If you look at various historic Railroad maps, several US fallen flags show a route across Ontario, from Detroit to Northwest New York state.
Wabash, New York Central, C&O (Pere Marquette) are 3 that come to mind.
Yet, if one looks at a current day route map for the big two in the east, neither NS nor CSX show ownership of a route through there.
A) how many of the US RR’s actually did own a right of way, spanning through Ontario, vs which ones simply had negotiated rights to use rails belonging to others?
B) have all these lines been abandoned? Or have they just been swapped around?
I think Wabash & Pere Marquette had trackage rights (over CN?) and New York Central owned its trackage (Canada Southern?). I don’t know about the CN(?) track but I think the NYC’s was abandoned in the 80’s.
The Wabash, later N&W had trackage rights across Ontario. Pere Marquette-C&O-CSX had their own line on the western half from Detroit and Port Huron to St. Thomas and then trackage rights to Buffalo.
The Michigan Central-NYC-Penn Central had the Canada Southern which owned the only tunnel at Detroit. Everyone else used ferries. Conrail sold the Canada Southern to CN and CP around 1985 and most of it has been abandoned in pieces.
CN had two lines, one from the Grand Trunk and one from the Great Western.
Amtrak ran over the Penn Central route from 1974 until 1979. About 5 years ago Amtrak planned a Boston to Chicago train using CN.
This pdf map shows how it looks today http://www.proximityissues.ca/Maps/RAC-2004-ON_sub.pdf
yep the old CASO sub, used a shortcut for detroit -buffalo traffic, owned for many years by NYC, then PC, COnrail before being sold to CN-CP in 1985, hwo in trun hav elet most of the line sit unedde and abbondoned, however CN still runs two trains , 434 and 435 between Windsor and Fargo on the CASo sun, at Fargo they connect to the CSX Sarnia sub( recent;ly purchased by CN) and then back onot the CN line at Chatham. This is the only remaing traffic on the prtion of the once very bussy line.
Go to the top of the page. Click update profile. Enter your password. About half way down the page is a big box for the signature. Type in what you want and save it.
Now if you want one of those giant, annoying (but only after seeing it 100 times) picture signatures, then there is a part about linking it to where it is on another site, but I’m not going there.
The new signature will appear on all your posts (new and old).
I can’t figure out how to add those neat little quotes… sigh.
Don’t need a signature so much, now that my “secure undisclosed location” has been tracked down. Yes, MP173, Gillett, WI, it is! Small enough town I could see our every other day train coming a mile away (well, at least on the way back)-and it ran slowly enough that I could still get to the crosssing downtown to meet it.
Now that we’ve tracked you down you will be seeing a unmarked black van arriveing shortly. It will take you to the nearest loading point for the shackle cars. Resistance is futile. [alien]
Kevin
At the top of a post you would like to quote is a bar, and at the right hand edge is a box you click on that says quote beside it.
If you want to use colors or anything else (except signatures) click on FAQ near the top of the screen.
I like your reporting marks.
The shortest and fastest route between Detroit and Buffalo was over the Canada Southern. A freight train could get across the Canada Division in about 5.5 hours with a crew change in St Thomas.
The Wabash had trackage rights over the Canada Air Line (CN Cayuga Sub) between the Niagara Frontier and Windsor. Its traffic had to be barged across the Detroit River.
Today, the NS runs through the Detroit Tunnel, across the CASO to Fargo, north on the Sarnia Sub, and east on the CHatham and Paynes Subs to the ford assembly plant at Talbotville. Its Buffalobound traffic then heads north on the Talbot Sub to London and then east on the Dundas, Grimsby, and Stamford Subs to the US border at Buffalo.
The C&O exercised CASO trackage rights from the Niagara Frontier to St Thomas, thence on home rails to either Windsor or Sarnia. C&O also had a barge across the St Clair RIver at Sarnia.
After Conrail sold the CASO to CN and CP, Chessie ran from end to end on the CASO, allowing it to abandon its parallel Blenheim Sub/ Sub #1 between St Thomas and Windsor. The only parts of the line seeing service recently were at Blenheim, Rodney, and a short stretch thru Leamington.
CSX trains on the CASO sub were discontinued in 1996 in favour of CN Haulage trains.
The most recent agreement between CSX and CN gives CN the Sarnia Sub between Chatham and Fargo (guaranteeing CN’s connection to Windsor South), and CSX’s traffic will be handed to CN at Sarnia for furtherance. CSXT has been cut back to a local switching operation.
To start with, there were three almost parallel main lines used by US roads across that part of Ontario, now there is but one.
For more info, I recommend purchasing from the BRMNA “Rails to the Border,” which explains the operations of the various US roads in southern Ontario.
Shortly before the end of Amtraks short lived “Niagara Rainbow”, between Detroit and Buffalo over the CASO/ MC/NYC/PC/CRC(Conrail Canada, I don’t think anything got those reporting marks) I rode it from Buffalo Central Terminal to the Michigan Central Station in Detroit. The trackage was miserable! The crew confirmed my suspicions regarding the fate of the line, which they still held in high regard, despite having been ignored and threatened with abandonment. Their fears came true and most of the CASO is gone today[:(]
Now that we’ve tracked you down you will be seeing a unmarked black van arriveing shortly. It will take you to the nearest loading point for the shackle cars. Resistance is futile. [alien]
[/quote]
LOL!
Hmmm. It’s not the van you see that gets you, it’s the one you don’t.
A shackle car would be an interesting (to put it as mildly as possible) way to travel…