The city of Orangeville owns it. The province would need to do a massive legal battle to take over the line. That's not mentioning Metrolinx offered to buy the line outright and Orangeville refused to sell, because they wanted to build the "Bike Super Highway"
@@andrewolf9865 Keep the rail bed intact, and maybe Metrolinx could buy the ROW and install new track in future. The rails that were removed likely needed replacement anyway
@@andrewolf9865Corridor ownership has been split up between Caledon, Brampton, and Missisauga per their respective municipal boundaries and my understanding was that Metrolinx was not interested in this line at all given it didn't fit into their plans for anything until after 2045 (which makes no sense since they're going through with expanding Milton Line service and even just using this line from Brampton to Streetsville alongside that service would take pressure off the already crowded Kitchener Line). Metrolinx also referenced their Orangeville bus route as a reason why yet that route ends in Brampton which I feel would dissuade people from using it if they wanted to go to anywhere else
Myself along with some friends and Transport Action Ontario have been in contact with the municipalities working to make this trail (Caledon, Brampton, and Mississauga) to try and have it be rail with trail instead of just having it solely be a trail. However, we're also proposing the option of designing the trail with a return to rail service in mind so that when the time comes either there's still track to work from or at leas enough space to allow both modes to work together. It's very shortsighted that Metrolinx nor the others have seen the potential this line has given how Milton Line is getting expanded services, the Kitchener Line is overcrowded, and Orangeville is growing yet the prior mayor was hellbent on dismantling the railway regardless of the future implications (the OBRY could very well serve as a regional connector between Kitchener and Milton GO lines while addressing the city of Brampton's own transit inequities)
@@blanetrain9584 what about the train bridge in the forks of the credit, if turn into a trail, metrolinx will a hard time getting it back from the town of Caledon and the pro Bruce trail membership club
I don't remember how I found your channel a while ago, but I just wanted to say that I love your videos, and I'm always interested to learn these obscure historical facts about my area!
The line closed mainly because former Orangeville mayor Sandy Brown had a vendetta against it. Yes, the rail line didn’t make any money and was a draw on the town’s resources, but when it was operational it was great. I actually used to take the excursion train with family in the fall. The Elora branch, which is now a trail, is actually out of commission currently as the Town of Erin (my hometown) is building a sewer system with the main trunk running along part of the Elora spur.
Maybe if they upgraded the line for GO trains it would have actually been useful and more than just operational for the town. Wonder if they could build elevated tracks similar to the Davenport Diamond in Toronto along the trail in the future.
It's a shame that transit gets decommissioned once it's no longer profitable, but our roads and cars don't get held to the same standard. Oh, what we've missed out on.
Former Orangeville Mayor Sandy Brown also had a real estate background, the use of abandoning the line and selling the property to developers to make money, the railway had more potentional customers that wanted to move so they could take advantage of using rail but Sandy Brown said no. Also he's fled the country presumably to Florida as town council wanted him to attend about the money from the sale of the railway has not appeared to the town.
@@AshgabatKetchumov It would have required a total rebuild of the track and the bridges. Line goes the wrong way and is too slow to be useful for commuter trains It might be useful as a route for for Stadler Flirts operated not as a heavy rail line but as a LRT line along side the trail from Brampton north that could use regular traffic lights to get across level crossing rather and need to have gates with flashing lights and bells. That would cause a lot of complaints with neighbours. Big problem would be the neighbours around the lower end of the line
About 50 years ago, I took a steam excursion train from Union station, in Toronto, up to Orangeville and back, which would have passed over this track. I recall 2 water stops. One had the fire department out to connect to a hydrant, but the other was at a still working water tower.
I believe that train only made that one trip to Orangeville and back that summer, 1973. But if you were on it, they had a minor breakdown right beside a friend's cottage I was at, right beside the tracks, about 200m south of where the rails go under Charleston Sideroad (CR 24) west of the Town of Caldon Public Works Yard, on the Credit River. They had to have a replacement injector brought up from Toronto, replaced it and the train was back on it's way. The locomotive was ex-CPR #1057, a D-10h 4-6-0 built by Montreal Locomotive Works in 1912. The coal tender was lettered Credit Valley Railway and the loco was restored by a Steam club that I thought went by that same name. I worked with several of the members of that club. They had to have boiler tubes imported from Brazil or somewhere similar to overhaul the loco and get it certified. All volunteer work. They also restored ex-CPR #124 which was used in the filming of The National Dream. Both locomotives are in the hands of the South Simcoe Railway now. I don't think 1057 is running. #124 is still used for short steam excursions from Tottenham to Beeton. #124 has also made frequent appearances on the Television show Murdoch Mysteries. Nice to see someone else who remembers that train, running on that line.
