Caption: On the eve of the transition of the Guelph Subdivision from the Goderich-Exeter Railway (GEXR) to CN, Ontario railway history will refresh just as it did 20 years prior. On that November night, GEXR was poised to take over operations on the line and related spurs with a fleet of their own four-axle units as well as borrowed CN power. The shortline had built upon what CN had left them, created a bigger customer base and grew traffic on these lines, even as the world around the railway continued to change. In recent years, implementation of GO Trains and a new CTC system were the latest additions to the Guelph Subdivision with no doubt more upgrades with proposed increased passenger traffic to follow in the coming years. Two decades later, GEXR and their crews officially completed what they had set-out to achieve on the lines they had acquired, which was quite simply to haul the freight. From RailTex to RailAmerica and eventually to Genesee & Wyoming they did just that. Red painted locomotives became silver and then finally orange with literally every color in between. Here we see GEXR train 431 departing Kitchener heading over King Street, which is a crossing that no long exists with a tunnel motor that once belonged to a railroad that now only continues to survive in history books. On any other day, a former SP SD45 leading a train might seem out of place, however on GEXR it became the norm. Just as 3054 headed to Stratford on that day….so does GEXR. It’s far from a retreat, but rather a new beginning, the next chapter for the railway as it looks back on the last 20 years and welcomes a future that has yet to be written.