Crossing the Causeway

Still here, finishing my reno work, running when I can.  My training sucks right now.  Didn't have much time to even get vids or pics since my weekends had to be spent elsewhere.

My wife pulled a set of prints from a Black's envelope from 1987 when we made a trip down east to Cape Breton for Christmas visit.  Long since forgotten that we drove to the Canso Causeway and happened upon some CN freight making it's way from the line from Port Hawksbury and on to mainland Nova Scotia.

The train was lead by a foursome of MLW 420s, all with CN 'Zebra Stripe' paint scheme as per the early 90s.  The lead was number 3550, then 3569, 3564 and finally 3541.  A long gone caboose followed in tow.

A later trip to the North Sydney ferry terminal had a MLW RS18 unit doing some service, number 3656.

Really just adding these to the on-line collection.

VIA Canadian doesn't quite fit - Google maps

Check this out, it's a location link in Google maps.  Zoom a notch and pan after you open it.

https://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ll=43.644515,-79.380346&spn=0.002935,0.004823&t=h&z=17

This is Union Station in Toronto.  The train that juts out the east and west ends of the platform appears to be the VIA Canadian, the giveaway being the observation dome on the tapered end car on the east (right) side.  A pair of engines, the first car and part of the second car protrude the west side while the trailing 3 cars and part of the 4th protrude the east side.  Obviously too long for the platform, I guess to board and de-board, either shunt the cars to position in stages or everyone passes through to the platform adjacent cars.

I'd never noticed it before in the maps.  Neat.

Snowy morning at Danforth GO station

Having been sidelined with a cold for the last while, rail vids had to take a back seat.  Oh, I've done plenty of running.  I just can't be standing around in the cold waiting for something to show up.  The closest I've gotten is a couple of visits to the pedestrian bridge over the CP tracks at Summerhill to see if I could get a lucky strike.  The one time I was there and had a chance, I managed to double pump the rec button on the Sony and came up blank as a beauty of a mixed CP consist trundled by.

So with this biggest storm of the last 4 1/2 years upon us, I thought a quick jaunt over the Main Avenue timed for a couple of scheduled passes would be in order and chance to get some footage in nasty conditions.  It's not far away, less than 15 minutes.  I had my trail shoes outfitted with hex screws for traction and my full winter wear on.  Camera in a carry bag, in a plastic bag and all wrapped up nice and tight.

Made it with a minute to spare as the eastbound VIA tandem of 52 and 50 headed for Montreal/Ottawa came peeking through the blizzard like conditions at speed.  6442 was in lead for Montreal bound #52 up front but the unit leading #50 in tow lacked number lighting and I didn't catch what was on the side as it passed.

An Oshawa bound GO train would be next.  It would normally arrive just before the VIA but I'm guessing was a bit late on it's Union Station arrival and took a few more minutes to reach Main Ave.  In the meantime I taped a TTC streetcar climbing the hill on Main on it's way to the station.  No slipping here, the tracks were clear from plenty of traffic.  I think the vehicles with tires fared a bit worse in the city today.  This is tacked onto the end of the clip.  After that, the GO unit finally arrived.  Autofocus took a bit to kick in with the snow flying about, and again I couldn't catch the lead unit number in the poor lighting.

Sunshine promised for tomorrow.  Down into the valley for me, camera in hand, and see what I can come up with.

A warm midwinter weekend

Too nice to hang about this weekend.  It's not often we get temps in the teens in January. Getting them for a full weekend makes you wonder what you did to deserve it.  Shorts on, a couple of t shirts and out the door to catch some Kingston sub action.

Saturday was dropping by nearby Danforth GO station, enjoying the sunshine and catch what I could.  I headed out to try and catch VIA 60 as it passed through Danforth and got there just in time to miss it.  I did get a few seconds of it's rear end disappearing to the east.  Some bits of a couple of scheduled GO units had to suffice.

I did grab a couple more segments at a section on Eastwood Avenue thats pretty close to to rails but hard to get good position.  The southern track is so close to the ROW fencing that eastbound units seem like they're going to roll right over you.  The houses nearby must have their dishes glued down just in case.

I returned to Danforth a little after noon to see what else may come by.  I noticed the signals on the north and centre tracks switched from yellow to red while standing on the bridge.  The north track would be the scheduled westbound GO.  The centre track would be VIA, but I wasn't sure which one.  Later checking it was VIA 643 Kingston/Toronto.  The GO had already passed, the VIA came by 10 minutes later.