Another of your videos that touches on the memories. We moved to Owen Sound from Toronto when I was 10. My grandmother didn't drive so until the rail service to Owen Sound ended, she would often take the train as it made fewer stops than the bus. I travelled with her a few times on this route. When we rode it, the service was Budd Rail-Diesel cars like the remaining VIA Rail Train 185 out of Sudbury. In hindsight it was easy to see why they cancelled it, on one winter trip, probably for her annual Christmas visit, we rode in the single RDC making up the "train" and as the only passengers for the last part of the trip, the conductor let us stand in the front door foyer area to see out the front and watch the snow swirling every time the RDC ploughed through a drift or road crossing snowbank.
@@ALuimes I started school in Toronto when we still sang God Save the Queen with her majesty's portrait at the front of the classroom along with the Union Jack. So I beg to differ but plough / ploughed is correct British English spelling which is the way I was taught, good sir / madam. "The neighbour did us a favour when he ploughed the road to the harbour." No spelling errors in that sentence either.
I used to live near the Mount Pleasant Go Station, and I remember that area starting to be built up from the dirt, particularly when the library came in. I probably could've learned this on the signs around, but I never knew that that old-style building was an actual rail station building from the early 1900s that was relocated!
8:50 At least the cars were not wasted. Love the Waterloo Railway and their old style cars. Perfect addition to the fleet. Been a few years since I took WCR since since the LRT uses those same tracks. (They moved where you get on the train past the Northfield Ion stop). But good price and the fall leaves, or the winter Christmas trains are an experience. Another great video, love learning about whatever you make a video on.
I've thought about it, but shooting could be an issue - no traces remain of the previous stations so all I could show for them would be historical photos and "Here's what's on the site today", and security guards probably wouldn't take kindly to a video shoot in the station. But I do have some other Toronto railway history ideas in mind so we'll see what happens.
I remember in the 1970s and 80s, several Credit Valley Railway passenger cars were stored behind a postal facility on Cawthra Road, just north of Lakeshore Road.
Well, in my humble opinion, that was pretty smooth, Steve. I, as do many others, feel that MetroSTINX has missed an opportunity to establish GO Train service up to Orangeville. There would be some obvious issues to work out right off the hop, but I honestly think it would be worth the effort. Furthermore, if GO were to "get on board" (pardon the pun) with service on a rail line, it might give some of the industries some comfort, knowing that rail service will be possible for quite some time to come. If they think that the line is doomed, nobody is going to plan for or build sidings, loading and unloading infrastructure for their business, and they will most certainly plan to receive and ship by truck, or even search out other potential places to establish their business ventures close(er) to active rail lines. From a movie a few decades ago, came a saying. "If you build it, they will come." Well, in this instance, if you don't build it, they certainly aren't going to be bothered.
Good information there! You might be interested in doing a piece on the London & Port Stanley Railway and how the line was electrified by Sir Adam Beck (Hydro) as a prototype for mass transit. Unfortunately the automotive lobby messed up everything. Funny how things sometimes come full circle. But imagine if Beck was successful. We would have had a very impressive electrified mass transit system.
My former local rail line that i never got to railfan 🙁. I did ride on the credit valley explorer once as a kid for my birthday, it was fun. thanks for the video! it's a great in-depth look at a part of not just my past but many others as well
You could've knocked me over with a feather when I saw Ingersoll, aka "cheese capital of Canada", in your video. They've really hit the big time now lol
Many people wanted to run GO trains on this line but its curvature and route is not conducive to a fast commuter train to downtown, also the level crossing with the Halton Sub. It might be possible to run an Ottawa style system with vehicles like Stadler Flirts but only from Brampton north, though I doubt anything will happen.
@@andrewolf9865 Metrolinx had no interest in the line. Ridership on the 37 bus ridership is pretty weak (they don't even run the double deck buses) and as mentioned by OP, the geometry of the corridor would mean the trains could never compete with Highway 10.
I wanted to watch the last train and bring my newborn nephew watch it with me as his first time ever seeing a train. Sadly I never got to do that biggest regrets of my life. At least he likes trains now since he’s rode the port Stanley one 3 times
Interesting to see the development of rail lines over time. Interesting that Woodstock was mentioned in your talk. I live near the CPR mainline near Innerkip. My father and uncles in the 1920s would take the train to Galt for high school. There was no scheduled train that worked for school times to Woodstock which was only 10 km away. In winter the roads were less reliable than rail. Innerkip had a limestone quarry which supplied the ballast for the railway for a time until they found more suitable stone ballast in Beachville. The quarry flooded and is now used for a summer trailer park and scuba diving. There used to be a spur line through Woodstock to connect the CN and CP main lines. You still see the scars of the abandoned railway lines in the country, straight lines of trees, gravel beds, old bridges over rivers, abittments etc. Villages prospered or died depending if the rail line went close to them.
