Caption: The early bird gets the worm.

As a general rule of thumb, anything worthwhile tends to show up at the darnedest times - and it's all about timing. CN #384 today had some goodies, necessitating getting trackside early on a Friday we would have otherwise slept in for. Someone in London or Sarnia would have had to get up in the wee hours of the morning under darkness, but since our photo spot is near the end of this train's run, we only had to get downtown just at the end of morning rush hours.

As luck would have it #384 wasn't early or late this morning, and it rolled into town just before 9am with CN 2658 leading Burlington Northern Santa Fe 5424, Wisconsin Central "Flag livery" 3027, and a grey KCS-painted Grand Trunk Western 5944, seen here crossing Fletchers' Creek west of downtown Brampton.

The track in the foreground that appears to lead off to the photographer curved south to service Georgia Pacific on Queen Street. Known as the "Dixie Cup Spur", it was taken out of service with the triple-tracking of the corridor in 2008/2009, never reconnected, and eventually ripped out in April 2013. (Photo of it in service can be seen *here*).