Caption: ACTON. November 15, 2018 marked the end of an era, being the last day of the GEXR operations on the Guelph sub. This brought a lot of nostalgia for the awesome way the GEXR ran there operations through the years, true railroaders and railroading at its best. Next came the excitment of the new era being ushered in with the blue GATX leasors, daylight 431s and GMD-1s (rhyming is incidental, haha).

Not too often thought about, for me at least, is the era before GEXR when CN tamed the Guelph Sub. Combing through more of Norm Conways collection, has revealed that he caught the Acton action, and in the early twilight of CNs MLW fleet.

Acton is a very interesting place for foaming. To the west, the relief from the ruling grade at Limehouse to the east. West of Acton, highway 7 provides a nice vantage and open area as proven by Mike Molnar's and AJS's shots. To the east, the grade at Limehouse make for a specacular show (I'm told), espcially with the second generation EMD power on the drawbar as seen by Marcus W Stevens, Cityslicker and again Marcus W Stevens shots. Not too long before Norms shot, Bill Thomson caught a westbound charging the hill with similar power.

The leader of the Eastbound Extra, CN 2305 built almost exactly 49 years ago in April 1970, is an M-636 that lasted on the rosted until mid-1990s. The younger cousin, HR 616 built by Bombardier in 1982 suffered a worse fate as seen here with Jason Noe's shot 11 years later in 1995.