LEFT: Early morning fog had cleared just in time to capture this Canadian Pacific west- bound freight led by a trio of big MLW’s at Do- rion. OPPOSITE MIDDLE: By 1988, CP’s Montreal commuter trains were being oper- ated by Société de Transport de la Commu- nauté Urbaine De Montréal (STCUM). Train 60, led by FP7 1301, crosses the bridge at Do- rion with a train of bi-levels in tow. The CN’s bridge is in the foreground. OPPOSITE BOT- TOM: VIA train 65 was captured at speed fly- ing through the suburban station at Coteau. The high-speed LRC (“Light, Rapid, Comfort- able”) trains designed by MLW/Bombardier had entered service in 1981 on the busy Toronto-Montreal corridor. BELOW: A very pleasant surprise and a great way to end a successful day of railfanning around Montreal was the arrival of VIA train 35 at Dorion. Two FPA-4s hauling three coaches replaced the ex- pected LRC set this afternoon. By 1988 the old MLW cab units were rolling their last miles in regular service for VIA.
vicinity of the Quebec-Ontario border— small towns set in the Delisle River val- ley, with fall foliage for a backdrop; finding the enclosed water tank on the CP at Dalhousie Mills—even when no trains were available to photograph. Thus, it probably was time to head back to Montreal, but a fortuitous com- bination of logic (You know a train is coming; don’t pass it up!) and inertia (You’re here, already standing on the bridge, and it would take some effort to go to the car...) kept me around for number 35, and a picture that I hadn’t expected to take. Unexpected, because VIA’s FPA-4s had been supplanted by the LRC’s, and reputedly no longer held down regular assignments, at least in the Montreal- Toronto corridor by October 1988. I had seen and photographed (and even rid- den behind) the units on other occa- sions, and my expectations for this trip
hadn’t included seeing the handsome cabs in action—a combination that, as noted above, had almost caused me to depart the area prematurely. To have done so would have been a
shame. Great light, a well cared-for consist, and a spirited performance crossing the bridge made for outstand- ing closure to an excellent day. After all, by the late 1980s, there weren’t that many chances to begin and end a day’s photography with Alco/MLW power, on two roads, encompassing both freight and passenger operations. And, except for the LRC’s, the passen- ger option was gone entirely by May 1989, when the last FPA-4 made its fi- nal VIA run.
It was worth waiting for!
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