From almost 50 years ago, here are some stories presented in CP Rail's employee newspaper.
* * *
The photo below was very, very dark and I did my best with it.
Readers will probably find the motive power (i.e. the MLW 'switcher calf unit') as interesting as the track arrangement.
To see how this track arrangement was written up, below is an employee timetable from a few years earlier.
The third paragraph in the subdivision footnotes at the lower left describes this 'railway crossing at grade'.
The left-hand running is spelled out to the immediate left of the stations in a fine-print column.
If you look beyond the diamond in the photo, to the right, you'll see the home signal for eastbound trains.
* * *
In the late 1960s, it was fun to photograph from and around the pedestrian overpass over the CNR at the top of 40th Avenue in Lachine. The overpass enabled Lachine commuters to reach the CPR commuter station located to the north of the CNR.
Observing from the overpass on weekdays (during school holidays) the F-units (usually in the old maroon paint scheme) would sometimes get a real workout from an impatient engineer as they accelerated from the commuter station at 48th Avenue, before stopping at the 40th Avenue station. To avoid confusion over station names and locations, I've simply identified the stations by the Avenue which intersected with the highway back in those days. Crossing the highway to reach either of the stations was done via a pedestrian pushbutton at the highway traffic lights.
Our maternal grandmother lived in Valois and our grandfather commuted to Stelco in Lachine from the Valois station circa 1950. If you type Valois in the search box, above in the top banner, you'll get a few older posts with locomotive operating manuals (including Budd cars), timetables including the last Pool Train timetables and some photos taken at Valois and from the 40th Avenue overpass.