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Caption: The gradual retirement of CP's RS18's and C424's pushed the GP9U's to take over many more assignments. At this time the "Ham Turn" was kind of an interesting job. The old TH&B Aberdeen yard had recently been almost cut in half and the power that was typically kept there like the MLW's, was moved to Kinnear. The old TH7B car shop at the time was being used for fixing auto racks, most destined for the Toyota plant in Cambridge. Unfortunately the old shop was in bad shape and future developments as far as the steel transfer facility would force its demolition. At this time the shop was still active, and this days "Ham Turn" has a good cut of auto racks from there heading up the Niagara Escarpment towards Cambridge, with a pair of GP9U's for power. The city of Hamilton can be seen in the background. The "Ham Turn" would still see another decade before being abolished along with a number of other trains.
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I understand that some car repair was done outside Toyota due to limited capacity, and a new yard would be built north of Sportsworld Drive/Maple Grove
but it was also my understanding that Ham Turn’s job was to lift loaded autos from Galt and make the connection with Kinnear for Buffalo bound traffic. This job is now done by train 238 (was 254)
The GP9u’s were often assigned to the Hamilton Turn while the RS18′s and C424′s were still active in the 90′s.
I did catch the MLW’s a few times on this train as well. I spent a lot of time around both Aberdeen and Kinnear yards back then but typically the racks were at Aberdeen, that’s not to say they couldn’t have been at Kinnear some times though. This day everything was lifted out of Aberdeen. I remember around this time and after CP also ran an automotive train on the Hamilton sub. But that traffic all came mainly from the Alliston Honda plant.