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Caption: And for James Knott and the other youngins - in 2006 we knew NS was on their last legs in Ontario and many of us made sure to photograph it, the only thing was both trains ran EARLY and arriving trackside 0800 was about as late as you could try for both around Bayview to get at least one of them. (and if you tried Ingersoll or Port Robinson, subtract an hour!) NS 327/8 was a hot automotive train designed to get cars to/from the Buffalo Stamping Plant (off the Buffalo Southern Railway, now B&P) to St. Thomas Ford plant and timing was everything apparently. If there were no cars it ran anyway, light power or with whatever it had on hand. Around this time they started running the train as needed and cancelling trains some days, even combining them into big long monsters and things weren't as routine as they usually were. This is a regular 328 the only thing odd about it is the timing, it's 12 PM and it should have been through 4 hours earlier. There was only 3 months left at this point.
And Mr. Knott would be interested to know that NS has rights to all the business on the St. Thomas and Eastern and the CN portion of the Cayuga Sub in St. Thomas - ST&E and CN would interchange cars destined for NS in St. Thomas and 327/8 would regularly have hummer frames from Formet, and fertilizer/grain from business on the ST&E. Same for traffic on the Payne sub and possibly the Chatham, but i'm not 100% sure on that after 344/343 stopped running January 2004 west of St. Thomas. The non parts cars didn't amount to much (maybe 10 cars a week) and without the Ford Plant in full swing this train was doomed.
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That C39-8 in behind was quite the catch as well.
How rare are/were they? I got one leading on film on a 327. They always seemed to trail though more often than not.
I believe there are only two in existence today.
They were all retired by NS in 2007,2008.
Forgive my ignorance… all I recall is these were standard cab hump backed GE’s..
What’s the difference between these and the Dash 8′s that CN was leasing and has purchased/repainted?
There were fewer of them built (only161), as the designation implies its only 3900HP (vs the 4000 of the normal dash8s), the “hunch back” feature and round cab roof are the primary spotting differences.
Why is it going through Hamilton? Wouldn’t they use the Cayuga sub back then?
Cayuga sub was abandoned 1996 from delhi to feeder.
If you want to start down a rabbit hole, some great Doug Page, Bruce Mercer. Roger Lalaonde, John Eull, shots:
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=31833#comment-34329
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=29358
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=29929
http://www.railpictures.ca/upload/norfolk-southern-ge-c39-8-nos-8564-and-8575-at-fort-erie-ontario-october-22-1986
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=17730
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=17594
And, SIGH, a Mooney:
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=24525
So the Ford plant in St Thomas was shut and the NS 327/8 was no more? Any shipments to Oakville Ford plant? Thanks for the links Steve.
Basically, but the plant cut production around ’05-06 and stayed open 3 more years, the traffic switched to CN in the meantime.
Still lots of parts coming into Oakville on CN 422/421, set off at Aldershot for 554, and using classic auto parts cars. None of that traffic was from NS.