My son Nick picked me up at the Ontario Southland Railway after our tour, and I spent the remainder of the day and most of the next day with him, his wife and their menagerie of animals.
On Monday morning (October 20), Nick had to work for a bit, so I took the Ion LRT over to get some goodies at Winnie’s gluten-free bakery. I wanted to buy the whole store, but I settled for some muffins, cupcakes and a loaf of cheese bread. SO GOOD.
I decided to walk back. On my way, I realized that I would pass near the Kitchener GO/VIA station. I checked the schedules and saw that GO Transit and VIA were both sending trains through around noon.
I set up on the Margaret Street overpass and waited.
At 11:28, a GO Transit train led by engine 650 pulled up.
The fall colours were OUT in Kitchener.
The closer switch is for the spur that runs through Waterloo to Elmira. It hosts the Waterloo Central tourist railway, the Ion LRT (for a short distance) and CN at night. You might remember my night photo of the CN train in downtown Waterloo.
The farther switch is a short dead-end track, hosting a maintenance-of-way vehicle this day.
There were a LOT of people around the station, coming and going.
GOT 301 was the cab car on the tail end of the train, by the historic Krug furniture factory.
GO eventually left, and soon VIA came rolling in.
Venture power unit 2227 was on the head end, with cab car 2327 on the tail. I think it had six cars in total.
They didn’t stay long – less than 6 minutes.
Quite a few people boarded the train here.
I recorded the train heading east, then ran across the overpass to get the “going away” shot.
Kitchener-Waterloo is a nice place to visit – and to live, apparently.
Here’s my video of the GO Transit and VIA trains.