Sometimes, it's amazing to think how much things can change in the span of only a couple years. This video, shot on Saturday, March, 20, 2020, is about four years old at time of upload (usually, it takes me a while to get to things...), but in that time quite a bit has changed on the railroads that were filmed on this day.

Starting the day in Stratford, my brother and I set out to follow the GoderichExeter railway, which at that time was running pretty much every day. On this day, 581 would work west on the Goderich sub to Clinton Junction, then south on the Exeter spur to Hensall; service on the Exeter spur was commonly WednesdaySaturday at this time, but recently is more like once a week with no traffic south of Hensall anymore. These days, the railway runs much more sporadically, and GP40 RLK #4095 went into the news for all the wrong reasons during a runaway derailment in Goderich the following February. Still, like a cat with nine lives, it survived and currently operates out of Garnet on another G&W operation, Southern Ontario Railway.

After shooting GEXR, the plan was to head to Woodstock to find OSR as they were commonly running on weekends at the time (not the case now). Along the way we shot CP loaded ethanol train #650 at Zorra, the site of a large St. Marys Cement plant. These days, the train still runs but is numbered 528 (on CPKC, not CP!), and the old conveyor bridge across the tracks at Zorra has been removed.

Sure enough, OSR's Woodstock job was working at Woodstock with FP9Au #6508 and GP9u #8235. At the time, the Funits in regular service was common but in 2024, the units are pretty much only used for plow runs or office car specials. We chased the job liteengine back to Ingersoll, where they would lift a long string of outbound loaded autoracks destined for a CN connection at Beachville. At the time, CAMI was running two shifts building the Chevy Equinox, but that ended in April 2022; at the time of uploading, the plant builds the "Brightdrop" EV delivery vans, but nothing goes out by rail. The plant still gets about 10 cars/day of inbound loads for local distribution, but whether it ever ships anything out by rail again is very much in doubt.

After finishing up with OSR, on our way home we caught CN 435, the daily TorontoLondon train, at Paris wrapping up a pretty good day of railfanning in southwestern Ontario.

As always, thank you for watching!
00:00 Morning at Stratford
03:38 GEXR 581 West and South to Hensall
12:55 CP 650 at Zorra w/ BNSF DPU
13:48 OSR Woodstock Turn
25:56 CN A435 at Paris Jct