It was a sad day when I realized they were ripping out all of the tracks here in town. I know it had been a long time since I'd last seen a train, but a good passenger train from Orangeville to Toronto would have been huge.
A GO train to Orangeville would *not* get high enough ridership to be viable. Even in Barrie only about 100 passengers get on or off at the terminal station close to downtown Barrie. And Barrie is much larger than Orangeville and on a line serving many points between it and Union. Most of a line to Orangeville that would get higher ridership is already part of the Kitchener line anyways.
@@ALuimes According to the stats, millions of people use the Barrie train line annually. Here's a recent Reddit post: "I started taking the Barrie line from Newmarket to downsview on daily basis and the train is always packed and there’s nowhere to seat. And like when I’m taking the train to Newmarket when I’m getting off the there’s nowhere to seat, like how many people commute from Bradford and Barrie to Toronto that made the train still so packed?" Perhaps the Barrie train stations aren't very busy, but the train line itself is. We're also still competing with car brain. According to census data in an article from June 2024 on Barrietoday, nearly 40% of people in Barrie had never even taken the train before. There's still lots of potential for growth in Barrie.
@@MichaelSheaAudio But even a *line* to Orangeville, a town of only 35K (compared to Barrie's 150K) located at the end of a curvy branch line with basically *nothing* in between wouldn't get much ridership, other than what it would cannibalize from either Kitchener or Milton trains along the duplicate portions of the route.
@@ALuimes Orangeville is a growing town, we have a lot of people moving up from the cities, and it's very common for people to commute south to those cities. And would a train have to follow the exact winding track that exists/ existed, or could we place new tracks with a more direct route parallel to highway 10? It's all hypothetical, as I said it *would* be cool if we had a functioning passenger train that connected to the rest of the system. It's short-sighted to suggest that we reject public transportation projects just because people aren't using what exists (if anything) right now. The goal is to induce demand by providing a convenient service. For the sake of time, the video "Why Swiss Trains are the Best in Europe" by Not Just Bikes is a great watch if you haven't seen it already. It's an example of how a situation like ours can still operate well with trains.
The Dundas valley conservation area has a rail trail that runs through it, I think it was called the Hamilton Brantford railway, its dosent exist anymore of course, all that remains of it is a siding that still has 2 rail cars on it.
It's actually the old TH&B (Toronto Hamilton & Buffalo) right of way. The Hamilton and Brantford followed a right of way that went up the mountain instead. The old rail yard to which the line connected in West Hamilton on Aberdeen is still in use by CPKC, though they have reduced the number of yard tracks considerably.
I know exactly where you are standing. I had no idea those tracks were THAT old. I didn't know the original station was moved to the Mount Pleasant location. Assumed it was its original location and always wondered about that.
Thanks for this fascinating history - I’ve seen videos in the US of ppl adapting their bikes to ride rails. That would be fun. What’s the longest stretch of unused rail in this system - Streetsville to Orangeville?
I don't know, but there are a lot of obstacles. The rails have been removed at many of the road crossings, for instance, and a lot of vegetation has grown since the line closed in 2021.
Thanks Steve. As a cyclist, I have often wondered where all the rail lines were. I wish we had an organisation that could turn all these abandoned lines into paved rail trails as they do in the US.
Quite a few of them have been (and I've done some videos on rail trails in Toronto - scroll back to my earlier videos if you want to see them), but of course rail trails take money to build and to maintain, so our perpetually cash-strapped governments only want to do this if there's a good argument that the trail will get enough use to be worth the cash.
@@notsmoothsteve Yes, I have viewed them. Great. Not enough of them are paved. The Rails-to-Trail Conservancy in the US is funded a lot by donations. The old adage, Build it and they will come. Very successful below the border.
As someone who supports rail and active transportation, we should be doing more rail with trail as opposed to ripping up more rail corridors solely for trails
I played along the Orangeville Brampton railline as a child back in the '50s close to where the old Dales greenhouses grew so many beautiful roses. I do remember seeing then Prime Minister John Deifenbacher campaigning off the rear of a train at the Brampton station on that line. If my memory is correct the station was just off Queen St. W and this would have been around 1958 give or take a year or two. I left Brampton in the early '60s so my memory iof that era s a bit hazy.
