Caption: Passengers wait on the platform with their baggage before boarding the old CP/TH&B Budd run at the Fort Erie station. CP RDC-4 9200 and an unknown RDC-3 (possibly 9020, the only one John Street assigned at the time) make up today's consist. Based on the sun angle, I'd hazard a guess this is returning train #371/322 from Buffalo NY bound for Toronto Union Station (that called on Fort Erie just past 6pm, if on time). Some notable industrial Buffalo architecture is visible in the distance, across the Niagara River. The less-than-grandiose station facilities and weed-grown track and platform area don't give the impression that CP was keen on continuing passenger service longer than it had to (the train did keep running into the VIA era until May 1981).

9200 was a shorter RDC-4 model that Budd had designed to carry cargo instead of passengers. It was built in September 1955 by Budd as a one-off car for CP: a lone car, configured with both baggage-express and mail sections. CP purchased two additional RDC-4's in July 1956, 9250 and 9251, but they featured a single large baggage-express section (and had the revised "Phase 2" ends).

Photos indicate 9200 saw service in New Brunswick in the 1950's, and did time in Sudbury in the early 70's, and Toronto in the mid-late 1970's on the CP/TH&B Budd runs from Toronto to Buffalo. 9200 was sold to VIA when they took over CP's passenger services in 1978, but unlike 9250-51 (that saw service on the Sudbury-White River runs, still in CP paint) 9200 didn't operate in VIA service. Instead, it was transferred from CP's Glen Yard to CN's Pointe St. Charles shop in 1979, and used for parts. The remains were sold for scrap to Dominion Metals & Refining Works (St. Constant QC) in February 1985.

Harold E. Brouse photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection slide.