Railpictures.ca - Profile and photos of MrDan

Profile Page for MrDan

This page shows statistics, photos, and an all-time map for MrDan. Photographers: Filling your map and earning awards can only be done one way. Submit today!

About MrDan

MrDan is an avid photographer, railfan, modeller and slide collector with an interest in rail photography, prototype operations, equipment information, urban transportation and model railroading. He also assists the RP.ca moderation team, as well as has helped in the past model railroad manufacturers with research and development of various rail-related models and projects. He has had a number of photographs appear in magazines, books, advertisements and used by historical groups. As per RP.ca's photo use guidelines, all photos uploaded by this user are not to be used for commercial and other purposes unless prior written permission has been obtained (but link sharing to the photo's page is welcome and encouraged). Original photographer credit is noted for any collection slide uploads whenever possible. ***Images posted including (those collection slide images) are not to be reused in any publication, both print or online, without prior permission***

MrDan's Railpictures.ca photo upload statistics

Number of images: 992
Total gold: 10449
Number of comments recieved : 1234
Number of comments posted : 1094
Total views: 1786417

MrDan has won Editors Choice 1 time

MrDan has 1 image in the Time Machine

Contact MrDan

To contact MrDan for licensing, permission, or to send a private comment click this link: (contact)
* note: all inquiries are moderated

MrDan's 992 photos on Railpictures.ca:

Making its timely 16:30 departure from Toronto with Milton-line GO train #151, GO cab car 238 pulls out of Track 7 of Union Station's train shed (the then-usual track for Milton trains), passing the yellow nose of VIA F40PH-2D 6408 sticking out of Track 8 on train #83, still a good 45 minutes away from its 17:15 departure time.
<br><br>
At this time, it was still dark underneath the 1920's Bush-style train shed - work was still a year or two away from "cubing" it with the giant glass atrium (although some use a far more foul term).

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	VIA Rail
Date:	02/06/2009
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

4 Comments | 9 Favourites

It's a rainy day in the city as a set of Bombardier T1 subway cars pause at the Toronto Transit Commission's Eglinton West subway station on the trip south on the Spadina Line. It's even wet in the subway - water pools on the north side of the platforms, probably blown or leaking in from the open section just behind us. Cars from the nearby Allen Expressway (on either side of the subway line) can be heard swishing past on rainy pavement...well, at least on the northbound side; the southbound traffic is perpetually choked at the Eglinton Avenue West exit.
<br><br>
To add a little spice to the system compared to its previous utilitarian and functional stations (that some compare to public washrooms because of the spartan nature and tiling), in the 1970's the TTC approached a number of architectural firms to design stations along the new Spadina subway line, which opened in 1978. Eglinton West was designed by Arthur Erickson Architects and featured the a mix of concrete, brick, dark earth tones, sharp edges and windows lining the platforms, heralding the transition from bright outdoor open cut subway line to subterranean underground tunnels south of Eglinton. Art installations were also featured at each station, and Eglinton West is known for its large "Summertime Streetcar" mural work by Gerald Zeldin at the south end of the platforms.

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	Toronto Transit Co…
Date:	03/11/2011
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 2 Favourites

An interesting advertising wrap to spot on a cold winter's morning in February. GO Transit bilevel 2316, one of the usual suspects in the wrap car pool, sports a RedTag.ca Vacations wrap amid the consist of an inbound train arriving at Toronto's Union Station.