Often wonder that rail line that used to go from FT Erie to Windsor through Hagersvile and ST Thomas are any of those tracks still down there and are any in use i remember back in the early 70. S they would run a lot of train's between Buffalo and Detroit as a short cut
I was very proud to have been part of the Peel team that helped to acquire the rail corridor. I appreciate the comments suggesting the line should be used for some sort of transit way - however, residents should know that this option was studied extensively in the past and determined not to be viable. Keeping the entirety of the corridor in public ownership was vitally important to maintaining future options open. In the meantime I hope the public will support the current efforts to repurpose the corridor to a trail.
I was with Peel at that time and was at the handover ceremony that took place in Brampton. Wished I got to ride the Credit Valley Explorer at least once before that got shut down. Kind of hoping they'll keep the signals as decorations for the trail or something to keep the history there
@@matthewp956 the corridor has been transferred to each of Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon. It will be up to them in terms of timing, but I understand that planning is underway. It will take a considerable amount of time before the lands are actually fully converted.
hey steve, a friend and I are looking to make a 'rail bike' and travel on some abandoned rails. would you think this is a suitable candidate? if not, do you know of others in southern Ontario?
I can't speak to any legal issues, other than noting that at some points in Caledon there are signs saying they passed a by-law prohibiting people from setting foot on the right of way. But as a practical thing, it's probably not. The tracks have been ripped up at several road crossings (plus the buried diamond crossing in the video), and vegetation has taken advantage of the opportunity to grow in the last three years. I don't know of any others that might be better - you'd probably run into similar issues elsewhere, too.
Is the concrete at that abandoned Brampton station still there because I can see it on Google Maps, just not sure if its still there. 4:27 is the timestamp.
Not sure, but when I was shooting the segment near there, there was heavy construction equipment parked at the old station site, so I'm guessing that they're ripping up the track and probably any other remaining traces of the former station to prepare the site to be reused.
A lot of them were already underway when the recession started, so I guess they figured they'd keep going and hopefully be ready to reap the rewards when the economy picked up again.
People should realize Metrolinx isn’t necessarily stupid or shortsighted. Metrolinx doesn’t want this right of way because it meanders and the route has speed limiting curves and grades. Think 50 km/h… not good for passenger traffic. No ridership now or in the future. It’s dead. Metrolinx is correct to have no interest in this line. Losing this line means letting go of something obsolete. When we build a rail line to Orangeville someday it will be on a more suitable alignment.
They could have kept the line for GO trains just through the Brampton and Mississauga portion only. This would keep the option open to expand to Orangeville one day but the curves would likely make the extension not feasible but the section from Brampton south does not have severe curves at all.
I was so happy finding out the rail line closed before i moved up here. It was losing 400,000 dollars a year that taxpayers had to pay for. Lets hope it never becomes rail again.
The province allowing the rail line to be shut down instead of converted to a GO service is insane
The city of Orangeville owns it. The province would need to do a massive legal battle to take over the line.
That's not mentioning Metrolinx offered to buy the line outright and Orangeville refused to sell, because they wanted to build the "Bike Super Highway"
@@andrewolf9865 Keep the rail bed intact, and maybe Metrolinx could buy the ROW and install new track in future. The rails that were removed likely needed replacement anyway
@@andrewolf9865Corridor ownership has been split up between Caledon, Brampton, and Missisauga per their respective municipal boundaries and my understanding was that Metrolinx was not interested in this line at all given it didn't fit into their plans for anything until after 2045 (which makes no sense since they're going through with expanding Milton Line service and even just using this line from Brampton to Streetsville alongside that service would take pressure off the already crowded Kitchener Line). Metrolinx also referenced their Orangeville bus route as a reason why yet that route ends in Brampton which I feel would dissuade people from using it if they wanted to go to anywhere else
@@blanetrain9584 Metrolinx loves to use the 37 as an excuse to do nothing about the transit situation in Dufferin County.
At a minimum the province should be “rail-banking” the rights-of-way for future activation.
