The Forgotten Railroads

The Tracks before the CNR

The G.T.R. Railway Station in Eastwood Ontario (from historical archives)

Tracking the history of Canada’s railway companies is like trying to follow a complicated family tree. The last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railroad was hammered into the ground in 1885 but over one hundred years of history preceded that steel wedding band committing the western provinces to Confederation and political matrimony.

An early rail line, dating back to the 1720s was discovered in Cape Breton. Used by the French during the construction of the Fortress of Louisburg, it consisted of two rails that guided the wheels of vehicles pulled by horses.

In 1820 an incline railway was used during the construction of Quebec’s citadel. It ran up the side of the cliff to transport stone to the top. A stationary steam engine supplied the power for two cable cars which operated on double tracks, one going up loaded with building material, the other coming down empty.

Something similar was in use during the construction of the Rideau Canal. A five-mile wooden tramway ran from a quarry to the construction site. Operated by horses, it served until the completion of the canal in 1832 when it was abandoned.

Admiral Vansittart, credited with founding the city of Woodstock, owned great tracts of forests east of the city. In order to get the felled lumber to the sawmill at Eastwood he built his own rail line. Carts of lumber were pulled along the rails by horses.

In these early years horses were the power used for hauling materials and rail lines were not for passengers. Rivers, canals and lakes were the main thoroughfares for people. Overland travel was muddy, uncomfortable, time consuming, difficult and impractical.

Then, in 1836, the first iron horse made its appearance in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. This rail line was initially built to carry coal from the mine to the river where the cargo was transferred to a sailing vessel, but it wasn’t long before passenger accommodation was added. And great monolithic machines billowing clouds of steam set a new era rolling.

The list of small rail lines blossomed, the steel ribbons wrapping up the province: Ontario Simcoe and Huron, London Port Stanley, Fort Erie, Erie and Ontario, Northern, Buffalo and Lake Huron, Great Western, Toronto Grey and Bruce, Cobourg and Peterborough, Midland Toronto and Nipissing, Whitby Port Perry and Linsday, Prince Edward county, Lindsay Fenelon Falls and Ottawa River Valley, Champlain and St. Lawrence, Port Dover and Lake Huron Railway. Soon many of the smaller companies were amalgamated into a larger company. In 1853, for example, the Grand Trunk Railway blended several railway companies: Quebec and Richmond, St. Lawrence and Atlantic, the Grand Junction Railway Company, and the Toronto and Guelph railway company.

Today, many of the smaller rail lines, such as the Port Dover and Lake Huron line, no longer exist. Those who know how to read the landscape can see where it travelled, the power lines point the way across the fields, and the station house, now a home, still stands.

In those early years of expansion, a railway was a promise of economic prosperity. In 1873 when there was talk of connecting the Queen’s Bush counties with Lake Erie by railroad, Oxford County council passed a bylaw to support and raise money for the Port Dover and Lake Huron Railroad. The money was to help with the building of the railroad, specifically to help them build it through East Oxford Township. One section passed through the Curry farm near the Zion Methodist Church on 59 highway between Woodstock and Burgessville. With the arrival of the railroad, the community changed its name from Zion to Curries Crossing. It was never a station but if the arm of the signal was up, the train would stop to pick up passengers or goods.

Mail was delivered and W. D. Smith the postmaster from 1878 to 1920. Along with the post office and blacksmith shop, a series of freight sheds were established along with an apple evaporator, and dried apples were exported “to all parts of the world”.

On the west side of the road, at the main corner inside the gate of the Rice property the Patrons of Industry (Grange Society) established a small store where they sold sugar, coal oil and other necessities. When the store closed Mr. Rice wanted to keep the building for his own use. Other members of the community thought it should be at the railroad crossing and moved it there. Rice moved it back arguing that he had paid off a lien against the building, it was his. Not to be outdone, the men at Smith’s blacksmith shop took up a collection, bought the building and moved it once more, outfitting it with the sign, “Curries Resurrected” painted on the side. It eventually became a tool shed on the Smith property. Later Mr. Smith purchased a frame house and moved it to the crossing where one portion of the living room was partitioned off for a waiting room. The tracks were removed in 1936 and the community became officially known to postal authorities simply as Curries.

The train station at many small communities provided a sense of community, growth, and purpose. The station at Eastwood ensured that the community flourished. Milk was picked up at the station daily and enough cattle shipped that a stockyards was built. Coal, mail, goods, passengers, gossip, and murderers passed through the station. At Lawrence Station near Shedden a daily train meant a high school education was only a fifteen-minute train ride from home for many of the local farm children. Over the years, railway services to rural communities have dwindled and the horses Mr. Ford tucked under the hood have replaced the iron horses.