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	GO Transit
Date:	02/08/2007
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

2 Comments | 3 Favourites

GO Transit cab car 232 trails "The Bramalea Flip", the weekday afternoon Brampton to Toronto (Bramalea Station to Union Station) GO train, passing through the community of Weston, in Toronto Ontario. The train with F59PH 522 in the lead is approaching Weston Station for its stop around ~10:30am, with downtown a mere 15 minutes away.
<br><br>
A lot has changed in this scene: the old station (including a waiting room dating from the old CNR days) has been demolished and moved south along the line. Extra tracks have been added, and the entire ex-CN Weston Sub corridor here has become a big trench or flyunder, due to the vocal protesting of some Weston community groups that adding more frequent GO service and the Union-Pearson Express trains would divide their community (ironically enough, the busy freight-only CP MacTier Sub on the left still crosses through Weston at-grade!). Much of the greenery and foliage has been removed by Metrolinx during the construction.
<br><br>
But trains still roll through Weston, the town that grew up around the railway lines and industries they served ever since the Grand Trunk Railway laid rails through the pre-village settlement here in 1856, 159 years ago.

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	GO Transit
Date:	09/27/2007
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 5 Favourites

Zipping across the intersection like a red rocket in the night, Toronto Transit Commission CLRV 4051 heads east on Dundas across Bay Street on a wet winter evening, running the 505 Dundas route.

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	Toronto Transit Co…
Date:	01/18/2011
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 6 Favourites

Late evening finds a set of Toronto Transit Commission H6 subway cars making a stop at Keele Subway Station to drop a few passengers off. Car 5903 trails, one of the group of 100+ H6 cars built in Thunder Bay by UTDC/Can Car Rail in the 80's (5810-5935). A bit more troublesome than the rest, an option for more new Toronto Rockets was exercised to replace the entire H6 fleet, and the last train retired in June 2014.
<br><br>
<i><b>More H6's?</b></i><br>
5911 at Woodbine Station: <a href=http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=13651><b>http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=13651</b></a><br>
An H6 interior (pre-refurb): <a href=http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=15491><b>http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=15491</b></a><br>
5886 departing Yonge in a flash: <a href=http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=15090><b>http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=15090</b></a><br>
H6 train at Castle Frank: <a href=http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=4666><b>http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=4666</b></a><br>
Zooming out of Sherbourne: <a href=http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=15492><b>http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=15492</b></a><br>
Crossovers at Keele: <a href=http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=18072><b>http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=1807</b></a>

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	Toronto Transit Co…
Date:	10/19/2012
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

2 Comments | 1 Favourites

TTC CLRV 4017 swings into Dundas West Subway Station with a load of passengers, at the end of it's run along Dundas Street as a 505 car. In the background is The Crossways Mall and apartment tower complex, sitting on the site of the old Canada Bread plant. Before the Bloor-Danforth subway line opened, there used to be a loop in the background on the other side of Dundas where cars turned, called "Vincent Loop".

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	Toronto Transit Co…
Date:	05/11/2009
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 3 Favourites

A train of now retired UTDC/Can Car Rail H6 subway cars heads west to Keele Subway Station in one of the open cuts along the line, passing crossovers that were once used everyday when the Bloor-Danforth line only went as far as Keele. In the background buses can be seen at the nearby Dundas West station, from where this train has just departed. The switch on the right leads to Vincent Yard, a small storage yard between the two stations.

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	Toronto Transit Co…
Date:	05/11/2009
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 2 Favourites

At the end of a long day, a OWS Railroad Construction and Maintenance Mack Granite hi-rail truck sits parked with a cut of 10 National Steel Car-built CN ballast hoppers on the Bramalea North Service Track by the GO station. Some still bear their "Government of Canada, Branchline Rehabilitation Program" markings from the late 1970's, as the cars purchases were funded by the Government of Canada for both CN and CP to help upgrade aging prairie branchline infrastructure. The triple tracking of the CN's Halton Sub between Halwest and Norval would see the north service track here become the #1 main track, making the then-current north and south mains the #2 and #3 main tracks.