Myself along with some friends and Transport Action Ontario have been in contact with the municipalities working to make this trail (Caledon, Brampton, and Mississauga) to try and have it be rail with trail instead of just having it solely be a trail. However, we're also proposing the option of designing the trail with a return to rail service in mind so that when the time comes either there's still track to work from or at leas enough space to allow both modes to work together. It's very shortsighted that Metrolinx nor the others have seen the potential this line has given how Milton Line is getting expanded services, the Kitchener Line is overcrowded, and Orangeville is growing yet the prior mayor was hellbent on dismantling the railway regardless of the future implications (the OBRY could very well serve as a regional connector between Kitchener and Milton GO lines while addressing the city of Brampton's own transit inequities)
It's such a disappointing decision to lose this beautiful piece of history and the advantage that comes with an already carved out RoW
@@blanetrain9584 what about the train bridge in the forks of the credit, if turn into a trail, metrolinx will a hard time getting it back from the town of Caledon and the pro Bruce trail membership club
I don't remember how I found your channel a while ago, but I just wanted to say that I love your videos, and I'm always interested to learn these obscure historical facts about my area!
Thank you! I'm glad you're a loyal viewer.
Excellent as usual. Extra stiff gesticulating a bonus.
The line closed mainly because former Orangeville mayor Sandy Brown had a vendetta against it. Yes, the rail line didn’t make any money and was a draw on the town’s resources, but when it was operational it was great. I actually used to take the excursion train with family in the fall.
The Elora branch, which is now a trail, is actually out of commission currently as the Town of Erin (my hometown) is building a sewer system with the main trunk running along part of the Elora spur.
Maybe if they upgraded the line for GO trains it would have actually been useful and more than just operational for the town. Wonder if they could build elevated tracks similar to the Davenport Diamond in Toronto along the trail in the future.
It's a shame that transit gets decommissioned once it's no longer profitable, but our roads and cars don't get held to the same standard. Oh, what we've missed out on.
Former Orangeville Mayor Sandy Brown also had a real estate background, the use of abandoning the line and selling the property to developers to make money, the railway had more potentional customers that wanted to move so they could take advantage of using rail but Sandy Brown said no. Also he's fled the country presumably to Florida as town council wanted him to attend about the money from the sale of the railway has not appeared to the town.
@@AshgabatKetchumov It would have required a total rebuild of the track and the bridges. Line goes the wrong way and is too slow to be useful for commuter trains It might be useful as a route for for Stadler Flirts operated not as a heavy rail line but as a LRT line along side the trail from Brampton north that could use regular traffic lights to get across level crossing rather and need to have gates with flashing lights and bells. That would cause a lot of complaints with neighbours. Big problem would be the neighbours around the lower end of the line
Is it permanently out of commission or just temporarily out of commission?
About 50 years ago, I took a steam excursion train from Union station, in Toronto, up to Orangeville and back, which would have passed over this track. I recall 2 water stops. One had the fire department out to connect to a hydrant, but the other was at a still working water tower.
I believe that train only made that one trip to Orangeville and back that summer, 1973. But if you were on it, they had a minor breakdown right beside a friend's cottage I was at, right beside the tracks, about 200m south of where the rails go under Charleston Sideroad (CR 24) west of the Town of Caldon Public Works Yard, on the Credit River. They had to have a replacement injector brought up from Toronto, replaced it and the train was back on it's way. The locomotive was ex-CPR #1057, a D-10h 4-6-0 built by Montreal Locomotive Works in 1912. The coal tender was lettered Credit Valley Railway and the loco was restored by a Steam club that I thought went by that same name. I worked with several of the members of that club. They had to have boiler tubes imported from Brazil or somewhere similar to overhaul the loco and get it certified. All volunteer work. They also restored ex-CPR #124 which was used in the filming of The National Dream. Both locomotives are in the hands of the South Simcoe Railway now. I don't think 1057 is running. #124 is still used for short steam excursions from Tottenham to Beeton. #124 has also made frequent appearances on the Television show Murdoch Mysteries. Nice to see someone else who remembers that train, running on that line.
I don't want to edit the original but, the second locomotive is #136. Not #124.
Another of your videos that touches on the memories. We moved to Owen Sound from Toronto when I was 10. My grandmother didn't drive so until the rail service to Owen Sound ended, she would often take the train as it made fewer stops than the bus. I travelled with her a few times on this route. When we rode it, the service was Budd Rail-Diesel cars like the remaining VIA Rail Train 185 out of Sudbury. In hindsight it was easy to see why they cancelled it, on one winter trip, probably for her annual Christmas visit, we rode in the single RDC making up the "train" and as the only passengers for the last part of the trip, the conductor let us stand in the front door foyer area to see out the front and watch the snow swirling every time the RDC ploughed through a drift or road crossing snowbank.
* Plow *
@@ALuimes I started school in Toronto when we still sang God Save the Queen with her majesty's portrait at the front of the classroom along with the Union Jack. So I beg to differ but plough / ploughed is correct British English spelling which is the way I was taught, good sir / madam. "The neighbour did us a favour when he ploughed the road to the harbour." No spelling errors in that sentence either.
