The story behind the post: CASO's long lost St. Clair branch

Last week's post was nearly three years in the making. When I first started this blog in 2013, one of my first ideas was to trace the history of Canada Southern's St. Clair branch between St. Thomas and Courtright. Up until late last year, the post was in various stages of disrepair, owing to my utter lack of photographs of this line and my limited knowledge about this ghost of railroading past. Thankfully, in the past few months, several elements came together to get this post online. The end result reminded me of how much work it is to examine history, especially when there is very little to go on.

The Hotel Bedard, a railway hotel at the end of the CASO St. Clair branch in Courtright, Ont. The building, which faced the St. Clair River and served boat traffic in its heyday, was torn down in recent years.

Truthfully, this post's genesis happened long before I even started this blog. For years, I had no idea that a rail line terminated in Courtright. But one afternoon, as I was driving down the old Highway 80 (now County Road 80), I saw something in a farmer's field that sparked my quest to learn about this railway line. I was merely glancing out the window what I saw was I thought looked like a small railway bridge in the middle of a farmer's field. The bridge had to be an old railway bridge since nothing else made sense, seeing as the structure was nowhere close to any road or even private drive. That was my first indication that there was history begging to be discovered.

Years later, as I was beginning to wonder what to do with my old railway photos from the early 1990s, I began to actively search for railway blogs online. After a while, I came across one of the most extensive railway history websites about railways in Ontario, CanadaSouthern.com. This site has to be the most definitive source of information and photographs on CASO that you will find online. Searching around that site, I found information about the St. Clair branch, a rail line with deep historical roots in Lambton County.

Once I read about that branch, some elements began to come together. I already had purchased this photo (above) of the Brigden train station years before not to mention a shot of the Hotel Bedard in Courtright. I didn't know for sure what railway the Brigden station served. Soon after, I found some other photographs, including a shot of the Oil City station, that began to fill in the picture of what this old operation looked like.

Last year, I found a document that outlined the operations on the branch. In November, my Dad was able to find some historic photos of CASO operations in Petrolia that helped me fill in some more gaps in my knowledge. Finally, my brother was able to determine that the old CASO station in Petrolia was long ago moved to Bright's Grove where it has served as a private residence ever since. My brother was able to get a shot of the old station, which helped fill in another gap.

Finally, I was able to search through some very active Lambton County history groups online where I discovered a few more images that illustrated certain elements of this rail line. Finally, I tracked down a shot of the old Courtright station from the Moore Museum.

All these elements came together late last fall when I began to piece together the history of this long vanished rail line. I had to rewrite sections of it several times, since my understanding of the line changed several times. For example, I didn't know that Oil Springs was on a spur off the St. Clair branch, which dramatically altered the post, since I had originally written it with the understanding that Oil Springs was on the main line. The end result was last week's post, which was years in the making. It was definitely the more labour-intensive post I have put together for the Beachburg Sub. I would have liked to share it back in 2013, but better late than never.

This leads me to a question. I have been asked by a few readers whether I have done any research into old branch lines and subdivisions around the Ottawa area. I have stayed away from doing any historic posts about old subdivisions in this area, simply because there are better sources of information out there than this blog. Several rail history buffs have written books about Ottawa's rail past, which would be the best resource for those interested. However, if people are interested in hearing about old subdivisions in this area on this site, I'd be glad to take a crack at it. For example, I have uncovered an old right-of-way in the Crystal Beach area of the city, which I am researching right now. Feel free to leave a message with your thoughts.

CASO's long lost St. Clair branch

Almost as long as the famed Canada Southern Railway was proposed, a branch through Lambton County, south of Sarnia, was on the books. Barely a year after the original CASO was planned in 1868, the St. Clair branch was proposed as a way to connect the railway to oil fields in Lambton and to Michigan via a ferry crossing at the St. Clair River. That river crossing, which was the railway's top priority since it would have allowed for a Buffalo-Chicago connection, never happened. The St. Clair branch kicked off operations with an excursion train in July 1873, followed by the beginning of regular service in January 1874.

