Caption: A pair of CP Rail MLW switchers, S4 7107 and S2 7063, hustle their way north up the Don Branch (CP Belleville Sub) past a section house at Don, ducking under the Eastern Avenue bridge spanning the railway corridor and Don River. The trailing unit didn't have MU, so this could be a light power move from John Street north to Agincourt Yard.
The track on the right beside the separate signal (note the neat cutouts on the signal targets to clear rail equipment) was CN's P500 service track that lead to their uppermost yards at Cherry Street (near the Canary Restaurant). The SPS signal was to protect a crossover on the yard leads that CP would used to access CN's yards to interchange, and was activated by knife switch. The siding branching off it leads across Bayview Avenue to the nearby S. McCord concrete plant.
CN's Bala Sub runs in the middle, with crossover tracks visible here (controlled by TTR Cherry Street tower) allowing CP to cross CN and access the lead to their own Cherry Street yards, as well as a connecting track to CN for interchange purposes. CN and CP both had freight yards and sidings in the West Donlands industrial area, that branched out just to the south of here (much still intact at the time, but removed in the 90's). Today the former CP Don Branch sits unused awaiting future GO use, while the Bala Sub next to it sees normal GO and VIA passenger activity.
Keith Hansen photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection slide.
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What a beautiful shot, thanks for sharing Dan.
Thanks Liam, I figured with all the VIA detour shots up the Bala, some might like this one.
This movement was probably the “push”. They sometimes called 2 engineers for this to ferry power only around Toronto Terminals. They were likely taking this power from John Street to Toronto Yard at Agincourt. As an example, the push sometimes handled the GO units leased on weekends, from Mimico to Agincourt Fridays & back Sunday night.