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Caption: There's a lot of classic action in this picture perfect shot: Canadian Pacific train #11, the Toronto-Sudbury leg of CP's "The Canadian", departs downtown Toronto northbound on the Galt Sub with FPA2 4083 and an 8570-series RS10 heading up the stainless steel consist (with two regular steel baggage cars on the head end). The timetable departure time for #11 from Union Station is noted as 5:30pm, with the next stop being CP's West Toronto Station further up the line, before taking the connecting track over the diamond and heading up CP's MacTier Sub out of the city. The "hockey mask" scheme RDC car by CP's Tecumseh Street Tower is an employee shuttle from Lambton Yard to John Street terminal, held by Tecumseh St. waiting for rail traffic to clear before being lined inbound. Note the TTR's Cabin D interlocking tower even further back (visible behind the signals). In the background, CN S13 switchers and passenger cars can be seen around Bathurst Street bridge, along with a red and cream TTC PCC streetcar crossing the bridge northbound.
To the left, a mix of CN freight is visible including noodle logo 40' boxcars, and a flatcar loaded with brand new red farm equipment from the nearby Massey Ferguson manufacturing plants around Strachan Avenue. Behind them is the Quality Meat Packers slaughterhouse (once the Toronto Municipal Abbatoir), that operated into the late 2000's. Lots of smokestacks from industry and lighting towers for the sprawling rail yards downtown litter the skyline.
This shot was taken from the dirt mound at the south end of Parkdale Yard, which was used to divert runaway cars into, in order to prevent them from rolling downgrade into the downtown area.
John Freyseng photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection (duplicate slide).
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In 67-68, the Agincourt employee shop train added a second unit for the afternoon run when the day shift was heading home. That unit deadheaded up to Agincourt via the Don Branch, was coupled to the ‘all-day’ unit, and made one run across the North Toronto to Lambton, where it was uncoupled and deadheaded back to John St. I’d speculate that this shot shows the deadhead run as it passes Tecumseh St. Very unlikely that this was a revenue passenger time given the time of day and the schedules of that year.
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Hi Dan, this picture was definitely taken by John Freyseng, in early May, 1969 ( his slide 3446 still in his collection) . The picture was taken half way between Strachan Ave level crossing and Tecumseh St Tower (seen in the background) with the photographer standing on earth embankment on south side of CP Galt Sub tracks. CP train #11, the Toronto-Sudbury section of the west bound Canadian departed Toronto Union Station at 5:30pm according to CP Rail Timetable October 26, 1969 to April 25, 1970 (in the photographer’s timetable collection ) with West Toronto the next stop. The eastbound single CP RDC is stopped for red-over-red signal controlled by Tecumseh St Tower as directed by Cabin D on account of TTTR eastbound track congestion east of Cabin D. CP’s Galt Sub merge into CN’s Brampton Sub is double track so the passage of #11 is not holding up the RDC. Paul is correct , the RDC is an employee’s shuttle run from Lambton Yard to CP’s John St terminal. Dan, the photographer thanks you for posting his picture and you comments are appreciated. Curious as to how the image came into your collection as he still has the original slide.
Hi railwayguy, thanks for the extra information! I suspected it was a John Freyseng image as it had “John F” written on the mount with a few other details, but I wasn’t entirely sure if it was him or someone else (I’ll update the caption).
The slide I have is duplicate, and is also stamped W.H.(Bill) Coo, who I suspect may have borrowed the original from John and made duplicates of it for himself or trading.