On Sunday I headed out to an area just off St. Clair Avenue E and Midland Avenue, a little N/E of Scarborough GO station and see if it offered a decent viewing location.  It rained all night but by morning had moved off to the east leaving just a hazy day behind so no problems taking the new Sony along.

I scoped some sections along a street adjacent to the tracks called National Street.  The hillside leaves the ROW fencing well below the viewing angle, although a bit steep and hard to get a good footing.  Also, lots of trees planted to offer some separation from the tracks for the nearby new housing development making some spots more obscured than others.  At the north end of the street the view of Kingston sub to the north east is nice and unubstructed although the property beyond the roadway is CN owned.  No need to step into the field though, the view simply standing at the end of the street is as good as it gets.

First came VIA train #60 out of the southwest.  The heavy haze carried the unmistakable roar of a locomotive from well down the tracks.  The haze also gave it neat effect of the lights piercing through as the train powered it's way through Scarborough GO station and along the long straightaway until it bends to Brimley.  Lead loco was P42DC VIA 919.  I shot it from the embankment in a slightly flattened area with decent footing an no tree or fencing in the way of the shot.

Next up, I headed to the north end of the street to catch an eastbound GO unit reversing it's way toward Union Station, nothing particularly interesting and I failed to have the Sony on as it appeared around the corner so we'll leave that vid in the archives.

For the last I waited for the eastbound GO which would be a few minutes after the w/bound unit.  Staying in position at the north end of National, I picked up the lead loco as it passes on the southern track and appearing through the trees of the embankment.  As it passed and I switched to the N/E view I noticed the lead loco was not alone, with an older EMD slotted in second place.  The second unit was 558, an F59PH.  A quick lookup in google and youtube shows a few other hits for this locomotive for the past couple of years.  Not sure if it has been in continuous service or temporarily retired but it was a surprising catch nonetheless!

Trails were too messy to run this weekend with the snow melt and the rain.  Kingston sub is never far away for a street run, always manages to deliver and even the occasional surprise can be had.

New Year's Eve in the Don Valley

GO's Richmond Hill train makes it's way northward on an early departure from Union Station to get New Year's Eve revellers home in time to get ready for the evening.

I positioned myself in the trails above Crother's Woods in the Don Valley with a wide view of this section of the Bala sub that runs just north of Pottery Road.  The signals at a pedestrian trail crossing are marked as 4.92 on the crossbucks.  Just really trying out this new camera in twilight conditions (Sony CX250), this being shot at 4:42PM on Dec. 31, 2012.

Happy New Year everyone!

Some Leaside Yard action

Since I haven't had much opportunity to be catching anything new I figured I'd upload some clips I gathered of a lengthy CP consist doing some shunting in Leaside yard.  I was passing through an open area in Crother's Woods just off the Bala line and heard some action high above in Leaside.  With the trees bare you can see quite a bit of the western portion of the yard from the valley.

It started with 6 assorted CP power units coming into view, given away by the sheer noise of these units even this far down the valley.  It stops to wait as a shorter CP unit speeds by westbound on the southern track, then proceeds down the North Toronto Subdivision in prep to drop off a set of hoppers in the yard.  The consist was pretty mixed with some covered vehicle carriers, assorted tankers, the hoppers, some engineering and MOW units, and at the very back a GO unit probably used as a makeshift caboose for housing maintenance crews.

JayJr2007 grabbed some footage of a GO unit at the end of a CP freight consist in Parry Sound on November 29, likely the same unit, and again it appears in Lambton Yard on December 2 in my clip of the CP Holiday Train.

Lots of noise in this one as the cars rattle about while being positioned in Leaside.  I wasn't going to get any power unit numbers unless I was carrying binoculars with me but it looked like an interesting assortment.

After seeing the initial action from the valley,I scooted up to the crossing at Bayview to get a little closer and better sound.  After about 20 minutes or so it was getting fairly chilly standing on the hill in shorts and a couple of shirts so it was time to get moving again.  Back in the trails of Crother's Woods I caught the end of the consist with the GO unit heading west and the hoppers left behind in Leaside.

