Throwback Thursday - No Train Day

 

This photo shows the east wall of the CN Rectory St roundhouse in London on April 08/90.

By Peter Mumby.

Probably everyone who has been shooting railfan photos for a few years has experienced what could be referred to as a No Train Day, or NTD.  This is a day when you spend a couple of hours trackside at some of your regular haunts but fail to encounter a single train.  Possibly, out of boredom or frustration, you then focus your camera on structures, signals, or track work - features that might not normally capture much of your attention.  When you review the resulting images several years (or decades) later, you may find that you are glad that they were added to your collection as memory aids to a railway scene that is constantly evolving.

I suspect that April 08, 1990 was such an NTD for me.  While checking some scenes from the early 1990s I found that I had photographed both the CN and CP roundhouses in London on that day.  While a portion of the CP roundhouse at Quebec St remains today, the turntable is long gone.  The CN roundhouse at Rectory St suffered a fire in January of 1992 and was demolished shortly thereafter.  Today a large indoor soccer facility stands on this lot.  Don’t necessarily wait for an  NTD - just get those photos while you can!  

This view of the CP London roundhouse was taken from the Quebec St overpass.