@@andyrobinson7007 Do you spell wheel as "tyre"? Canada is an exception in the Commonwealth aside from "centre", "colour", etc.
I used to live near the Mount Pleasant Go Station, and I remember that area starting to be built up from the dirt, particularly when the library came in. I probably could've learned this on the signs around, but I never knew that that old-style building was an actual rail station building from the early 1900s that was relocated!
8:50 At least the cars were not wasted. Love the Waterloo Railway and their old style cars. Perfect addition to the fleet. Been a few years since I took WCR since since the LRT uses those same tracks. (They moved where you get on the train past the Northfield Ion stop). But good price and the fall leaves, or the winter Christmas trains are an experience.
Another great video, love learning about whatever you make a video on.
Any plans to do a video on the history of Toronto’s many Union stations and the cities it once connected by rain?
I've thought about it, but shooting could be an issue - no traces remain of the previous stations so all I could show for them would be historical photos and "Here's what's on the site today", and security guards probably wouldn't take kindly to a video shoot in the station. But I do have some other Toronto railway history ideas in mind so we'll see what happens.
@@notsmoothsteve valid. Ooooh sounds cool.
I remember in the 1970s and 80s, several Credit Valley Railway passenger cars were stored behind a postal facility on Cawthra Road, just north of Lakeshore Road.
Well, in my humble opinion, that was pretty smooth, Steve.
I, as do many others, feel that MetroSTINX has missed an opportunity to establish GO Train service up to Orangeville. There would be some obvious issues to work out right off the hop, but I honestly think it would be worth the effort.
Furthermore, if GO were to "get on board" (pardon the pun) with service on a rail line, it might give some of the industries some comfort, knowing that rail service will be possible for quite some time to come. If they think that the line is doomed, nobody is going to plan for or build sidings, loading and unloading infrastructure for their business, and they will most certainly plan to receive and ship by truck, or even search out other potential places to establish their business ventures close(er) to active rail lines.
From a movie a few decades ago, came a saying. "If you build it, they will come." Well, in this instance, if you don't build it, they certainly aren't going to be bothered.
Good information there!
You might be interested in doing a piece on the London & Port Stanley Railway and how the line was electrified by Sir Adam Beck (Hydro) as a prototype for mass transit. Unfortunately the automotive lobby messed up everything. Funny how things sometimes come full circle. But imagine if Beck was successful. We would have had a very impressive electrified mass transit system.
My former local rail line that i never got to railfan 🙁. I did ride on the credit valley explorer once as a kid for my birthday, it was fun. thanks for the video! it's a great in-depth look at a part of not just my past but many others as well
You could've knocked me over with a feather when I saw Ingersoll, aka "cheese capital of Canada", in your video. They've really hit the big time now lol
Many people wanted to run GO trains on this line but its curvature and route is not conducive to a fast commuter train to downtown, also the level crossing with the Halton Sub. It might be possible to run an Ottawa style system with vehicles like Stadler Flirts but only from Brampton north, though I doubt anything will happen.
Metrolinx offered to buy the line and wanted to run go trains on it, but the city of Orangeville blocked the sale of the line
@@andrewolf9865 Metrolinx had no interest in the line. Ridership on the 37 bus ridership is pretty weak (they don't even run the double deck buses) and as mentioned by OP, the geometry of the corridor would mean the trains could never compete with Highway 10.
@@andrewolf9865 Where did you hear that? I heard exactly the opposite from a number of people.
@@andrewolf9865 What year was this?
@@andrewolf9865 According to Transit Action Ontario Metrolinx had absolutely no interest in buying it.
Keep it that’s gold. To build a 18km rail track from Mississauga to Brampton is costing us 4.2 Billion!
We didn't build those old ones either
I wanted to watch the last train and bring my newborn nephew watch it with me as his first time ever seeing a train. Sadly I never got to do that biggest regrets of my life. At least he likes trains now since he’s rode the port Stanley one 3 times
Good video. I was sad with the demise of OBRY but money makes the world go around.
Love this channel
Really cool great info. All the studying of parts of Ontario
Interesting to see the development of rail lines over time. Interesting that Woodstock was mentioned in your talk. I live near the CPR mainline near Innerkip. My father and uncles in the 1920s would take the train to Galt for high school. There was no scheduled train that worked for school times to Woodstock which was only 10 km away. In winter the roads were less reliable than rail. Innerkip had a limestone quarry which supplied the ballast for the railway for a time until they found more suitable stone ballast in Beachville. The quarry flooded and is now used for a summer trailer park and scuba diving. There used to be a spur line through Woodstock to connect the CN and CP main lines. You still see the scars of the abandoned railway lines in the country, straight lines of trees, gravel beds, old bridges over rivers, abittments etc. Villages prospered or died depending if the rail line went close to them.
