The Ontario Southland Railway is a branch line operating in Southern Ontario. At their website, they describe themselves as follows:

“Ontario Southland Railway is a 100 % Canadian owned short line railway company incorporated in 1992 to provide a number of transportation services to meet customer needs. On December 14th, 2010 OSR took over the 32 miles of the St. Thomas from Canadian Pacific. OSR now has operations in Guelph, Tillsonburg and Woodstock to St Thomas. Ontario Southland Railway provides railway contract operations including complete maintenance, locomotives and related equipment. OSR provides contract switching including locomotive leasing and maintenance, with or without yard crew.”

Current news from the OSR is that they recently had their first revenue run of their OSR #1401, a FP9U built originally in March of 1957. Formerly, it saw service on railways such as the Rail America’s Ottawa Valley Railway, VIA Rail, CN and the Grand Junction Railway.  FP9U’s are rare today in commercial railway service.  So the addition of this early diesel-electric locomotive to active operations in Southern Ontario is a great trainspotting opportunity for railfans.

Watch the video above of the inaugural run. Click here to read an extensive article about the OSR by Ray Kennedy on his “Old Time Trains”  website. Below we also share a few of the many pictures of the OSR and its locomotives from the OSR’s Website.

Click on each image for a closer look!