Caption: Disaster has narrowly been averted, as the special RCMP train full of drugged mounties, held hostage by terrorists, equipped with a bomb, and set up as a runaway on a crash course with another train full of spent nuclear fuel (of course, anything else???) appears to have been diverted and stopped safely. The mounties have now recovered, and mounted their horses in pursuit of the bad guy. Will they get their man this time? Hmmmm...

That was roughly the plot of an episode of CBC's TV series "Due South" (episode "All The Queen's Horses"), filmed in 1996 that featured Paul Gross and David Marciano as the main actors, and Canadian film icons Leslie Nielson and Gordon Pinsent putting in strong supporting roles. The train used for the movie shoot was put together and operated by CP Rail (who didn't go to any lengths at all to disguise or hide that fact) featuring GP38-2 3072 in fresh dual-flags "System" livery, and made up of three CP flatcars equipped with bunks for horses, three borrowed VIA 8100-series coaches, and a CP Angus-built van on the tail. During in-cab filming scenes in the lead unit, a second GP38-2 (3024) was added on the other end of the train for the crew to operate from.

Filming took place on CP's Owen Sound Subdivision between Snelgrove (Brampton) and Orangeville, mostly shot in picturesque Caledon (standing in for US countryside the hijacked train was supposed to be travelling through). Notable were scenes shot at the old CP Orangeville Station, at Cataract, Forks of the Credit, and the finale that took place at the old Caterpillar Spur south of Snelgrove (formerly used by Caterpillar to ship construction equipment out of their Brampton manufacturing plant, but by this time it had been closed down for a number of years). The mainline runs across the background where the spur comes off, the train here is spotted on the curve off the main leading to the loading area (with runaround track) and main plant building.

At the risk of giving away any more spoilers, there's a few online video websites one can view and peruse the episode to take in more of the train action.

Peter Jobe photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection slide.