Caption: Just listen for the horns: Orangeville Brampton Railway's lone unit and regular power at the time, CCGX GP9 1000, crosses Railroad Street and clatters across the Brampton diamond as it handles the OBRY's biweekly (Tues/Fri) interchange run from Orangeville to Streetsville and back. Four covered hoppers and two tank cars lifted from CP at Streetsville Junction trail the Geep, bound for the few industries to the north that the line served. The constant blaring of the horn for the 14L's required at half a dozen unprotected grade crossings downtown offered ample warning for anyone in the area that the OBRY was near.

The old Brampton interlocking tower used to stand in the foreground at the northeast quadrant of the diamond, and controlled CN and CP train movements on the line from 1879 until CTC eliminated it in early 1958. In the OBRY days, CN (the businer line) controlled the interlocking via CTC from their RTC office at MacMillan Yard, and OBRY always had to give the RTC a ring when they were nearing Brampton diamond to get the light across, but would often have to wait for a train or two. Afternoons usually weren't too busy (the CN RTC had no GO trains to juggle), but this overcast afternoon hanging around Brampton diamond yielded a decent amount of rail activity from 11am to 1pm: VIA #84, CN #384, VIA #85, the northbound OBRY (two minutes before noon, with no waiting), then CN #435, #422 and #398.

There's something that makes the junction of two old railway lines special. Maybe the clattering of wheels over the diamond, maybe the unpredictability of what shows up when, maybe sleepy branchline railroading mixed with heavy mainline traffic, maybe the slow passage of time waiting for something, anything, on either line to appear during a lull. But soon downtown Brampton will become a lesser of a place for train watching when the OBRY ends operations for good at the end of 2021, two decades after CP decided to give up running the line. And an old, unrebuilt, high-nosed Geep running long hood forward with a half-clogged Leslie S3J horn honking all the way through downtown, while it lasted, made it all the more special.