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	Canadian National
Date:	10/31/2008
Location:	Brampton
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 4 Favourites

<i>Bygones of past years:</i> <br><br> Built in 1917 and at the time of this photo about 90 years old, Canadian Pacific 188625 is one of few wooden-single sheathed 36' Dominion Fowler boxcars left, preserved at the Toronto Railway Historical Association's Roundhouse Park. Back in the olden days, hundreds of Fowler design boxcars (and for that matter, thousands of wooden construction boxcars) formed the backbones of CN and CP's fleets of that era, before the all-steel boxcars began making inroads starting in the 1930's. <br><br> Visible in the rays of light shining through windows of the former CPR John St. Roundhouse is the lettering of its previous caretakers stenciled on the chipping red paint: the "Canadian Railroad Historical Association, T&Y* Division, Toronto" (*Toronto & York), who presumably saved or acquired this car from the CPR for preservation at one time in the past. Ownership was stenciled on the side to reflect this, and partially to prevent CP from accidentally forwarding the car to the scrapper, lest an errant crew picks said relic up and it ends up somewhere on CP. <br><br> Also, between rivets on its flanks are bits of stencil data from eons ago. This particular bit indicates a CM 418 truck inspection and any associated work was last performed by CP in Toronto, during March of 1988 (CM 418 is apparently an internal CP Mechanical Instruction Manual, <a href=http://www.bst-tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/rail/1996/r96h0021/r96h0021.asp?><b>Source</b></a>). Old stencil dates and information was painted over and new data applied every time a car was reweighted, inspected, repaired, repainted, or bearings repacked. A railway would often have standardized colours, font stencils, etc across its network, but often times whatever was on hand was used (as was the case here with non-matching black paint).

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	Canadian Pacific
Date:	04/29/2007
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 5 Favourites

Toronto Transit Commission H5 subway car 5749 waits at the north end of Davisville Yard's shop complex, awaiting the chance to go inside for a little TLC on this dark damp Friday evening.

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	Toronto Transit Co…
Date:	03/11/2011
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 5 Favourites

Looking back, I'm not sure what was uglier: an SD40-2W in its decades-old factory paint with peeling black and primer brown showing through, or a relatively newer UP SD70M that, during a visit to LA, probably sat in one place too long. Nevertheless, better than a pair of GE's! CN 5267 and UP 5184 howl through Bramalea GO Station on #399 as it puts in its afternoon appearance, not long after departing MacMillan Yard in Vaughan.

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	Canadian National
Date:	04/22/2008
Location:	Brampton
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 6 Favourites

The TTC's fleet of 52 articulated ALRV streetcars rule the 501 Queen, but smaller CLRV's do show up from time to time - often in times of car shortages or changeoffs, whatever is left in running condition at the carhouse or yard gets send out. TTC CLRV 4045, bound for Long Branch, pauses near Queen and Victoria on a wet evening.
<br><br>
A gleam of what the photographer was doing this particular evening can be seen reflected in one of the windows, prior to his boarding of another 501 car not too long after pressing the shutter.

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	Toronto Transit Co…
Date:	03/11/2011
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

1 Comments | 2 Favourites

Sister GO cab cars 236 and 237, both built by UTDC in the late 80's and refurbished not too long ago, wait at outside platforms 26 and 27 on the south end of Union Station. 237 heads a 10-car train 809 for Barrie, while 236 heads 12 car Milton line train 159.

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	GO Transit
Date:	07/09/2009
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 2 Favourites

A shiny new stainless steel "Toronto Rocket", built in Thunder Bay by Bombardier, pulls into Eglinton West subway station on the Spadina line. While this one is heading southbound to downtown (and on to Finch), in the background another TR can be seen trailing northbound to Glencairn.

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	Toronto Transit Co…
Date:	04/02/2012
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 5 Favourites

