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Caption: With conductor and brakeman riding the head end, CN GP9RM's 7080 and 4119 work an afternoon local (likely #559) prowling the weed-grown Dixie Cup Spur in downtown Brampton. They've just crossed Railroad Street near Haggert Avenue, and are heading south to lift a small cut of boxcars from the Georgia Pacific plant down at the corner of Queen Street and McMurchy Avenue.
This was a right time, right place "lucky shot", as I had just feasted on two slices of Mackay Pizza and made my way from the Bramalea "M-section" downtown to Brampton station by bike, to see what was out on this nice August afternoon. Seeing the tail end of a short slow westbound freight clearing the diamond and crossing over to the south track, I deciding to try my luck and headed to my favourite spot near Fletcher's Creek. I crossed the tracks here, and saw the power already bushwacking its way through the weed garden visible behind 4119. At the time there were two Brampton area locals CN ran, (559 from MacMillan Yard that worked most of the Brampton and Peel customers, and 578 from Malport that worked most of the Bramalea customers), and the furthest and only customer west of downtown and the Peel interlocking was Georgia Pacific.
The US-based Dixie Cup Company (manufacturer of plastic and paper disposable cups and utensils) chose Brampton for a new Canadian plant that opened in 1949. It was expanded over the years, and changed ownership a few times. By the 1980's it was owned by the American Can Company, and present-day it's operated by Georgia Pacific. Locals in the area will remember the large iconic Dixie Cup styled water tower at the plant built to provide backup water for the fire department (that was torn down in 1987 after underground hydro pipes had made it obsolete). The rail spur was constructed around the time the plant was built, heading south along Haggert Ave. from CN's mainline at Mile 16.1 of the Brampton Sub (today known as the Halton Sub) crossing empty meadows and fields as the area north of the plant hadn't been developed yet. At one time, there was another customer located just to the north of the plant (since redeveloped into a residential neighbourhood).
The end of the Dixie Cup Spur came when the switch off the south track was removed sometime between Spring & Fall 2008, due to 3rd track installation for expanded GO Transit service on the Georgetown (Kitchener) line. It was never put back in (G-P likely switched everything to truck), and the spur was ripped up sometime between Spring-Fall 2012.
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I always liked this short spur, but sadly never saw a train on it. Glad someone caught something running on it before its demise. Nice shot!
Interesting. Is the Dixie Cup factory still open?
Yes it’s still open, but served only by truck and old right of way is now bare
Nice work Dano!!
Guys interesting news…
Apparently I just read online in a news article that the former Dixie Cup Plant (Georgia Pacific) is set to close in the near future. It didn’t say when, it just said that more than 130 people will unfortunately lose their jobs as the Brampton location is set to close but all the other Georgia Pacific’s across the states will remain open for the time being. Thought some of you would find that interesting.
Thanks for sharing this Dan, I really wish I could’ve seen this spur in action but I would’ve had to have been 8 at the latest when this spur saw its last train.
Which brings a quick question to my mind, dose anyone on here happen to know the exact day CN lifted the last cut of boxcars from this plant (if not the day then whatever the month was in 07 or 08)? It’s something I’ve always been so curious of. The switch to this spur appears to have still been present in August 2008 from what I have seen in photographs and such but I recall their spur at the factory to be completely empty by then (as I remember driving over the Nelson st crossing once with my family in August 2008 I think).
In early (January) 2007 they were still receiving boxcars, but for how much longer after is unclear. Aerial shots don’t show any spotted there after, and whenever I was around it didn’t look like the rails were used much if at all (other than storing MofW equipment. There was often some dirt on the rails by the switch and rust build-up).
Ok thank you Dan for the info. Hopefully in the near future we’ll be able to find more pieces of the puzzle. Which brings one more quick question to mind, do you know if CN was servicing GP on a regular basis by this time or did 559 only make the odd trip to downtown here and there?.
One last thing with the aerial photographs, any chance I can ask where exactly you find all the aerial photographs? I too am very interested in the history of all the past and present rail customers of CN in my hometown (Brampton) and I bet aerial photographs will help me find many pieces to the puzzles I hope to some day salve.
I’m not sure how frequently GP was switched, but I’d hazard a guess 559 probably made the run once per week, possibly more possibly less frequently. It was usually a case of running down the spur to pull the outbounds, and the running down again to spot the inbounds, and then backing their train eastward to at least Peel when they were all done (there were no run-arounds on the spur).
If you go to “maps.brampton.ca/maps” it’ll give you their online aerial map resource with imagery from 2000-present, including one older option for 1994. Older 1960′s aerials can be found on the City of Toronto’s Aerial Photographs page (1961, 1968 and 1971 and others have parts of Brampton)