Canadian Pacific Holiday Train at Lambton Yard, Toronto

Some shots of the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train as it makes it's December 1, 2012 stop in Toronto at the CP Lambton Yards off Runnymede Avenue.  Lots of people on hand for the visit, many of them casuals who just happened to see either the crowd or the train and wandered up.  Also a chance to get decently close to some action in the yard as work went on in the background.

Prior to arrival, a group of engines sit idling to the west.  The Holiday Train will arrive on a track to the right of these units.  Yes, that's a GO train car.  I saw it yesteday attached to a consist being shunted in Leaside Yard and headed off west, I guess to here.

 After arrival, the train backs up to the near tracks.

 

 

Lights, lights and more lights:

 

 

 

 

The band entertains the crowd:

 



Some inventive aligning of the yard work light over the tree adorning 9815:

 

 

The show comes to a close. Lights on and the 2012 Canadian Pacific Holiday Train...backs out of Lambdon Yard:

 

Work goes on as a pair of power units are shunting stock in the yard:

 

Ghosts of Raillines Past - CNoR / Taylor Creek

Earlier in the summer I was doing some surfing for information on the old Canadian Northern Railway.  This was mainly inspired by the recent conversion of the CNoR locomotive works building in Leaside into a Longos grocery store.  It's a pretty cool looking building if you haven't seen it yet, both inside and out.  It's hard to imagine that this century old structure was used to service railway engines of the day.  Despite the loss of CNoR and it's ultimate encapsulation into today's Canadian National Railway, the building survived under a few different industries until sitting idle behind a group of buildings along Laird Avenue.  Most people (me included) never laid eyes on the structure until some businesses along Laird were removed, exposing the building's facade to passing traffic.

Along the way I found this site with images from the Global TV helicopter  showing a series of overhead views of the east Toronto area and a few key images of East York.  I was guided to the site by a hit on one of the comments regarding the second image showing Taylor Creek.  Taylor Creek is my bread and butter for running since it's literally steps away from my house.  I run the higher south side trail frequently, known to a few as the Taylor Creek harrier circuit, since it's soft and fairly flat for the most part albeit a bit swampy in places.

This image on the site shows Taylor Creek (the image is captioned Looking northwest up Glen Stuart Ravine on the page) along the section east of the baseball diamonds in Stan Wadlow park.  If you look along the left side of the valley you will see a long straight line leading up to the diamonds.  From there it veers a bit left and continues on towards the lower Don Valley at Don Mills Road.  This was part of the CNoR Toronto-Ottawa railline.  I've often thought this had to have been a railline at some point given the sheer straightness of this mainly level trail.

Hard to pass up an opportunity to explore a railline that once passed only a few hundred meters away from my house.  With that, it was doing some searching of maps, aerial images and whatever I could find, wait for the leaves to fall away, then go on a hunt.

It starts with a whopping 3 minute jog down hill to the base of Haldon Avenue.  Standing on Haldon in line, the ROW would be roughly where the hydro lines are.

 Following the line of the eastbound trail the rails would have passed through where the roadway ends and the parking lot begins.  Hydro One towers run the full length of the trail in both directions.

Utility poles just north of the pathway on the east section may be the current incarnations of those used by the CNoR at the time, being reused and replaced over the years.  Previously the poles used to terminate at a hydro substation just beyond the parking lot.

Further east is much the same until you reach a hydro station past Main Avenue.  From Google aerial maps you can see the line stretching through the valley and detect the segment between Dawes Road and Victoria Park Avenue just south of Massey Square and continue on to what is now the TTC line out of Vic Park station.

Returning back to Haldon Avenue, growth makes the immediate west part inaccessible for a bit

and today it's a slightly muddy climb under the O'Connor bridge to connect back to the ROW area.

The trail runs high on the north side of the ROW and you can see where the railbed would have existed lower on the south side.

 It's pretty swampy down there and must have presented some challenges in keeping the railbed dry and intact.  As you progress westward you descend a sharp hill and soon are back onto the old ROW.

It also gets pretty swampy on some of the higher parts of the old right-of-way.

