Caption: The equipment for Canadian National commuter trains 990/991, running Monday - Friday from Union Station to Stouffville, returns south to Spadina passing CN Agincourt. This is a scheduled deadhead move shown in employee timetables, hence the lack of extra flags or lights. Following the renumbering of commuter trains from the 900-series to 100-series in 1974, trains 990/991 would become trains 164/165, with equipment moves to and from Stouffville being trains 162/163.
Agincourt station at left is the original Toronto & Nipissing Railway structure, built in 1869, and having served the T&N, Midland Railway, GTR, CNR, and VIA Rail throughout its life. It would be demolished in 1981 with GO Transit taking over commuter operations on the Uxbridge Sub in 1982.
Scan and editing by Jacob Patterson. Thanks to Dan Dell'Unto for assisting with train numbers.
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Superb photo. Shows the GTA before all of its growth. Where the small communities still had identities.
A great photo. The train order signal looks superb.
Just to clarify, since this was the equipment move it would be train 991 (westward back to Toronto). The revenue train would have run as 990 (eastbound Toronto-Markham in 1967, by at least 1974 (if not earlier) it had been extended to Stouffville).
According to my 1967 ETT timetable, this line only ran one revenue train, outbound 990 only in the evenings (there was no inbound morning train for passengers to ride to Toronto!). By 1974, they had changed the train numbers and added a morning inbound train. The numbering is a bit confusing, so:
In the morning, CN 164 (equipment move) would deadhead Toronto-Stouffville, and return as revenue train 165 inbound to Toronto.
In the evening, CN 162 would operate Toronto-Stouffville in revenue service, then deadhead back to Toronto as an equipment move as train 163 (this pair of runs were formerly numbered 990/991).
Since the equipment moves were regular daily operations, they were noted in the employee timetables (ETT’s) and had regular directional train numbers and station times, albeit they didn’t make any station stops.
Thank you Dan. I will note I made an error as train 991 should actually be 993 per the public timetable effective April 29, 1973 shows train 990/993.
The first public timetable showing both 990/993 became effective October 31, 1971. This is also the first timetable showing the run to Stouffville rather than Markham.