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Caption: CN made a rare daylight appearance on the Oakville Sub east of Oakville today, running a 543 to Mimico. The run to Mimico is almost exclusively a night job out of Oakville Yard (running Sunday to Thursday at 2300 according to the Trackside Guide), and the origins of today's 543 are somewhat strange to say the least. L555, which is supposed to run from 2200 to 0600 out of Stuart and working places such as Parkdale Yard, customers along the Grimsby, and running to Aldershot and back, died in Stuart around 0730 this morning and didn't even make it to Aldershot. A "relief crew" showed up at around 0830, set 555's train off in Stuart, and left for Oakville Yard light power. There, they lifted the Mimico traffic and off they went at speeds less than 15 mph as there was no working SBU for them to use in Oakville. It was a pleasure to see them passing through Port Credit at a nice leisurely place on a line otherwise dominated by GOs and VIAs.
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Here’s the most recent daylight 543 I can find via some google searches, a shot from Dan from back in 2008: http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=851
What a beautiful day to be catching this late season scene. I don’t think I have seen many rail bridges where the lower structures are so close to the water, small boats only.
The rowers were out racing earlier and I got a shot of them coming out from under the bridge as a GO train passed over, but posted this instead because CN on this part of the Oakville is just a touch more noteworthy than GO.
Agreed. LOL,
I wanna say that, with how helter-skelter 555 is recently, its quite possible this could happen again. But on the other hand, 555 wouldn’t logically have anything to do with 543 normally haha; Hamilton local re-crewed to work in Mississauga… What?!
Whaaat? I wish I would have seen this! Did you know this was going to happen or by chance? I need to get a heads up for the next one! Great work as always James.
Saw it go down as described in the caption, Brad.
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=24764 Here’s a 556 daylight move caught by Michael DaCosta in 2016. Apparently to Mimico..Have they switched train numbers since then? Great shot again..instilled a lot of research this morning!!
I’m sorry I don’t understand. The crew was sent to Stuart to ‘rescue’ 555 where it died, only to set it off at Stuart..where it already was..then ran light to Aldershot where 555 was to finish the job in the first place…only to have the crew pick up Mimico’s work in the middle of the day, work to be done at night per Metrolinx nd expanded GO activity. Doesn’t make sense to me. Am I missing something? I know it’s early.
Good stuff!
No, you’re not really missing anything. It was a strange sequence of events. 555 ran out of time and got back to Stuart at around 0730 and left their train on the connecting track (under Bay St etc). A relief crew showed up at 0830, referring to themselves over the radio as 543. They pulled the train into the yard and set it off, then went to Oakville light power for the Mimico traffic and then yes did a run that is typically only done at night. I am told they were back in Stuart by 1730ish. I didn’t follow them after this shot.. it was starting to cloud over at this point and I didn’t really want to hang out in Mimico all day.
I love that these gmd1s are still earning their keep on CN!