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, 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
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CANADA
SOUTHERN RAILWAY