Ontario Railway History
At the time of the original design of my website in 2003, this menu was the original railway history content, before the other railway research materials now in Railway History - Canada started to arrive.
The first pages arose from the summaries by county of Ontario railway history at the northern (Simcoe) and southern (Haldimand-Norfolk) ends of the Hamilton & Northwestern Railway that is the subject of my first book Rails to the Lakes, and its total re-write as Hamilton's Other Railway.
Then the preparation of some railway history leaflets for a local model railway club were transformed into web pages for Victoria-Haliburton and Peterborough Counties. The Omemee and Victoria Junction pages are "add-ons" to that effort.
The Northern Railway of Canada was the serious beginning of railways in Ontario or what was then known as Upper Canada, and curiously, it has never been written up as a stand-alone railway history, except for Dr. Walker's Four Whistles To Wood-Up. My web page is a modest effort to fill that need.
The Portage Flyer became a spontaneous mini-project from a vacation near Huntsville a few years ago.
Some of the pages contain background to the history of the principal railway gauges in use, and this has been consolidated into an umbrella page Railway Gauges in Ontario.
More items continue to be added from time to time.
So here they are:
General:
Railway Gauges In Ontario
Railways:
Buffalo & Lake Huron Railway (pictures to be added)
Georgian Bay & Seaboard Railway
Hamilton & North Western/Lake Erie Railways
Lake Simcoe Junction Railway
Lindsay, Bobcaygeon & Pontypool Railway
Northern Railway of Canada Group
Portage Flyer
Schomberg & Aurora Railway
Toronto & Nipissing Railway
By County:
Bruce (and Grey) Counties
Grey (and Bruce) Counties
Dufferin County
Haldimand and Norfolk Counties
Haliburton (and Victoria) Counties
Huron (and Perth) Counties
Norfolk (and Haldimand) Counties
Perth (and Huron) Counties
Peterborough County
Simcoe County
Victoria (and Haliburton) Counties
Wellington County
Junctions:
Cardwell Junction (waiting to be published)
Omemee Junction
Victoria Junction
Please note that my Gallery of Ontario Railway Stations from my collection of Ontario station pictures has been moved to its own page. Each letter of the alphabet is divided into two sections - for postcard and historical views - and for my collection of station pictures taken since WWII by various photographers, augmented with my own views starting in the 1970s (which was regrettably almost too late, as stations had started to be demolished in the 1960s). Altogether there are close to 2,000 views. In many cases there are successive views as stations were altered, and there are also views from different angles that may assist modellers and architecturally-minded railway historians.