Caption: GMD-1s 1008 and 1050 lead an eastbound away from Portage la Prairie and towards Winnipeg's Symington Yard. By this time, branch lines requiring light weight power were becoming fewer and fewer as the Prairie Branch Line Rehabilitation Program (implementing the recommendations of the 1977 Hall Commission on Grain Handling and Transportation for branch line rationalization) was well under way. In a few days, on August 1st, the Western Grain Transportation Act will take effect, effectively abolishing "the Crow" rate and ramping up changes to the handling of Canadian grain. At the time of the photo, CN had already converted 12 GMD-1s to B-B trucks and would eventually convert 46 of 83 A1a-A1A units (including the 1050 and former NAR GMD-1s) to that configuration. Lead unit 1008 would be re-manufactured as the 1602 in 1988 and re-trucked to B-B unit 1432 in 1999.