Caption: Only a few months old at the time, shiny GO Transit F40PH 511 heads up a westbound 9-car train of new bilevels and an APCU on the tail end, passing by Spadina Avenue just west of Toronto's Union Station. GO 511 was part of a six-unit order of F40PH units built by GMD at their London ON plant in April-May 1978, a change from GO's previous orders of freight GP40-2W units. New F59PH deliveries a decade later would result in GO flipping the six orphan units to Amtrak in 1990. 511 would see another decade of service on Amtrak as their 411, and would go on to work AMT's commuter operations out of Montreal. It last saw service on the the Saratoga & North Creek Railway (via LTEX) with another ex-Amtrak F40.

The bilevel cars trailing are also new, part of the first order built by Hawker Siddeley and in service for a little over a year since introduction in March 1977. Since the first bilevel order included no cab cars, another locomotive, APCU, or old Hawker Siddeley single-level cab car had to be used on the other end in the early years.

This scene off Spadina Avenue is notable in that it's under transition: the old CN steam-era freight platforms, team tracks and yard trackage east of Bathurst Street yard are still present, but truncated for the new CN Tower's parking lot (note the yellow bridge crossing the rail corridor near TTR's John St. interlocking tower). In later years the RBC's new data center (325 Front St. W), the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and CN's L'Hotel would fill much of the vacant land along Front Street in the 80's. The usual downtown office towers of the day including the TD Centre, Royal Bank Plaza, CP Hotel's Royal York, and the CNCP Telecommunications Building (151 Front Street) are quite unobscured compared to today.

Bill Mischler photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection slide.