Although it was technically known as the Canada Southern Railway, most people came to know the railway by the names of its parent companies. CASO was ultimately owned by the New York Central Railway, but for a time it was part of a NYC subsidiary, Michigan Central Railroad, so either one of these monikers were what people saw on the trains that plied these railways.

This rail line is significant to Lambton County for several reasons. Not only did it spawn towns, industry and other development along its right-of-way, it also holds the distinction of being the first rail line to be abandoned in the county in the 1950s, at a time when most railways had not yet begun to actively shed trackage.

Today, very little is left to actually see. The right-of-way is all but invisible in most places while artifacts from the line are scarce. But the line's history is fascinating, particularly in a few towns that we will examine. Let's begin at the end of the line.

Photo - Moore Museum archives

COURTRIGHT (WESTERN TERMINUS)

This photo above is the St. Clair branch's terminus in Courtright, Ontario, a small town on the St. Clair River, south of Sarnia. Courtright is a quintessential railway town, for many reasons including its name. The town's name was a product of gratitude. Those who bought land where the branch line ended were grateful enough to CASO to name their town after the president of the company, Milton Courtright. Not satisfied with that honour alone, the town also named one of its streets Milton.

In terms of its contribution to revenue service, Courtright wasn't a huge source of business for the branch. The town once boasted a grist mill and other small scale industries, but nothing of major importance to the branch. Before the branch's end, Courtright accounted for 80 revenue carloads in 1955 and 225 in 1956. Shortly before the branch was abandoned, CASO's customers in Courtright included the province's transportation ministry (likely for road maintenance salt), the local township and a construction company. All orders were handled through an agent in Brigden, a small town just east of Courtright.

Of greater importance, before the line began to decline, Courtright was CASO's connection with the C&O (now CSX) Sarnia Subdivision. This junction was obviously some sort of diamond since records show that the two railways interchanged cars.

Undated photo of Brigden railway station, which was a typical-looking structure on this branch. The railway agent in this town also took orders from shippers in nearby Courtright.

BRIGDEN

East of Courtright, another small town was spawned by CASO. The town of Bridgen owes its existence to this rail line, being that it was otherwise in the middle of the wilderness when the railway was built through the area. Over time, Bridgen spawned some small cottage industries that were typical of such towns in the 1800s and early 1900s. By the time CASO abandoned the St. Clair Branch, Bridgen accounted for a handful of shippers, including two lumber companies, a farmer's co-op, a coal supplier and a shipper that appears in numerous railway documents as "Lyle Allen." This name is also listed as a shipper in Courtright, so it might have been a large-scale farmer. Today, there is again little trace of the railway in Bridgen, which was also named (according to Wikipedia) after a CASO official, William Bridgen, who was a railway engineer. Today, Brigden is a farming community and is best known as the site of the annual Bridgen Fair, the premier Thanksgiving event in the county.

Even today, some sixty years later, you can see evidence of this old line near Brigen even though it was last operational in the late 1950s. Other sections farther west are all but indistinguishable from County Road 80, former Highway 80. The orange arrows show you the old right-of-way while the blue circle shows you the old pilings of the railway bridge over Bear Creek. Those pilings can still be seen from County Road 80, for the railway archeologist.

Here's a photograph posted in the Lost Lambton Found history website. For those interested, this history group has largely migrated to Facebook and their photos and conversations can be found there. Some locals call these pilings Lambton's "Stonehenge."

OIL DISCOVERY DISTRICT

Once east of Brigden, one enters the Oil Discovery district of Lambton County. Few people realize that the site of the first commercial oil discovery in North America was in Lambton County in a town called Oil Springs. Soon afterward, another large discovery was made in Petrolia while another was made in the ambitiously named Oil City, which is little more than a hamlet now. These discoveries were made in the 1850s, but a century later, oil was still being transported by CASO along the St. Clair Branch.

