Caption: Speeding through what was then known as "Toronto Township" but soon to be renamed Mississauga, CP FP9 1414 and a 1900-series F7B head a westbound passenger train over Mavis Road grade crossing on the Galt Sub, past the Township of Toronto Parks Department building and compound lot on the Erindale/Cooksville border. The train is most likely a Friday evening CP #337 (Toronto-Detroit, via Galt-London-Windsor), running with a conventional consist instead of the usual "Dayliner" Budd RDC cars. If on time, it would be around 7:25pm when this photo was taken, as #337 had departed from Union Station at 7pm and is speeding towards its next (flag)stop at Milton Station for 7:40pm.

This unlabeled slide taken by unknown Toronto-area photographer took a bit of guesswork to figure out: the location was eventually narrowed down to the Galt Sub somewhere in Mississauga, but what train this was remained a mystery. By May 1965 (the slide process date) the only regular conventional trains on the Galt Sub had been cancelled the previous year in April of 1964 (CP #21/22), leaving just the Dayliner (RDC) trains. It was possible the photographer was "tardy" in getting the slide developed on time, but the sun angle meant this was an evening shot and the old 21 was a morning train. After talking with Ray Kennedy of Old Time Trains, it was concluded this was most likely a Friday CP #337 running with a conventional consist instead of the usual Dayliners.

Years later, this grade crossing would be the exact spot the November 10th 1979 Mississauga train derailment occurred, where an eastbound CP freight (lead by three GO Transit F40PH's) derailed due to an overheated plain-bearing journal on one of the cars, scattering tank cars loaded with chemicals across the crossing and causing some of them to rupture, catch fire and explode. Burning propane tank cars, and the risk of a leaking chlorine tank car in the middle of the derailment spreading chlorine gas forced a large-scale emergency response and the evacuation of over 200,000 people and over 80 square kilometers of Mississauga (miraculously, there were no casualties).

Today Mavis Road at this location is now an underpass (it was grade-separated in the years following the incident), and the explosions right after the derailment occurred destroyed half of the Parks Department building in the background (later fully demolished). CP got out of the passenger business decades ago, but GO Transit presently runs a number of weekday Milton-line commuter trains through here with station stops nearby.

Original photographer unknown/not listed, Dan Dell'Unto collection slide.