Caption: Steam heat wisps out the rear steam lines as VIA passenger train #663 (Toronto-Stratford) makes its late morning station stop at CN's West Toronto Station, just north of the diamond in "The Junction". The timetable shows if #663 was running on time, it would be just about 11:00am. A CN RS18 leads the short consist (common power on VIA passenger trains running out of Spadina), followed by a CN-painted steam generator car and two coaches, the latter of which still bears dual VIA/CN markings from when VIA was part of CN's passenger branding a few years earlier and not its own entity.

Most people are familiar with CP's West Toronto station to the south that was illegally demolished in 1982, but CN had their own station here, north of the diamond off Weston Road, but passenger trains stopped using it sometime between 1981 and 1990 (after many years of disuse, it was eventually demolished in 1999). The CN freight shed offices and loading platforms are also visible behind the train. To the left is one of CN's Alco/MLW S-series switchers sitting on the West Toronto Yard lead. For those unfamiliar, CN had a fair-sized yard here on the west side of the Weston Sub around St. Clair Avenue in order to serve the stockyards and meat packing industries that once populated the area. Today almost all of that old industry that made Toronto "Hogtown" is gone, as well as the CN station and yards, and the mainline here runs downgrade in a trench for the West Toronto grade separation under CP's North Toronto Sub.

Charles Begg photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection.

Another photo from the same day showing CP S2 7063 clattering across the diamond to the south: http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=35596