Caption: Forty foot steel boxcars were once a very common type of railcar, moving an extremely wide range of goods.
But it's quite a while since I last saw a WW2 era boxcar in Maple Leaf CNR Serves All Canada scheme.

Several of these veterans were in Oakville in 1993, retaining roofwalks, high brake wheels, "friction" plain wheel bearings, and wearing CN-service car numbers - suffixed "R" for restricted (not for interchange).
This example CN 72701R was built in June 1944, and continued in revenue service into the KarTrak colour barcode era (1967-1977). The former car number is over-painted, though some of the digits can be made out. I determined it used to be CN 467227 by magnifying and interpreting the barcode.
One of the coil springs below the faded car number has been replaced by something different.
There appears to be a triangular hole just to the lower right of the car loading door.
The car to the left was formerly CN 473453, built in May 1937.

For months (perhaps years) this pair was parked to the west of Oakville VIA Station, alongside this building marked CN Signals and Communications.
As of 2020 these cars are long gone, the north-side siding tracks are gone, and the building has gone.
In their place is a third mainline track, and the north Oakville platform extends past here for 12-coach GO trains.