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Art is imitating life as a VIA Rail Turbo Train set moves from Toronto Union Station to the Spadina Avenue maintenance facility on an overcast early fall 1976 afternoon. The painting of a steam engine, diesel locomotive and a Turbo Train once adorned the poured concrete retaining wall at the base of the CN Tower. The waterfront skyline in the background, and most of the automobiles in the foreground are unrecognizable today. My brand new 1976 Plymouth Road Runner is hiding in the trees at the lower left corner of the photo. My brand new CN office at 277 Front St. W. along with the Metro Toronto Convention Center are almost a decade away from being completed on the very spot where I took this photo. Almost 40 years later, the Turbo Train, the wall painting, the Road Runner, and the CN office are all gone.
Copyright Notice: This image ©Paul O'Shell all rights reserved.



Caption: Art is imitating life as a VIA Rail Turbo Train set moves from Toronto Union Station to the Spadina Avenue maintenance facility on an overcast early fall 1976 afternoon. The painting of a steam engine, diesel locomotive and a Turbo Train once adorned the poured concrete retaining wall at the base of the CN Tower. The waterfront skyline in the background, and most of the automobiles in the foreground are unrecognizable today. My brand new 1976 Plymouth Road Runner is hiding in the trees at the lower left corner of the photo. My brand new CN office at 277 Front St. W. along with the Metro Toronto Convention Center are almost a decade away from being completed on the very spot where I took this photo. Almost 40 years later, the Turbo Train, the wall painting, the Road Runner, and the CN office are all gone.

Photographer:
Paul O'Shell [439] (more) (contact)
Date: Fall of 1976 (search)
Railway: VIA Rail (search)
Reporting Marks: VIA (search)
Train Symbol: unknown (search)
Subdivision/SNS: Union Station (search)
City/Town: Toronto (search)
Province: Ontario (search)
Share Link: http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=20220
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Photo ID: 19092
Map courtesy of Open Street Map

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6 Comments
  1. Eric May
    August 15, 2015 at 1:59 pm

    Wow. Thanks for sharing this one.

  2. JP
    August 15, 2015 at 6:39 pm

    Very cool idea to shoot the turbo with the mural.

  3. pierre fournier
    August 15, 2015 at 7:30 pm

    As a CN employee,we had been invited to visit it in june 76,it wasn,t quite finished yet.

  4. Cdntrainphotog
    August 16, 2015 at 9:25 am

    Great shot! A Road Runner? Very Cool…I bought a Gremlin that year. It wasn’t misnamed.

  5. Stephen C. Host
    January 13, 2024 at 9:37 pm

    Great work.

  6. Paul O'Shell
    January 14, 2024 at 8:25 am

    Thanks Stephen. Time sure has gone by quickly since I snapped that pic. I was five plus years into my full-time CN career at the time of the photo. Now I am five plus years retired from that lifetime of railroad work. :-)
    Here are a couple of more pics taken on that same day creating a trilogy of Turbo train scenes in the downtown Toronto corridor.
    http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=20260 </b?
     http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=20324

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