Caption: When is this 1950? No it’s 2016. You are probably wondering why a steam loco is hauling freight in 2016 with cabooses on the rear end and here’s why... On Thursday June 30 2016 railfans were given a rare opportunity to participate in a steam freight photo shoot event hosted by Waterloo Central Railway. This was also said to be the only steam mixed freight train in Canada so with that being said, this opportunity should not be left behind. On this day railfans arrived at roughly 6am in St Jacobs to see ETR #9 get fired up. A few hours later we got to watch them build their freight train as well as duck in the st Jacobs siding a couple times to let the regular Waterloo Central Excursion Train pass. Once it was all set, they took us north to Elmira and back with all the freight cargo WCR owned (2 box cars, a tank car and a bulkhead flat car) stopping for many photo runbys. In this photo we see the WCR freight train doing one of their runbys heading south towards st Jacobs village with the star of the Show ETR #9 on point. On their train were the 2 TH&B box cars, a tank car, bulkhead flat car, old CPR baggage car and 2 cabooses owned by WCR. They are approaching the Oriole pkwy crossing just outside Elmira and we are about to hear that beautiful steam whistle blow of #9 as they warm any potential drivers on Oriole pkwy that they are coming. More interesting facts, daytime operations of the GEXR local 584 that runs this line are very rare with all the LRT work in Waterloo and might even be history by now so seeing freight cars travel down Waterloo Spur in daylight was a treat! Will this ever be seen again? At this point it’s very hard to say. Folks of Waterloo Central Railway say they have no plans to do another freight photo shoot date in the near future but “anything is possible”.