PETROLIA (PETROLIA SPUR)

Six miles west of Brigden and two miles west of Oil Springs, you would find Petrolia Junction and the beginning of the Petrolia Spur.

Besides the typical shippers you would find like local farm co-ops and other small commercial shippers like hardware stores, Petrolia's main contributions to this branch included Reliance Petroleum and National Steel Drum Company, two companies that were still in the oil business. Amazing as it may sound, there is still oil being steadily pumped out of the ground in Petrolia. A few companies in this area still regularly supply oil to energy companies, including Fairbanks Oil, which has been around since the boom days and is still family owned.

The other key element to this spur was the fact that it provided CASO with an interchange point with the Grand Trunk Railway, later the Canadian National. The railway line paralleled Albany Street and met up with the GTR/CN once it crossed what is now known as Petrolia Line. CASO even had a station in Petrolia. That little station, which had a witch's hat turret, was moved to Bright's Grove, north of Sarnia, and now sits as a private residence near Lake Huron. Here's a shot of the station now, taken from public property. Thanks to my brother for grabbing this shot. Can you see the lake in the background?

Below is a map of where the rail lines once made their way into Petrolia's downtown. I have not been able to access historic maps to figure out exactly how these lines connected, but as you can see below, CASO, in red, made its way up Albany Street while the GTR/CN, in yellow, made its way to the town's main station where its spur off the Strathroy Subdivision ended. Somewhere between the red and the yellow, there was some sort of junction where CASO and CN interchanged cars. I'm guessing on the property now occupied by the Scotiabank.

Below is a shot of a CASO 4-6-0 engine working along Albany Street in this undated photo. I found another photo of a 4-6-0 working in Courtright, which you can see here. The photographer of the Courtright engine mentioned that it was taken in 1956 and, by that time, the water towers were gone, which explained why there was an extra tender behind the engine to ensure it had enough water. My dad tracked down the photo below at a photo shop in Petrolia. You can see a tank car behind the tender, which may mean this image was taken as late as the 1950s, when steam locomotives still prowled this branch, but without the use of water towers. This image was the first I had ever seen of CASO operations in Petrolia. As you can see, CASO always operated under the name of its parent company, New York Central, or for a time, the Michigan Central Railway, which was a subsidiary of NYC. You can see a small piece of the town's United Church to the far right. That church is still standing.

OIL CITY

Oil City was a relative flash in the pan when it came to the oil boom, with a brief boom and a quick bust. The town still provided a few shippers to CASO, mostly small scale agricultural customers as well as local government.

As you can see from the photo, the railway was listed as "MCR" since the line was essentially a Michigan Central operation by all appearances. The one interesting note about this town is that its main rail customer was the Canada and Dominion Sugar Company. It should be noted that sugar beets were once a major staple of railway operations in Lambton County at one point, although I can't say if that was the source of the traffic.

EDDYS (EDDYS MILLS SPUR)

Travelling west from Petrolia and Oil City,  you would encounter the Eddys junction near the Oil City station. First stop on the Eddys spur would have been Oil Springs.

OIL SPRINGS

When this St. Clair branch was built to Courtright in the 1800s, it was done so with the oil fields in mind, no doubt. Oil Springs was the site of the birth of Canada's oil industry and the town continued to pump and ship oil well into the twentieth century. When CASO discontinued operations on the St. Clair branch, Imperial Oil (Esso) was still listed as a shipper from Oil Springs. Given that CASO had a connection to CN close to here in Petrolia, I'm sure there were a number of tank cars interchanged in Petrolia that originated in Oil Springs.

Today, those interested in a glimpse of this old line would find it at the Oil Museum of Canada in Oil Springs. Besides telling the story of Canada's first oil discovery and the related industrial development, the museum also features the town's 1895 CASO railway station and an old tank car, which was typical of those used on the line up until it was removed.

