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Caption: Back when CP used to exercise running rights over the CN along the Oakville sub we see what I believe is #522. Toronto to Buffalo. This image was taken off the Lemonville Rd bridge in Aldershot, once a favourite location for trainwatching on account back then there was little road traffic and plenty of rail traffic. These days, it is the other way around. CP 5538, 5412 and 8241 is the power for this train, running at speed thru light blowing snow. All units now off the CP roster, the 5412 is X-QNSL 216.
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Ahhh…hummmm MR M. Fewer trains now? Well..they are longer..cap out at 12,000 feet on this region, and the most of the cars are larger size.
Trust me..the house rumbles 24/7 still..
It’s all in the optics…
Ahh but snake, the average railfan only cares how many locomotives pass by, not the tonnage
Methinks he loves the vibration to rock him to sleep at night………….
I’d argue there is significantly less traffic than there used to be despite the increased train lengths. On a good day in 2007, you may get 850 car loads down the east leg of the Grimsby Sub. On a good day in 2017, you might get 550, and that’s a really good day. Go back to 1997, and that number would probably be over 1000 car loads despite shorter train lengths. Then again, that’s just Niagara. Things have really gone downhill here. Not sure how things have changed on the Dundas.
Daniel, that’s on account of shifting trade and interchange patterns. There was a softwood lumber dispute around 2000-2001 that quickly changed – export of wood dramatically decreased and caused a major change in the amount of traffic to the US, and CN re-routed a couple trains worth of traffic via Montreal.
Mind you, commodities come and go (Oil by rail, anyone?) the big picture may be substantially subdued.
When you think of the number of 30 year careers that could have been created with “oil by rail”, and the product could move now. Do they have any idea what that would have done to railfan morale??