Thanks to the many people who took the
time to take photographs along the Canada Southern division of the New
York Central over the years, we can offer this large selection of
photos taking us back in time when the CASO was a vibrant fast paced
railroad serving Southern Ontario. Through the years, very little of
the equipment was lettered for the Canada Southern, instead, equipment
was lettered for it's largest shareholder of the day. The Michigan
Central, then the New York Central, which later on became Penn Central
and finally passed onto Conrail.
The glory years of this once great
line definitely was under the New York Central oval. However, the long
slow decline started to accelerate in the 1960s when the NYC started to
divert freight traffic south of Lake Erie and continued under Penn
Central and Conrail control. Unfortunately for many of us, the end was
clearly in sight when the line was sold to Canadian National and
Canadian Pacific in 1985. We all knew that neither railroad wanted it
or even had any real intent on continued usage, so it declined further
into it's current state of near non-existence.
Currently, there is little left in
operation. 2001 saw the removal of the last remaining branch from
Comber to Leamington. At the end of 2001 saw the removal of the
mainline through downtown Niagara Falls. In 2003 CN removed the
trackage from E&O to St.Thomas. Effective March 28, 2006 at
23:59, the St. Thomas to Fargo section was Embargoed and the rail has
since been removed. The line from Windsor to Fargo saw it's last
train on May 17th, 2011. Track
between Fargo and Essex started to be removed on November 15, 2012.
Very little remains of the Canada Southern and the little
that is
remaining is barely used. Canadian Pacific still uses the
Detroit
River Tunnel as well as trackage from Attercliffe to Welland - Welland
to Niagara Falls and Welland to Stevensville. Even the now unused Niagara River bridge may
come down in the future.
Though originally this site dealt with
the Canada Southern only, it has evolved into much more with tons of
New York Central photos and reference material. Connecting railroads
such as the London & Port Stanley, Toronto Hamilton & Buffalo, Pere Marquette/Chesapeake &
Ohio/Chessie, Wabash, Essex Terminal are also represented. Look in the "Other
Stuff"
section for various items including New York Central accident reports,
system public timetables, the employee magazine "Headlight" and the
"Lines Magazine", fairly complete NYC freight and passenger car
rosters, freight schedules and much more - over 35GB of files. .
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All photos on main pages are thumbnails. To view
larger images of all photos, click on the photo. Use the back button on
your browser to return to the previous screen.
Photos and other
material on this site
have been kindly provided by the following people:
Frances Angelov, Jeff Bird, Bob Bowes, Larry Broadbent, Richard
Burg, Mike Clements, Gary Crowther, Mark Deutscher, Walter Daugherty,
Dan
Engstrom, Julian Erceg, David Ferris, John
Friedmann, Marc Hammond, Jeff Hands,
Dylan Harris, Al Howlett, James Hurley, Mark Hymers, Ken Jones, Randy
Largent, John C. La Rue, Jr., Malcolm Laughlin, Paul Laurence, Bryce
Lee, Gerry Lee, Dr.
Richard Leonard, Keven
Lewis, Terry Link, Keith MacCauley, John Martin, Michael and Kathy
McIlwaine, Andre Menard, Gus Milazzo, David Miller, Todd Minsk, Terry Morris,
Monroe Murphy, Eric Neubauer, William Orchard, Mark Palcso, Richard
Palmer, Jim Parker, Al Paterson, Terry Pond, Helmut Ostermann, Carl Riff, Myles Roach, Eric
Roth, John Scheffel,
CAPT Rex
Settlemoir,
WIlliam
Sharpe, Keith Sirman, John Spring, Rob Sterne, Richard
L. Stoving (Edward L.May collection), John Taubeneck, Art Taylor, Adiran Telizyn, Chip Walker, Jim Walton,
Robert Wasko, Bob Webber, Jay Williams , James Yaworsky and Tim Zukas.
Photos provided by
Keith Sirman are available for purchase at various train shows.
Photos provided by
Richard Stoving can be purchased from him. Contact him for details.
Photos provided by
Jay Williams can be purchased from him. Contact him for details.
Photos provided by
Helmut Ostermann are available for purchase from him at various shows
in Southern Ontario. Phone 519-884-7058
Photos provided by
Richard Burg can be purchased from him. Cinderandeight@aol.com
If
you have material that can be added to the site - please contact
me caso1 @ canadasouthern.com ( remove the spaces )
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