Caption: Following up on an earlier post showing the new CN Danforth Work Equipment Shop that opened on June 5, 1956. http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=42224 Here is a view from the rear of the new shop that same opening day. Tucked between Main Street and Victoria Park Avenue, the CN Danforth Work Equipment Shop & Yard occupied the grounds that is now all townhouses. This new state of the art facility replaced a much older and smaller facility on the same property. The old shop was built on a foundation that had the large doors into the building at boxcar door/flatcar deck height. It became a small repair & storage facility when the new shop opened. After each season of rail replacement, tie replacement, ballast gangs, surfacing crews, & general Engineering projects, most equipment on the Great Lakes Region was returned to the Danforth shop/yard to be repaired/overhauled/stored until the next production season. Through the 1960's and 70's the yard tracks were home to fleets of Engineering accommodation & work service cars, including red fleet boarding cars, tool cars, coach cars, tanks cars, machinery flats, white fleet units, etc. They were all stored, stocked, & repaired here. With the ever increasing quantity, size, & complexity of work equipment machinery, a new repair facility was constructed in Capreol, Ontario in the late 1970's to take some of the workload from the Danforth shops. The value of Toronto real estate made the railway property at the Danforth complex very appealing, & the yard, Steel Bridge shop, and once modern Work Equipment shop would soon be gone to make way for the townhomes that are present there today. A plan to relocate the work being done at Danforth to a facility in St. Thomas, ON inherited in the CASO takeover never materialized. Memories galore here! After a few summers working as a student on CN extra gangs, then a year on the section in Jarvis, ON in 1971, my CN Work Equipment career began at Danforth shop in 1972 as a machine operator. I went on to serve my apprenticeship as a heavy equipment mechanic here, was Regional Supervisor Work Equipment Operations from 1984-1987, and Superintendent of Work Equipment Repair Facilities in 1990. Doesn't seem that long ago! :-)