At the northwest end of the trail, the ROW would have crossed part of what is now a parking lot and extended into the web of on and off ramps around the DVP and Don Mills Road.  Anything that existed along there is long gone with major regrading and reworking for the DVP.
Next is looking up archival aerial views on the City of Toronto  Archives site.  These particular images are from 1942, well after the rails were pulled up but the right-of-way can be easily seen.  You will need an SID reader for the files downloaded from the archive site.  Compare it to either Google maps or Bing maps, you can see that Don Mills Road was the same as it is now along with the sections of O'Connor Drive that form it's southern terminus.  Also pretty well intact is the Bala sub ROW.  The river itself has been rerouted to accomodate the DVP in some sections although you can see that the short curved section of the river that approaches the CN lines is still the same in the area where the CNoR line would have connected up.

From this aerial image, you can see the ROW extending from the Bala line to the river and what looks like supports for the bridge structure:

Here is the same location on Google, the image is a couple of years out of date:

The orientation of the images is slightly different.  The Google map has north directly up while the aerial image from 1942 has north a little to the right, more in line with the orientation of the street grid pattern.  There's a whitish section in the water that looks the same in both images and lines up with the rail ROW.

On Sunday, with warm temperatures and growth dying off, I was able to climb around the area of the hydro tower that appears near the center of the Google image above.  Directly adjacent to the hydro tower is this structure covered in weeds and vines:

It sure looks like a bridge support to me.  In the 1942 image there's several industrial buildings just south of this spot but they don't appear to be where this structure lies.

On the opposite side of the river is the large angular whitish object that appears in the water in both the 1942 image and the Google image.  It's just a rocky outcropping that's accessible from a trail that runs on the north side of the river.

This is the same outcropping from the other side:

I poked around but could find no sign of any bridge structure.  The overgrowth is very heavy though:

What is obvious on the other side is the raised railbed built up to level the tracks for merging:

When you stand here, you can see the bed leading from where the bridge abutment would have been and it's path into the Bala tracks.

So, not much of this line remains beyond this bridge structure, the level graded areas in the valley, the raised railbed areas and the legacy of the utility poles east of Haldon Avenue.  It's still fascinating to think of a steamer chugging it's way delicately through Taylor Creek on it's way east, or back.

Morning Commuter Action at Danforth GO Station

I'm not a fan of running in the fog.  I suspect that inhaling all that particulate, especially here in the city, isn't a particularly healthy endeavour over the long term.  During heavy fog I stay in until it clears.  And, it's been foggy these days with warm daytime conditions, no wind and mornings at the freezing mark so I've had to skip morning runs.

Today was an exception, with fog limited to low laying areas like valleys, swamps and recessed rail corridors only.  And with the sky lightly illuminated to the south east it seemed a bit of fun to grab the Sony and jog down to the Danforth Subway station.

Lots of commuting action on weekday mornings here.  The trains start early and go straight through to nighttime.  Heavily run by GO and VIA, these trains move fast as well so keep your feet back of the yellow line when you're standing on the platform when a through unit passes because they do not slow down even a smidgen.

Here we start the morning with VIA tandem of 50 (Ottawa/Montreal) and 52 (Montreal direct) 10 minutes after it's 6:41 departure time from Union Station.  It will make a stop further down the line at Guildwood, but not here.  At the same time is an eastbound GO unit on it's way to Oshawa but lags a bit behind the VIA units.  I do wonder if these two trains drag it out on this section since they have identical departure times from Union Station.  Maybe I'll venture down to Union one morning just to see, good for a longer morning venture.

After departing Danforth the GO unit meets a sibling through unit making it's way to Union Station and no stop here, just a fast pass.  Watch the lights as they meet.

Unusual Sightings on a Saturday Bala Subdivision

Glad I took along the video today.  I dropped off the car for service and hopped down into Crother's Woods, seeing it was a picture perfect sunny day for running some trail and maybe catch a unit going along Bala.

I was checking out an open area a bit north of Pottery Road, it's about 11 or so.  After grabbing a couple of shots of a bridge, I was in between open sections and could hear a horn blast further north, followed shortly by activating signals at a foot trail crossing.  I had to sprint back to an open area and luckily caught VIA Canadian #2 passing through.  Odd setup with 4 power units up front lead by 6442, 6410, 6456 and 6441 in that order.  Then the shorter winter consist of 10 cars.

After poking around the trails for a while, I wound my way back near the line and found the north signal showing red, and the south signal green.  Nothing had gone north so either something was heading southward or track maintenance was happening further up the line.

I got a call that my car was ready for pickup and headed back up the trails to the dealership.  Just before passing the waste treatment facility below the Redway Loblaws, a diesel sounds on the line.  This is about 12:30.  I'm a fair bit away but open the camera expecting a CN freight unit.