Breaks my heart.
I loved watching the train come by, i coudnt watch the last one but i want to walk down the whole 50km to orangeville soon
It was a sad day when I realized they were ripping out all of the tracks here in town. I know it had been a long time since I'd last seen a train, but a good passenger train from Orangeville to Toronto would have been huge.
A GO train to Orangeville would *not* get high enough ridership to be viable. Even in Barrie only about 100 passengers get on or off at the terminal station close to downtown Barrie. And Barrie is much larger than Orangeville and on a line serving many points between it and Union. Most of a line to Orangeville that would get higher ridership is already part of the Kitchener line anyways.
@@ALuimes According to the stats, millions of people use the Barrie train line annually.
Here's a recent Reddit post:
"I started taking the Barrie line from Newmarket to downsview on daily basis and the train is always packed and there’s nowhere to seat. And like when I’m taking the train to Newmarket when I’m getting off the there’s nowhere to seat, like how many people commute from Bradford and Barrie to Toronto that made the train still so packed?"
Perhaps the Barrie train stations aren't very busy, but the train line itself is. We're also still competing with car brain. According to census data in an article from June 2024 on Barrietoday, nearly 40% of people in Barrie had never even taken the train before. There's still lots of potential for growth in Barrie.
@@MichaelSheaAudio But even a *line* to Orangeville, a town of only 35K (compared to Barrie's 150K) located at the end of a curvy branch line with basically *nothing* in between wouldn't get much ridership, other than what it would cannibalize from either Kitchener or Milton trains along the duplicate portions of the route.
@@ALuimes Orangeville is a growing town, we have a lot of people moving up from the cities, and it's very common for people to commute south to those cities. And would a train have to follow the exact winding track that exists/ existed, or could we place new tracks with a more direct route parallel to highway 10? It's all hypothetical, as I said it *would* be cool if we had a functioning passenger train that connected to the rest of the system. It's short-sighted to suggest that we reject public transportation projects just because people aren't using what exists (if anything) right now. The goal is to induce demand by providing a convenient service.
For the sake of time, the video "Why Swiss Trains are the Best in Europe" by Not Just Bikes is a great watch if you haven't seen it already. It's an example of how a situation like ours can still operate well with trains.
@@MichaelSheaAudio That could work long term, but OV is still too small
Enjoyed your video. Would you think about doing a video on Guelph Junction?
Thanks! I have no plans but I'll keep that idea in mind.
Never noticed this until now but your arms are HUGE dude
The Dundas valley conservation area has a rail trail that runs through it, I think it was called the Hamilton Brantford railway, its dosent exist anymore of course, all that remains of it is a siding that still has 2 rail cars on it.
It's actually the old TH&B (Toronto Hamilton & Buffalo) right of way. The Hamilton and Brantford followed a right of way that went up the mountain instead. The old rail yard to which the line connected in West Hamilton on Aberdeen is still in use by CPKC, though they have reduced the number of yard tracks considerably.
In my childhood I remember seeing train action on the tracks in Dundas in the early seventies.
I know exactly where you are standing. I had no idea those tracks were THAT old. I didn't know the original station was moved to the Mount Pleasant location. Assumed it was its original location and always wondered about that.
bro I watch these while im eating dinner cheers
Hopefully a previous video in which I mentioned poop didn't put you off your food 😂
YES!
Thanks for this fascinating history - I’ve seen videos in the US of ppl adapting their bikes to ride rails. That would be fun. What’s the longest stretch of unused rail in this system - Streetsville to Orangeville?
I don't know, but there are a lot of obstacles. The rails have been removed at many of the road crossings, for instance, and a lot of vegetation has grown since the line closed in 2021.
Thanks Steve. As a cyclist, I have often wondered where all the rail lines were. I wish we had an organisation that could turn all these abandoned lines into paved rail trails as they do in the US.
Quite a few of them have been (and I've done some videos on rail trails in Toronto - scroll back to my earlier videos if you want to see them), but of course rail trails take money to build and to maintain, so our perpetually cash-strapped governments only want to do this if there's a good argument that the trail will get enough use to be worth the cash.
@@notsmoothsteve Yes, I have viewed them. Great. Not enough of them are paved. The Rails-to-Trail Conservancy in the US is funded a lot by donations. The old adage, Build it and they will come. Very successful below the border.