EDDYS MILLS

Today, Eddys Mills is little more than a place name on the map. It is located a few kilometres due south of Oil Springs on the spur. Two customers listed for this spot include the county and the local township. There was a siding here and all freight orders were handled through Oil Springs, a little east of this spot. Most of the freight originating here was based on local farms.

INWOOD

Back on the main branch, if you remained on the main line at Oil City, your next stop east would be another town created by the railway, Inwood. At this point in the line, CASO's operations took on more of a rural feel, with most shippers being local hardware and construction concerns, not to mention the farmers' co-operatives. When looking at the documents for this line, most customers in towns outside of the oil district fell under three categories: farming, construction/hardware and local government.

ALVINSTON

Before leaving Lambton County, you would travel through Alvinston, another town created by the railway. Its primary shipper on CASO before the line closed up shop was a feed mill. At one point, there was a GTR/CN crossover near Alvinston where the Strathroy Subdivision crossed over the St. Clair line. Here's a shot of the junction, undated.

So, as we leave Lambton County, the St. Clair Branch served two more rural towns, Melbourne and Muncey. There it served feed mills and other agricultural customers. From there, it was on to St. Thomas, where the branch originated.

Along the way, the branch crossed the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National main lines to Windsor (due to the path of the CN line, the St. Clair Subdivision actually crossed CN's line twice).

This branch has been gone for more than half a century and there is precious little to see along its former right-of-way now. However, the importance of this line to swath of Lambton County is undeniable. The same can be said for a number of former rail lines in any part of this country. That's why I am fascinated by the history of these old branches. Revisiting history helps us understand just how important railways were in the building of this country.

Three roundhouses, three fates

There is no structure quite like a railway roundhouse. The architecture of these structures makes them engineering marvels to many a railfan, but their industrial legacy makes them sadly disposable. In most cases, these structures are lost to history. Here at the Beachburg Sub, we celebrate history. With this in mind, I present the case of the Ottawa West CPR roundhouse, the Canada Southern Windsor roundhouse and the CN Sarnia roundhouse.

I will start with the Sarnia roundhouse, since it is the structure I am most familiar with, and it is the only one of the three that is still standing. This roundhouse is located at the west end of CN's Sarnia yard. It was a busy facility into the early 1990s as it serviced dozens of CN units large and small. Here's a picture of a roster of CN units just outside the roundhouse in 1991. In the photo below you can see a few yard switchers including GP9 7266, SW1200 1317 and a few others, not to mention GP40-2LW 9491 front and centre.

As you can see from this below photo, the roundhouse was still in reasonable shape in the early 1990s, although getting a shot from public property was tough since there was usually something blocking the view, including these gondolas, in 1991.

Luckily, for rail enthusiasts in this area, the roundhouse was kept intact when Lambton Diesel Specialists (LDS) took over the facility in 1992 and assumed the diesel servicing operations from CN. This shot, taken Oct. 13, 2013, shows how things have changed at the roundhouse. The actual turntable is long gone, but some of the bays are still there (most boarded up) and are used for rehabbing locomotives from a number of railways. Also, the old windows have been replaced. The roundhouse is an interesting place to shoot some locomotives you might not otherwise be able to see. It also gives you one last chance to snap photos of units before they are scrapped, like CN SW1200 7316, which appears to be in the process of being scavenged for parts.

The shot below, taken December 23, 2013, shows a string of diesels in various states, and a flatcar with what I can only assume is a diesel engine under a tarp. Lambton Diesel is often mentioned in Canadian Railway Observations as the destination for a number of locomotives that are either at the end of their lifecycle or a due for a tune-up. That's why it's not uncommon to see a GO Transit, Ontario Southland or a Novacor locomotive lurking around the old roundhouse.

The Novacor unit above and below, MP1500D 2003, has been replaced at the company's Corunna refinery, which has its own switching operations that are linked to CN's St. Clair River Industrial spur. This unit also looks to be in the process of being scrapped or in the midst of a long-term rehab. Just to the left below, you can see an open bay at the old roundhouse, although the rest of the bays have been covered over for some time.

