ST. CATHARINES, Ontario — The GIO Railway ended service to downtown St. Catherines today (Friday, March 1), effectively removing the north end of GIO’s Niagara network from service and halting nearly 150 years of rail service to the city’s downtown. GIO’s final train operated over two days because of mechanical issues, beginning its trip on Thursday, Feb. 29.
GIO Railway officials have stated for the record that their Canal, Thorold, and N&ST subdivisions — formerly operated by the Trillium Railway, which was purchased by GIO in 2018 — will be out of service north of Welland, Ont. This confirms rumors that service would end because of dwindling carloads, customers ceasing to use rail service, and relocation of existing customers to nearby GIO operations. The segments in question were only serviced twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and were down to about 500 cars per year. With GIO able to offer the last major customer an alternative location for transload, customers were notified of plans to end service in fall 2023.
A red flag will be placed near Highway 406 in Welland, where the Canal sub heads north to the Thorold Subdivision, passing through Thorold to a connection with Canadian National’s Grimsby Subdivision at Merriton, Ont. North of Merriton and the CN main line, the N&ST Subdivision, a 2-mile spur, was the northernmost leg of the GIO Railway, serving the four remaining customers in St. Catharines. The St. Catharines portion was regarded by local history buffs as one of the last operational segments of the Niagara, St. Catharines & Toronto Railway, a Canadian National-owned interurban that survived as a separate entity until 1959.
One of the remaining customers, Kemira Chemicals, which services the pulp and paper industries, said the end of rail service is a blow. Plant Manager Drew Denton said the company had completed a nearly C$1 million expansion a year ago to receive more railcars and had been increasing its carloadings. The company is already exploring options to get rail service restarted and is in touch with local officials.
Two other customers — Dunn Paper, which received and transloaded pulp for its Thorold Paper Plant, and Steelcon, a Steel fabricator — have relocated their warehousing or manufacturing operations to nearby GIO lines. Dunn Paper has moved to the HOPA Thorold Multimodel Hub [see “GIO Rail to provide service to industrial complex …,” Trains News Wire, June 13, 2022], while Steelcon is expanding to 615 Rusholme Road on GIO’s Welland Tube Spur operation. Those locations connect to CN’s main line, rather than the rest of the GIO network.
In total, about 7 miles of track will be out of service and will likely revert to control of CN, which leased the track to GIO. CN could operate the track itself, find a new operator, or offer the line for sale under government regulations which afford the companies or local jurisdictions the chance to purchase the route for continued operation.
In the meantime, GIO Railway is using this as an opportunity to offer more efficient service in its Niagara region through the Thorold Multimodal Hub and the Welland Tube operations along with the rest of its network.
Quick run through with Google Maps and I can see why just 500 cars a year would be problematic. Several miles of track with little potential for development, a half dozen fairly large bridges, and a rather obnoxious seesaw move to cross the CN.
A MAP would be nice!
I agree. I hope that Kemira Chemicals will be able to expand their business as planned.