Caption: The Goderich-Exeter Railway ceased operating on the Guelph Subdivision and related spurs on November 15, 2018. The next day CN regained control of the lines and picked-up where GEXR had left off, just as they had done 20 years prior. In turn, GEXR would continue their operations on the Goderich Subdivision and Exeter Spur out of Stratford. While the final days of GEXR on the Guelph Subdivision marked last runs for all their local assignments and road trains 431 and 432, there was also extensive coverage that followed on this site as well as other social media sites. Unfortunately, I had just started a new job which meant I had no extra time to photograph the final days of GEXR. That combined with the time change and a large snowstorm meant I had a no “last run” or “this is it” kind of ending. The last 431 I had photographed was a week earlier. In comparison, during November 1998, several of us watched on the station platform as the final CN 431 stormed out of Kitchener with two SD40-2(W)’s. It was a fitting send off just hours before the original GEXR take over. That time around it was more of an end of an era type of feeling. Throughout 2018 I photographed GEXR operations quite extensively and had plenty of material to go through and edit over the course of the following year. It wasn’t until I hovered over a few photos I had taken just prior to the changeover that I saw a familiar date. I quickly realized the similarities to another photo I had taken two decades prior, which I had previously posted here this past year as well. http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=35433 All the photo information is in the caption, but basically that day my dad and I were at the station shooting CN 432 coming into Kitchener with less than two weeks to go before the pending GEXR takeover. The photo I ended-up hovering over on my computer had the same date, which was November 4. That’s when everything came into perspective. That day in early November 2018, my wife, young daughter and I had stopped at the station to do the same thing as GEXR X580 headed west to Stratford after working the P&H facility at Shantz, east of Kitchener. While the train only had two light units, it was more about the last two decades and the connections this hobby can bring together. My daughter will never meet her grandfather. But to be chasing history with her, in the same way my dad and I did at the Kitchener station that day long ago, I can now say we all shared the transitions between railway’s 20 years apart. Realizing this full circle of events with my daughter turned out to be a fitting ending to GEXR operations on the Guelph Subdivision and one that I will be able to tell her about some day.