I took this shot earlier last year. You can just make out NCLX 2003 behind tired old CN GP38-2 7517 in the CN safety scheme and LDS's own SW1200 0178.

One final shot, taken in October 2013, of a very rough looking SD1200 1251 awaiting either extensive work or a final brick to the head. You can get an idea of the shape of the old roundhouse in this shot. I believe this building was saved by the fact that it is surrounded on all sides by railway tracks and is of very little strategic importance otherwise. In the case of the Windsor and Ottawa West roundhouses, both were victims of the wrecking ball because they were on the periphery of railway operations and were standing in the way of nearby development ambitions.

First, let's consider the Windsor roundhouse. I mention it because I remember seeing this massive shell of a building for years as my family made its way down Howard Avenue to my grandmother's house in Windsor's Remington Park neighbourhood. The roundhouse, which served the Canada Southern Railway (CASO) for many years, was perched on the edge of the city and lingered in disused desolation for years. When an old racetrack across Howard Avenue gave way to a giant mall, the neglected roundhouse was suddenly in danger of being consumed by the retail ambitions of developers. Still, it hung on for years after the mall was built before it finally fell.

Here's a photo of the roundhouse from the 1940s, when CASO was owned by the Michigan Central Railroad, which was itself a subsidiary of the New York Central. The stunningly comprehensive Canada Southern Railway site chronicles the history of this interesting branch of the New York Central, Penn Central and Conrail through the years. I highly recommend visiting this site. Here's a photo of the same roundhouse from the 1960s, before the mall was built. Even then, it looked pretty shabby.

The hulking vestige of Windsor's steam legacy was torn down and replaced with a similar looking roundhouse-shaped retail centre, which was named the Roundhouse Centre in honour of its past. By the time is was torn down, the roundhouse had been disused for decades and its rail connection had been severed from the nearby CN line. Another roundhouse, located at the CP rail yard on Crawford Street, was also torn down.

I've also mentioned the old Ottawa West rail yard on this blog, since it too has a fascinating history. In the shot below, you can see the old Ottawa West station, which served Canadian Pacific's transcontinental passenger trains, and the Ottawa West roundhouse.

Since much of the old Ottawa West rail yard's imprint can still be seen in this largely vacant area of the capital, I find it strange that the National Capital Commission was in such a rush to bulldoze everything in the vicinity, including old Ottawa West station and the roundhouse.

 
The NCC replaced it with, well, nothing. As you can see from my post last year, the area has remained in development limbo for decades. But take a look at the area in its glory in this fascinating blog and imagine what could have been done with some of these structures, had there only been some vision.

CN's St. Clair Tunnel (Part II)

In 1993, CN began work on a second tunnel beneath the St. Clair River to accommodate double-stack container trains, autoracks and other oversized rail cars that were being shipped via ferry. Unlike the original 1891 St. Clair Tunnel, which was dug from two sides, the second tunnel was to be excavated from the Canadian side of the river toward the Michigan side (see CN's St. Clair Tunnel Part I). The boring machine used, named Excalibore in a  newspaper contest, was installed and began work in the summer of 1993. The original tunnel continued to be used as the boring machine made its way west to Michigan.

Above: The preparations for the new tunnel take shape next to the original tunnel in Summer 1993. Note the small building, called the pumping house, next to the old tunnel.

It was not a smooth process for the boring machine, by any means. Several times during its initial forays under the river, the machine broke down and had to be fixed and cleaned of sentiment that had ground the machine's engine to a halt. At certain points, local media outlets were charting Excalibore's progress versus the men who dug the original tunnel by hand. At one point, the progress achieved by modern machinery was barely ahead of the record set by the men in the 1890s. This was a major embarrassment to the project's contractor and to CN.

