Caption: In fall 1993, my dad and I through another friend had met another railfan that lived in Kitchener named Andy. Up until that point during my first year doing train photography, I always used print film. I had started my train photo albums that spring and they were nicely filling with shots from Kitchener and Waterloo as well as Ayr, Paris, Woodstock and the London area. Not long after meeting Andy, he had invited myself and another friend to a train slide show as he had been photographing trains since the early 1980’s. I had never been to a slide show before, however by the time the last slide dropped in the projector, I knew I had shot my last roll of prints. Seeing all the older slides blown-up on screen looking like they had just been taken yesterday was enough to convince me to make the switch. Andy had travelled all over the US and Ontario photographing trains and the one place he frequented often was Toronto. After seeing his stuff, I immediately went home and convinced my dad we had to go!
So the story goes, during two separate Saturday mornings during late 1993, my dad, Andy and another friend had headed east in my dad’s plumbing van to Toronto. By now my Kodak camera was loaded with my first roll of Kodachrome slide film. As we entered CP’s Agincourt yard I immediately knew it might be going to be used rather quickly seeing all the locomotives sitting by the diesel shop and switching the various tracks.
Here one of the highlights during one of those mornings was photographing big M-636 4739 at the shop knowing that it could be retired soon. This scan shows 4739 coming to life as shop crews start it up while several other MLW’s look on including fellow M-636 4723.