Caption: In summer 1993, my first trip to CP Guelph Jct. ironically wasn’t to photograph a CP train, but rather a promotional passenger train set. So the story goes, in July of that year CP sponsored the tour of the X2000, which was a Swedish State Railways train set built by Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) on their lines in Quebec and Ontario. The week-long promotional tour of the two provinces then followed several months of testing and display of the train in the United States by Amtrak. The Toronto portion of the tour was followed by two X2000 excursions to Guelph Junction and return via the Galt Subdivision. I forget exactly how we found out about it, which was likely through word of mouth at the time, but my dad, myself and a friend arrived at Guelph Jct. ahead of the train’s arrival and immediately realized we weren’t the only ones there. Many other railfan’s, the media and everyone else in between were there to take in the event.
Here the X2000 train is viewed with the CP local to Guelph in the background powered by RS18u 1866 with caboose 434679 on the tail-end.
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Given ABB’s presence in Guelph I’m surprised it didn’t go to the plant for public tours.
Different divisions of a very large company…
When did ABB buy Canada General Elecric?
The CGE plant in Guelph was first purchased by Westinghouse in 1987, in turn bought by ABB “shortly after” per a Canadian Manufacturing article. Circa 1990 it would seem.
Thanks for the comments guys.
One night, I remember seeing CN 421 in Kitchener with a new ABB load lifted from Guelph in 1993 as well.