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Caption: With engineer Steve Bradley pounding the throttle like any other Tuesday or Friday, 0839hrs on the Friday morning of June 29 2018 finds the very last ever regular freight run of the Orangeville Brampton Railway Short Line freight train under ‘CANDO’ making its way past the tiny town of Snelgrove, on approach to the major city of Brampton with 8 empty freight cars in tow from Orangeville Yard. Train is about to cross Mayfield road and if you look towards the end of the covered hoppers on the right you can slightly spot the Snelgrove siding/run-around track which is still used fairly often up to this day by the Trillium Railway (company which operates this short line today).
This was the last regular freight train here under CANDO because early in 2018, the CANDO rail company announced to the public that they made the buisness decision to permanently discontinue operations along the 36 mile Owensound Spur for personal company reasons and set June 30 2018 to be their last day of operations here. Word went around Ontario fast and many of us railfans wondered often about the fate of this short line at that time as as it was honestly quite possible for the 36 mile line to fall completely dormant after June 30th depending on how eager the Township of Orangeville was in terms of finding a new Short Line Operator to keep their railway active but lucky for us, they managed to connect with Trillium Railway in May 2018 and to this present day their mp15ac numbered 333 in Blue GATX paint still operates twice a week (mostly Tuesday’s and Fridays still) moving freight from the CPR Galt Sub in Mississauga, 36 miles north to the Township of Orangeville Ontario to service the last 6 customers along the 36miles left of the CPR Owensound Spur who rely of rail: 4 of which are in Orangeville and 2 more in Brampton.
* One last Fun fact, from what I’ve heard from locomotive engineer ‘Steve Bradley’ myself, back when he began OBRY operations in 2000 it was still only these exact 6 buisness’s who were using the rail back then. Havnt lost a single customer so far in just about 20 years (but excluding the Brampton Brick Place who Steve himself said he only serviced once very early in his era as by 2000 they had already found that using containers were the most efficient way for them with regards to shipping their bricks across the country by rail, their spur’s switch had been taken out by 2003).
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Nice shot Graydon.. Lots of good memories there. Stay safe and stay well.
Thank you very much for the comment Mr Steve Bradley and I couldn’t be happier with all the memories I have ever since I was a 10yo kid of seeing you run through my hometown during summer break and cross over the Halton and video recording 4009 with my good old video camcorder! If only I could’ve seen your original locomotive #1000 but seeing it’s sister #1001 in BCRY makes up for it! Hope things are still going well with you over there and being that I resonatly got my G2 early this year and also got my own car, can simply slip over to Utopia to see you operate 1001 much easier without having to ask the parents for a ride first as well as having to make do with what they intend to do for the day as well which will always effect how long I can stay out. Lol the life of a teenage railfan.
I got one last quick question for you at the top of my mind this evening though, just something I was quite curious of for a while, how often exactly did you happen to use the Brampton Siding/Backtrack during your era which branches off just south of Park st in Downtown? I’m aware that up until the very end of CANDO and even now in Trilliums era, the siding is used when storage of MOW maintenance equipment is needed (but the machines never go past the double-tracked Nelson st Xing) and on some pretty rare occasions under CANDO, the bi-weekly freight would even set off a ballast car or two as well as sometimes a flatbed which Brampton residents said was most common in the springtime after the snow melted if a couple touch-ups of trackwork were needed from the past winter snow/ice. But nonetheless, was just curious as to how often that may have happened when you were there?
And was there ever an occasion for you to use the old CN/CP Interchange track as well maybe in the earlier years of your era to briefly set off a car for storage as it’s switch along the CP side was taken out until 2011? Or was that track always dormant though your era? Thank you!
Very nice Graydon. Love the detailed description. @SteveBradley, were you the Engineer in the Tim Horton’s ad?
I personally never used the Brampton siding. Our MOW crew did but I never took the unit or cars onto it. Maybe one of the other crews did. Old interchange was never used. The ties were so badly deteriorated and then then took out the north switch.
I was involved in the Tim’s commercial but never got “on screen”. I was then the lowly brakeman and was on the ground or riding the caboose etc for the back-up moves. Was great fun but long days.
Ok thanks for your reply Steve and very interesting stuff with the Tim Hortons commercial. Hope you enjoyed yourself for the experience!
And yes only time I personally know of for fact where rail cars went in the Brampton Siding was Aug 2011 when the older Brampton diamond got replaced and a fair bit of trackwork was actually done along the CP line in downtown Brampton at that time. I remember myself seeing a stash of 3 ballast cars as well as a flatbed in that siding while i came to see 4009 one Tuesday since it was still summer break and once the work was done another past railfan from Brampton documented a video of 4009 stopping in Brampton to pick them up and posted it on youtube https://youtu.be/Zol_zGJFpZY but hey, I remember what you said that you personally never remember using it so I guess must’ve been another crew.
Brampton residents said a few times they believe that happened actually that when trackwork needed to be done somewhere around or past downtown, the ballast car or cars were briefly set off in that siding but hey, that was only rumor so can never certain in that case.
Trillium crew said to me last summer that they personally arnt allowed to use that siding at all now because of its very poor track condition so any ballast cars now will have to be set off in Snelgrove regardless of where the work needs to be done (unless if it’s very close to the CP junction of course).