Caption: A westbound CN freight lead by GP40-2LW 9627, HR616 2117, and an M636 that appears to be 2309 head through the plant at Bayview Junction, ready to begin the climb up the Dundas Sub. Trailing the power on the head end are a pair of DCCX wing cars carrying MD-11 aircraft wing assemblies bound for the US, enroute from the McDonnell Douglas plant in Malton ("MDCan") along CN's Weston Subdivision (which was formerly the home of A.V. Roe, maker of the famed Avro Arrow).

Douglas Aircraft (later McDonnell-Douglas) purchased the Malton plant from de Havilland in the mid-60's and set up its branch plant operation there to make wing assemblies and other components for DC-9's. The DC-9 wing assemblies were transported on flatcars in pairs, forwarded to the MD plant in Long Beach, California for final assembly. When production of the DC-10 started up in the late 60's, specially-built "wing cars" were built by Maxson to handle the larger DC-10 and later MD-11 wing assemblies. They were essentially 88' long cushion-underframe gondolas outfitted for transporting the wings. Douglas Aircraft owned six of their own (DCCX 1001-1006), that were later joined by a group from Union Pacific (UP 229580-229587). Because the wing assemblies were so long, UP spacer flatcars were used in the middle of two wing cars to account for the wing overhang from each, and were usually handled on the head end of freights. From a bit of research, routing of the wing loads was from Malton via CN to GTW at Port Huron, who interchanged them at Blue Island (Chicago) to the Rock Island, who forwarded them to UP at Council Bluffs for final delivery to the Long Beach plant.

The old Malton plant operated for decades under McDonnell Douglas, was taken over by Boeing in 1997, and finally closed in 2005. The site was demolished in short order, and presently remains vacant. The big wing cars are also gone from the rails.

Michael Bannon photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection.