In 1958 my brother, David Leonard — then a student at University High School in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois — made several trips to photograph Grand Trunk Western and Canadian National steam power during the last phase of full operation. The first two trips to Michigan took him to Durand in June and to Detroit in August. In these locations he found Grand Trunk Western steam active, though diesel power was coming into wider use. He made a third trip by rail in September, both to Michigan and Canada. On this trip he photographed GTW steam at Detroit's Milwaukee Junction terminal, and a panorama of Canadian National steam at Windsor, Toronto and Stratford, Ontario. His itinerary included access to Toronto's famous Spadina Avenue terminal and the CNR's Stratford Shops, where vintage steam power was still undergoing major overhauling at this late stage — exploits that would be difficult in today's litigious and security-conscious environment.

Grand Trunk Western trains meet at Durand, June 1958

Grand Trunk Western class K-4-b Pacific 5632 (right) with train 21 for Muskegon meets U-1-c 4-8-2 6037 with train 56 for Detroit, at Durand, Michigan on June 6, 1958. Transparency by David V. Leonard.

The Rev. David V. Leonard passed away in January 2013 at his home in Binghamton, New York. In 2010 he provided these images from 1958 for use on this site. We present here a sampling of his best work, with locomotive dimensions and occasional comments. You may choose an image from the selections below, or page sequentially through each section of this gallery. My brother often took multiple photos of the same locomotive; to avoid redundancy this site presents only a few his duplicated subjects. However, some of his alternate shots appear in our Random Steam Photo Collection, which also presents Grand Trunk Western and Canadian National steam images from other sources. For my Grand Trunk Western steam images visit the Grand Trunk Western page in our Steam Locomotive Archive.

Dr. Richard Leonard

CANADIAN NATIONAL

GRAND TRUNK WESTERN