Action around Kapuskasing

Ok. My last Proto-file trip back to Northern Ontario. I promise. But from 1976 to 1978 I was maintaining the landing aids at Kapuskasing (from CFS Lowther) where there was often more railroad action than aircraft action. All trains from the east turned on the Y out by the airport and so train watching became a just part of my job. At forty below - or during mosquito season.

Photo 1 – Modellers of the steam/diesel period in Canada probably won’t agree that there was another significant “transition era” and I was witness to it in a remote northern town where the Ontario Northern and the Canadian National came together with that brand new VIA thing. For a while there, Kapuskasing often played host to covered wagons belonging to all three. Number 6516, a CN/VIA FP9A, waits off the main line by the warehouse and a typical summer schedule FP9A 6541 (inset) rests in front of the station before the trip back South/East. Obviously this was during those pre-ditch light days. That’s something to think about.

Our 6516, while showing off during main line duty, earned a coloured, full-page spread in Rail Canada vol. 2 page 78.