Tuesday, November 19, 2019

VIA Trains on the Kingston Sub, 1986-1995

VIA 6787 at Markham Road, Scarborough June 8, 1986
A fellow VIAphile kindly shared these views with me. And now I'm sharing them with Trackside Treasure readers. These photos represent various locations west of Kingston, from the penultimate, sunset period of VIA F-units and the dawn of the F40 era. I've simply captioned each one with the slide mount information.
VIA 6557 at Guildwood, July 31, 1986

VIA 6763 at Brimley Road, Scarborough, Oct 5, 1986
VIA 6921 at Cobourg, January 6, 1989

VIA 6434 at Oshawa, April 19, 1990

VIA Park car at Pickering GO station, September 26, 1991

VIA 6420 at Mi 184, County Road 6, April 24, 1994
VIA 8613 at Parliament Street, June 19, 1994

VIA 6416 at Danforth, June 19, 1994
VIA 6425 with another unit and 13 cars at Midland Avenue, August 7, 1994

VIA 6401 at Newtonville Road, October 20, 1994

VIA 6405 at Port Hope, October 21, 1994

VIA 6917 at Kingston, April 24, 1995
Trackside Treasure links arising from the above photos. Further reading if you like:

Running extra...

What the F-Unit? Mark Carleton has done design work for ORO and Highball Graphics. Check out creative and complete Canadian, CP, CN, ONR and VIA covered wagon cab unit transitions that he has kindly shared. Perhaps we forget, now that they're gone, the amazing breadth of railways and services these units covered for decades on Canadian railways!







10 comments:

Eric May said...

Thanks for the image of 6763 at Brimley Road. That area has changed quite a bit. I worked on Barbados Road to the west in 1984 and had a similar but much smaller view out of my office window. One of the first things I did was clean the window!

Eric said...

It's hard to see that industry from the tracks now aboard VIA, due to undergrowth, Eric. Definitely an enviable view. I also had a clear view of the CN Kingston Sub in elementary school. And I still graduated successfully!

Thanks very much for your comment,
Eric

JasonPaulSailer said...

Beautiful F-Units!

Eric said...

They sure are! Colourful and ubiquitous!
Eric

Michael said...

Never understood why you would take your corporate flag off the nose of your F units like VIA did. But, I love those old units nonetheless. Wish there were a few still roaming around.

Eric said...

Nope, didn't understand that nor removing that safety-promoting yellow paint for the largely invisible/blend in with the trees green! At least the silver wrapped units are more visible i.e. grade crossings.

Roaming around...only in our dreams.....

Thanks for your comment, Michael.
Eric

Canadian Train Geek said...

That Danforth shot - so many weeds!

Great series of images. I miss those yellow noses.

Eric said...

Hi Steve,

I can recall Danforth being used for storage, from aboard VIA Rail. Geogrid auto racks with trees growing up between them! Before that, it was used for MoW storage. And in both cases, photos I could have taken would have been useful!

Thanks for your comment,
Eric

phoenix'ed said...

There's a couple missing! OSR and RailLink!

Eric said...

I think he had those too, p. Maybe I just didn't include it!
Good eye,
Eric