Above: Excalibore being assembled in Summer 1993, as seen from a viewing platform set up by CN to accommodate curious locals and rail fans like me.

Despite the initial hiccups, the construction of the new tunnel generated a lot of excitement locally and beyond. Rail fans in London and other points along the CN system snapped photos of special trains that were used to deliver parts of the huge boring machine to the work site in Sarnia. This photo below, courtesy of Eric Gagnon of the Trackside Treasure blog, shows one such special heading through London, bound for the tunnel site in Sarnia. Eric mentioned that the two Via Rail business cars in the consist were likely Coureur des Bois and Sandford Fleming. He also mentioned that he saw a freight in Kingston in 1993 with "white circular 'containers' marked LOVAT." The consist of that June 1993 special through Kingston contained the following (according to Eric's notes):

CN 9665 / EMD(ex-Conrail, blue) 795 / CN, BCR boxcars / CN covered hoppers / CN 670103 / CN 677002 (one of a kind, four trucks, built by CN) / CN 670102.

Eric was also kind enough to pass long this shot below, which shows a more detailed close up of the pieces of the boring machine in gondola cars, again in London. Special thanks to Eric for sharing these images from his collection for this post.

Once the mechanical difficulties were ironed out, Excalibore began to easily chew threw the earth beneath the river and it finished its mission with a sizeable lead over the men who dug the original tunnel. The late surge of boring saved CN and the project's contractors from embarrassment. The new tunnel had the following specs:

Length: 1,898 metres (6,129 feet)

Diametre: 8.4 metres (27 feet, 6 inches)

Compare that to the specs of the original tunnel in my previous post about the tunnel.

More importantly for CN, the new tunnel once again gave the railway an enormous advantage over the Canadian Pacific Railway, which operated a rail tunnel between Windsor and Detroit beneath the Detroit River. When the new St. Clair Tunnel opened in 1994, double stack container trains could move through to Chicago with little delay. Soon after the new tunnel opened, CN's ferry service over the St. Clair River ended.

Meanwhile, the Windsor tunnel, known as the Michigan Central Railway Tunnel, could only handle rolling stock as big as autoracks. Considering the fact that 1994 marked the beginning of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the ability to seamlessly move container trains through an international crossing offered CN a huge early advantage that CP has yet to match. Plans to replace the Windsor tunnel have still not materialized, meaning double stack traffic cannot be routed through Windsor-Detroit, which is otherwise the busiest trade crossing in North America.

It's interesting to note that the new tunnel gave CN the same advantage that the original tunnel gave the Grand Trunk Railway in 1891. When the original tunnel was built, the Grand Trunk essentially gave itself the edge over the Canada Southern Railway, which was still using ferries in Windsor and in Courtright, Ont. (to be mentioned in a future post). The St. Clair Tunnel had officials with the CSR scrambling to match the Grand Trunk, but the Windsor tunnel would not be opened for traffic until 1910.

Above: A view of the old and new St. Clair Tunnel in Sarnia, Ont. on Oct. 13, 2013. Note the absence of the old pumping house.

Today, the new tunnel bears the name Paul Tellier in honour of the former CN president who oversaw its creation. It has seen its share of fanfare over the years, including a GO Train special, which made its way to Sarnia in 1994 and offered locals a free ride under the river to Port Huron, Michigan in the new tunnel. Sadly, passenger trains no longer use the tunnel, as the Canadian leg of Amtrak's route from Chicago through Port Huron to Toronto was eliminated in 2004. I used to ride on this train in my teens, which often included the Superliners. Back then, it was known as the International, and was jointly operated by Amtrak and Via Rail.

This above shot is of the new and old tunnels, taken over the Thanksgiving weekend on a brief trip to Sarnia. The old building that used to stand at the entrance to the old tunnel (see top photos) is now gone and the original tunnel has been sealed off, although the old right-of-way still acts as a service road. The new tunnel continues to be a source of pride for Sarnia and a vital link in Canadian National's network.