Caption: GEXR 516, with 13 cars for Guelph is rounding the curve on the former Fergus subdivision. In 1974, the second car of this train would be sitting on the switch of the Guelph City spur, which ran as a Belt Line, ending up alongside the CPR to access the mills and industries downtown. These spurs were built by the Great Western Railway system in the 1850's as the Galt and Guelph extensions of the GWR mainline from Lynden Jct but by the 1860's the need to extend a railway from Guelph north to Kinkardine was needed, and the Wellington Grey and Bruce was chartered. In 1871 this cutoff was built - creating the switch described above - to extend the railway north via Palmerston.
Fast forward 100 years, in 1970 standing here for the day you would see CN RDC's from Toronto heading out of town at 50 MPH along with local and unit Oil Trains for Douglas Point. Local CN Crews were also known to park their engines at the junction on the Belt Line to get Chinese food at the establishment nearby, still in business today. Imagine what the person of the 1870's would have thought of the railway of the future with trackside ready made food, self-propelled passenger cars running 50+ MPH and all that oil in 80 car unit trains.
Stations and structures were also located at these junctions back in the day, and MOW structures existed at left until the late 1990's - when they were dismantled they were found to be full of speeder parts according to local railway historians who were present for the dismantling.
Modellers: Notice the different colour of 2303's decal? 3030/3393 use the engines paint for the GW Orange - 2303 appears to be an exception.
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The decal difference probably has something to do with 2303 originally being decalled for the QGRY. Also the different shops that GW uses for painting their units all appear to go about their work in different fashions