As someone who supports rail and active transportation, we should be doing more rail with trail as opposed to ripping up more rail corridors solely for trails
Do a video on the Middle Rd Bridge (original route for QEW)
I played along the Orangeville Brampton railline as a child back in the '50s close to where the old Dales greenhouses grew so many beautiful roses. I do remember seeing then Prime Minister John Deifenbacher campaigning off the rear of a train at the Brampton station on that line. If my memory is correct the station was just off Queen St. W and this would have been around 1958 give or take a year or two. I left Brampton in the early '60s so my memory iof that era s a bit hazy.
Yes, the station was immediately north of Queen Street. Your memory is better than you think!
Often wonder that rail line that used to go from FT Erie to Windsor through Hagersvile and ST Thomas are any of those tracks still down there and are any in use i remember back in the early 70. S they would run a lot of train's between Buffalo and Detroit as a short cut
That was the Canada Southern Railway, CASO.
I was very proud to have been part of the Peel team that helped to acquire the rail corridor. I appreciate the comments suggesting the line should be used for some sort of transit way - however, residents should know that this option was studied extensively in the past and determined not to be viable. Keeping the entirety of the corridor in public ownership was vitally important to maintaining future options open. In the meantime I hope the public will support the current efforts to repurpose the corridor to a trail.
what were the biggest roadblocks?
Resolving environmental issues/concerns.
Do you know when Peel Region is planning to rip out the tracks?
I was with Peel at that time and was at the handover ceremony that took place in Brampton. Wished I got to ride the Credit Valley Explorer at least once before that got shut down. Kind of hoping they'll keep the signals as decorations for the trail or something to keep the history there
@@matthewp956 the corridor has been transferred to each of Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon. It will be up to them in terms of timing, but I understand that planning is underway. It will take a considerable amount of time before the lands are actually fully converted.
hey steve, a friend and I are looking to make a 'rail bike' and travel on some abandoned rails. would you think this is a suitable candidate? if not, do you know of others in southern Ontario?
I can't speak to any legal issues, other than noting that at some points in Caledon there are signs saying they passed a by-law prohibiting people from setting foot on the right of way. But as a practical thing, it's probably not. The tracks have been ripped up at several road crossings (plus the buried diamond crossing in the video), and vegetation has taken advantage of the opportunity to grow in the last three years. I don't know of any others that might be better - you'd probably run into similar issues elsewhere, too.
what has happened to rail traffic, in general, and passenger rail in particular,
in this country, is shameful.
Is the concrete at that abandoned Brampton station still there because I can see it on Google Maps, just not sure if its still there. 4:27 is the timestamp.
Not sure, but when I was shooting the segment near there, there was heavy construction equipment parked at the old station site, so I'm guessing that they're ripping up the track and probably any other remaining traces of the former station to prepare the site to be reused.
"Metrolinx project" 🤣🤣🤣
And now there building lrt on hwy 10 Brampton to Mississauga
Hurontario, not "Hwy 10". Get with the current reality.
This man is trying to do all the commentary off memory. Now I understand the name of the channel. Still very impressive, nonetheless.
Stand in front of a camera and recite facts and figures for a couple of minutes, they said. It'll be easy, they said. 😂
Rest in Peace Mark Nichols Hobo Shoestring
Abandon
It is insane that railways are private companies. Should be a public utility.
Why the need to build railways during a long recession?
A lot of them were already underway when the recession started, so I guess they figured they'd keep going and hopefully be ready to reap the rewards when the economy picked up again.
People should realize Metrolinx isn’t necessarily stupid or shortsighted. Metrolinx doesn’t want this right of way because it meanders and the route has speed limiting curves and grades. Think 50 km/h… not good for passenger traffic. No ridership now or in the future. It’s dead. Metrolinx is correct to have no interest in this line.
Losing this line means letting go of something obsolete. When we build a rail line to Orangeville someday it will be on a more suitable alignment.
Agree. A dedicated GO line solely to serve a town of only 35K is silly.
They could have kept the line for GO trains just through the Brampton and Mississauga portion only. This would keep the option open to expand to Orangeville one day but the curves would likely make the extension not feasible but the section from Brampton south does not have severe curves at all.
But it better be avenged by metrolinx (seize CN and CP's trackage rights captive by force)
Metrolinx couldn't make decision on the time of day.
I was so happy finding out the rail line closed before i moved up here. It was losing 400,000 dollars a year that taxpayers had to pay for. Lets hope it never becomes rail again.