Anyone care for a slightly used EMD F59PH? <br><br> The new MP40's had begun to cut into the F59 numbers in a significant way, and a visit to Mimico found over a dozen GO Transit F59PH locomotives out of work and parked in the Willowbrook Yard deadlines. Units visible here are 520, 535, 531, 523 in one group, and 532, 528, 526, 530, 540 in the next. The obvious combo breaker here is 532, which is facing west when all GO's locomotives at the time ran on the east end of trains facing east (see the two trains in the background). It was used as a shop switcher before being retired, since GO usually turned a unit when they needed it for that duty. <br><br> While there's nine here, seven others sit in another group behind us to the west (GO 555, 527, 525, 521, 524, 533). Ironically enough, one of the trains in the background ready to head to Union Station sports a still-active F59 of its own. <br><br> Even more interesting are the three platform clearance test cars that were pulled out of their usual hiding spot on a nearby spur and spotted right in the yard. The first two are former CN 40' boxes, the last a former CP plug-door insulated-heated 40' boxcar, all with solid/friction bearing trucks and crudely renumbered GOOX 1, 2 & 3. <br><br> <i>For the roster keepers:</i> While units 540 and 555 would go back into service for another year or two, the other units (all of which came from the first GO order 520-535, class GCE-430g, built in Jul-Sep 1988 - making them nearly 21 years old) were sold off in the coming months as follows:<br> <br> March 2009: 520, 523, 531, 535 to RB Leasing (Quebec)<br> March 2009: 526, 530, 532 to MMA/Railworld (Maine) for rebuilding for SLC (AMT lease in QC)<br> April 2009: 521, 522, 524, 529, 533, 534 to RB Leasing (Quebec)<br> May 2009: 525, 527, 528 to Trinity Railway Express (Dallas, TX)

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	GO Transit
Date:	02/24/2009
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 10 Favourites

VIA "Operation Lifesaver" F40PH-2 6411 backs 83's train of five stainless steel Budd "HEP" cars into Union Station and under the train shed on Track 9. The shiny yellow nose was probably a recent development, as the unit previously had some OLS & sponsor logos on it.
<br><br>The extra pair of horns at the front was the first application of this feature on VIA F40's, which would be fully adopted during the rebuild program. The front two horns are emergency horns, normal horn use is through the nearly invisible one in front of the first rooftop fan.

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	VIA Rail
Date:	04/01/2009
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 2 Favourites

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	Other
Date:	08/05/2008
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 5 Favourites

<b><i>British Steam meets Canadian Handyman-ship</i></b> <br><br> From a North American perspective, the ol' British buffer-and-chain coupling system seems a bit ancient, but it probably gets the job done just as well. Volunteers at the Toronto Railway Historical Association hook up their 50-ton CLC-Whitcomb switcher to "Vicky", a 1893 London & South Western Railway steam engine numbered 563. A museum piece shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, it is shown on loan from the Shildon Locomotion Museum in England for a local production of The Railway Children at Roundhouse Park in Toronto.<br><br> Used as a switcher (or "shunter" in British terms), the standard North American knuckle coupler and uncoupling levers have been removed off the CLC-W and roped blocks installed to act as buffers for moving Vicky. Once the crew hooks up the coupling link in between, they'll pull the British steamer off of the "tent track", spin it on the turntable, and store it inside the former CPR John Street Roundhouse. A real <a href=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5GnBvpFnzA><b><i>"Red Green" solution</i></b></a>, but when in Canada...

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	Preservation
Date:	04/13/2011
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 3 Favourites

<a href=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suCm1w_KTiY><b>Here he comes, here come Speed Racer...GO Speed Racer GOOOOO!</b></a>
<br><br>
Lumbering through the slipswitches of the Union Station Rail Corridor, afternoon GO train 919 heads west out of Toronto, with GO bilevel 2206 wrapped for the then-upcoming Speed Racer (2008) movie. Judging by its 6.1/10 rating on IMDB (typical of many good TV-show to poor movie adaptations IMHO), it probably needed all the advertising it could get...in this case, a whole passenger car's worth.

Name:	MrDan
Railway:	GO Transit
Date:	04/21/2008
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

1 Comments | 3 Favourites

first ◄…34 353637 38…►last

MrDan's Map:

Note: Due to Google's greediness you may have to click the OK button when it asks you if you own this website. We'll replace this in time, but it's going to be a while. Sorry :)

*Note: Only photos with GPS added upon submission are mapped here. Some users do not map images and may show a blank map.