Surprise!  It's another VIA!  A more modern unit with light cars making it's way southbound.  Not what I was expecting at all.  I know of no other VIA units using Bala on a regular basis outside of the Canadian.  I was too far away to see any numbers.

So two interesting catches.  A 4 power unit short consist Canadian and a light modern Via unit.

Update:  Apparently there is some problems with a building near Union Station in danger of collapsing onto the tracks.  The Canadian was delayed and some other trains rerouted, notably VIA 84 out of Sarnia.  This is most likely #84 as the timing fits.

http://www.680news.com/news/local/article/422855--dozens-of-via-customers-affected-as-trains-re-routed-over-fears-of-unsafe-building-near-the-track

Nighttrain

At Pottery Road to try a little nighttime railfanning, mostly just a practice run.  I was hoping to catch a night passing of VIA's Canadian train #1 so a southbound unit near the schedule departure time of #1 had me a bit confused.  The unit numbers were unfortunately missed.

Admittedly, I'm not sure about exactly when the Canadian leaves Union Station or even which route it takes.  As it makes it's first stop in Washago it seems natural it would follow Bala the same way it uses it eastbound, since it would otherwise have to reverse or wye somehow to reach Washago on anything but Bala.  VIA schedule shows departure from Union at 10 PM, Saturday night.  This unit came through at 10:05.  I've seen it several times on arrival eastbound but never ventured to catch a westbound departure.

I did hang around a while to see if VIA would come through but it got progressively colder and less comfortable and I eventually gave up.  Consider this a consolation prize.

The Sony SX63 has it's limitations at night.  Autofocus isn't all that great and the manual focus is difficult to set and get it right since I have to use the touch panel.  Next time I'll prepare focus before venturing out.  Low light is okay, not the best but so much better than cameras I've used in the past.

Catch of the Day - Aug 19

Had to assemble the video for this post and only got to it today.

Up early and headed up the trail to a unique viewing perch high over the Bala line near Northline Drive.  Catching the ONR Northlander northbound.  Not sure which unit was leading, usually it's 1800 for this Sunday run.

After that, scooted over to Wicksteed Avenue to catch CPR units 8807 and 8621 absolutely flying through the level crossing westbound on the Belleville sub.

When shooting at a double track, always stay clear of the open track as you cannot hear anything coming up behind you.  I stayed in line with the barrier for safety.

I later hooked the trails through Crother's Woods up to Pottery Road to see if anything else may chance by on Bala, and a brief stop to peek at the Don Branch rails .  At the northern end, the Don Branch is pretty grown over with fallen trees and other debris scattered around the tracks.  Who knows if Metrolinx will ever really use this section of the line, it would certainly need some extensive cleaning up.  I returned via Crother's Woods on the path closest to the ROW, but nothing was happening on the return trip.  Long run day, 12 or 13 miles of mostly trail.

Waterloo Central Railway - Oktoberfest Steam Ride

My wife, my daughter and myself headed out to St. Jacobs, Ontario, this afternoon to ride the Waterloo Central Railway's Oktoberfest steam rail train.  The train starts near the University of Waterloo, stops at the St. Jacobs market and continues on to St. Jacobs, then reverses back to Waterloo.  The morning showed some promise of sunshine, which didn't hold up as it was full cloud cover in the K-W area giving a definite fall feeling to the air.

The steamer is Essex Terminal Railway No.9, nicknamed the 'Spirit of Elgin', an ALCO 0-6-0 unit nicely refurbished and working out of St. Jacobs' yards with Waterloo Central.  The WCR has a collection of working units, coaches, assorted cars and other works-in-progress.  This is the pride of the group.

Today's train consisted of No.9 and it's hopper, three passenger coaches including two CN units with the more comfy recliners (daynighters) and an old CP coach with firmer seating, also two cabooses modified for passenger use, and WCR's #1556 diesel switcher unit for assistive power.

Too late to catch it at the start in Waterloo, we boarded at the St. Jacobs farmers market, purchased the tickets onboard and di dthe full loop to St. Jacobs, back to Waterloo, and finally returning to the market.  We chose to sit in the older passenger unit with it's rustic hanging lamps (not working) and sliding windows (working) which granted outside views and photo opts.

