eventually abandoned in the mid-90's as all the old heavy manufacturing industry left the area or switched from rail to truck, and urban redevelopment and gentrification of the area started to set in (the Golden Mile strip of Eglinton today features power centers, car dealerships and big box plazas mixed in with repurposed industrial buildings and some remaining legacy industry, and the Eglinton Crosstown LRT line will bring more changes when completed in the future).

Original photographer unknown, Dan Dell'Unto collection negative (large-format scanned with a DSLR, with some restoration work done).