The first leg was to St. Jacobs with 1556 leading and No.9 in passive tow.  Upon reaching St. Jacobs' yard, the steamer was detached and prepped for work while the main cars continued on over the Grand River to the northern most point of the trip.  After pushing back into the yard, No.9 was fired up and ready, lashed up and took the lead back to Waterloo.

 

 

Ontario Northlander Last Run - Quick Post

Just wanted to post these two shots quickly.

This was the Northlander, lead by 2 power units, #1809 and #1800, southbound at about 6:15 PM, September 28, 2012 at a crossing between Hwy 16 and Major Mac in Richmond Hill.

I'll upload some video later on.

One last Sunday morning with the Northlander

It's Sunday morning, September 23, 2012.  I'm up and off to a perch high above the East Don River on the off-road biking trails just west of Northline Road in East York.  I was hoping this video could be shot later in the fall when the trees were ablaze in red and gold, and catch the orange and blue colours of Ontario Northland's Northlander as it winds it's way through the Don Valley and northwards on it's run to Cochrane.

However, this is the last Sunday this train will make this trek, the video couldn't wait.  It will still be running for the next 5 days but I'm unlikely to find any time.

It's a chilly morning and I was a bit late getting started.  It took me 25 minutes to reach here, normally it's a 30 minute run.  I made it with seconds to spare as I could hear the familiar bell of the GP38-2 just beyond the bend as I arrived.  In the original footage I'm still catching my breath during the first few seconds and quickly adjusting for position.

It's a slow incline along the edge of the golf course, listen in as power unit #1800 has to crank it up once it crosses the bridge.  The wind was kind enough to abate as the train made it's way past, picking up as it disappeared to the north.

A Face Full of Train

Scooted down to Pottery Road to catch the ONR Northlander, as it's days are coming to an end.  Used the Nikon today to try for a few good snaps.  Would have been better had I realized the white balance was set to incandescent.  Post processed it get the colours decent anyway.

Next Sunday is it's last Sunday run.  I have a week to decide where to shoot from.  I have one Tuesday morning I can try as well depending on timing.

Saved the running for later in the day, at the Terry Fox Run (Wilket Creek), 3 1/2 miles to the venue, run 10k (up paced, not race effort), and 3 1/2 miles back for 13ish miles. Added a bit to make up for their short 10k loop as I wanted at least 13 today.

Another VIA Canadian vid

I was heading over to Bayview Avenue to check out the area around the CP overpass after reading a bit of this web page on rudy.ca about Old Pottery Road.  I wanted to see if the area had any good viewing locations for the CP Belleville sub section that crosses this location.  After crossing along Pottery Road and heading up Bayview Avenue, I heard the crossing signals at Pottery go off.  I turned to catch the VIA Canadian train #2, but too far up the hill to make it back down in time to get a closer view.  It's still an interesting viewpoint, higher up the hill, and you can watch it wind it's away beside lower Bayview on it's way to Union Station.

As for Old Pottery Road, the area is under construction by Hydro One as they have been working on the new towers just south of the CP Rails, and views shown in Rudy's page above are not accessible at this point.  I suspect that once completed, any good viewing access that existed to the CP line will no longer be there.

Ghosts of Raillines Past - The GECO / Kingston Extension

I saw a post somewhere that made mention of trains passing by the old Hy & Zel's in Warden Woods Mall and it sparked a memory for me at the same location. I remember sitting in the parking lot as a train headed south, my wife headed into the mall and I stayed back to watch a short consist go by.  I now recognise this rail line as part of the GECO branch line.  This section was built to form a loop for local switch traffic in nearby yards, connecting back to the very busy Kingston line.  It was closed in 1996 and Hy& Zel's, together with the rest of Warden Woods Mall, is now history.

A few weeks back I traced the existing active section of the GECO branch from Comstock to the Uxbridge sub.  This weekend I followed the path of the removed section to see what would remain 16 years later.

With Google maps, the rail bed can be traced fairly easily and the in between reclaimed sections are easy to interpolate from it's satellite view.  On foot, it's not so easy.  I cached the satellite view on my phone, grabbed the Sony cam too, just in case I met some traffic on the active lines, and went off towards the southern connection point.

I wound my way south to along the Danforth then east to Danforth Road.  Near Warden, I could hear a short unit, maybe engine(s) only, heading along the Kingston line but wasn't yet in position to catch it.  A bit later I found Milne Avenue near where the spur connected up with the Kingston line tracks.  An industrial building occupied the section just north of the switch and I wasn't about to enter to see if I could spot any remnant of the switch bed, with 'private property' sounds in abundance.

Edit: I found this image on Railpictures.ca from June, 1983. On the right side of the image is the building shown above. Note the railway crossing signal where the extension would have passed near the building. The first indication of the line is an asphalt patch on Milne Avenue left behind after rail removal.

At the north end of the patch is a short metal barrier added to prevent road traffic from accessing the road level bed.

The path of the rail bed is quite obvious here as it parallels Milne Avenue.  When you stand at this point you can see the path of the former railbed through the entire section.

It the crosses Mack Avenue with a similar patch in the asphalt.  At both former crossings can be seen the painted 'X' warnings on the roadway, this despite maybe 20+ years of wear.

North of Mack the patch guides the railbed into a dome shaped storage building.

With the path leading into closed industrial property, I was forced to head west and looped around to find the crossing point on Danforth Road.  Here, I had to resort to my cached map on my phone as finding the location was essentially impossible visually.  There was no sign of any former crossings, likely the roadway had since been resurfaced.  The only indication of the former line was the curvature of the property lines of the nearby buildings indicating they abutted to the right-of-way.

Maybe this road patch was part of the crossing, but I doubt it.  My maps indicated it was very close to the correct location but it didn`t seem to completely cross the road.  However, it`s possible that more patching simply fooled me.  Very difficult to say.  This lead to a roadway into a new housing development.  I followed the road until it was blocked and exited to some new but existing housing at Oates Drive

After running through a park north of Oates and passing a couple of standing water overflow ponds, I was now on Bell Estate Rd., a section thoroughly regraded and any hint of the former rail bed is long since removed.  Back to Warden I headed north.  A multi-business complex had an access area towards the back just south of a Hydro One station.  The area of the rail bed is somewhat obvious here, if you knew what you  were looking at.

It`s recessed along the back fences of some older existing housing of Santamonica Boulevard (yes, that`s what it`s called).  You can detect the climb from further south as you get here so the recessed grading was necessary for rail traffic.

I had no intent to wind my way behind the Hydro One station so instead headed back to Warden and then north to St. Clair Avenue.

At St. Clair, a trio of railway bridges cross overhead.

The western two bridges are for TTC line traffic.  The eastern bridge serviced this GECO branch section.

Climbing some stairs to Santamonica Blvd off St. Clair, you can cross along a field to track level and see the top of the bridge.

The rail ties are still in place, but no rail.  There still exists `no tresspassing' signs so it may still technically be trespassing to step onto the bridge, so I didn`t.  The TTC tracks into Warden Station are adjacent to the west side.

Back along the field, you can see more ties where the rails used to reside.  A TTC train is seen exiting Warden Station.

Southward, the rail bed disappears into the brush, heading on a downgrade.  I didn't venture down this way as the growth is pretty thick and leads back behind the Hydro One station.  I'd be interested to see how far the ties carry though without venturing too far, but not today.

While nothing large and mechanical may ever cross the GECO part of the bridge ever again, the other two bridges are perpetually active with TTC traffic, seen here as a TTC train crosses St. Clair.







I headed north through a park adjacent to the tracks, eventually returning to lower spur of the existing active GECO branch line extending from the Uxbridge subdivision.  This was seen in my previous GECO blog entry.

The immediate southern section has been regraded, making it impossible to locate any trace of the line.  A bit further south, adjacent to Pidgeon Street (clearly, they are running out of names for streets in T.O.), the line can be picked up through traces of right-of-way fencing and 'No Tresspassing' signage, the signs seemingly ludicrous given that nature has effectively reclaimed the entire area.

From Google maps, it does look traceable, although the late summer growth shown here makes naviging it next to impossible.  I may revisit this area sometime before next spring after the growth has died off and see what remains.

Of the whole spur section, the reminders of the track persist in the southern most section through the impact on the streets and housing.  The centre section is mostly reclaimed by industry and housing development.  In sections not regraded, the location of buildings and fencing hints at the CN ROW points.  Only in the nothern sections, especially around St. Clair Avenue, can the former railbed's infrastructure be seen and will likely be there for a very long time to come.

It was a fun run for a Saturday, about 90 minutes of running with an added hour for the shot taking.