London Division

R.L.Kennedy

London station circa 1910. Valentine & Sons Publication Co. Ltd.

Canadian Pacific Railway's London Division traces its history back to 1873, when the Credit Valley Railway was surveyed for a main line from Toronto through (West) Toronto Junction, Streetsville (Junction with the Orangeville branch), and Woodstock to St.Thomas. Here the CVR connected with the Canada Southern (CASO), which was headquartered in St.Thomas, and whose mainline ran between Windsor and Niagara Falls connecting with the Michigan Central at both ends.

Grading began early in 1874, the Humber River bridge was built by November. Track laying went west from Toronto with service opened as far as Milton in 1877, Galt in September 1879 and St.Thomas in 1881.

The CVR was taken over by the Ontario & Quebec, and in turn the O&Q was taken over by the CPR in 1884. The O&Q annual report to the Department of Railways and Canals, indicated a total main line of 580.8 miles.

Map of Ontario Division 1884

London Division, headquartered in London, Ontario, covered the territory between Windsor and Toronto Terminals, along with a number of branchlines radiating off the mainline. Crews based here work west to Windsor and east to Toronto, as well as at Out of Town terminals such as Chatham, Woodstock, Goderich etc., along with everything operating west of Obico, including two jobs at Lambton, the Cooksville Turn and the Stone train running to Guelph Junction. (Oddly enough, although Guelph Junction is a fair-sized yard, a yard job wasn't posted there.) Two exceptions included Assist engines helping trains out of Toronto westbound to Orr's Lake, and trains leaving the main line at Streetsville for Orangeville and other points. Toronto men manned these jobs even in later years when Orangeville was part of the London Division since the Bruce Branches originally belonged to the Bruce Division. Windsor Yard was home to several yard jobs to switch not only CPR traffic but, also Pere Marquette (later, Chesapeake & Ohio) trains, whose engines were serviced in Windsor roundhouse.

The London Junction Railway was incorporated in 1882 to build from London to Port Burwell. Before anything was built it was leased November 19, 1883 to the CVR for 999 years!

In 1885 the West Ontario Pacific Railway was incorporated to build from a point on the St.Clair River to a point on Lake Erie with a branch to Ingersoll or Woodstock. A May 1886 amendment provided for building Windsor to Chatham, 50 miles, to London 65 miles, and Ingersoll 22 miles. August 25, 1886 saw the CPR change this to connect at Woodstock with their CVR line from Toronto. Contract was let November 2nd which provided for a final grade of 40 feet to the mile, an easy .076% grade. The first train arrived in London on May 30, 1887, and was opened between Woodstock and London September 5,1887, then leased to the O&Q. March 27,1888 saw the original 8 directors (including one John Labatt), replaced by 13 CPR directors!

London

The original terminal in London was located on the east side of Adelaide Street at Central Avenue, where an 11-stall roundhouse with a 65 foot turntable was situated along with a station and yard office on the north side of the property. A new station was built in 1893 to the west at Richmond Street. Between 1890 and 1912, Adelaide Street Yard was altered, until finally in June 1910 a new yard was started to the east, (prior to March 1885, this was London East), stretching to Quebec Street where a new 22-stall concrete roundhouse with a 70' turntable was built, along with a 60,000 gal. enclosed water tank replacing the earlier 40,000 gallon tank. London Terminal in 1921 stretched from Richmond Street in the west where the station and sheds were located, to Quebec Street in the east.

The old roundhouse, or at least part of it, remained in use by the Bridge and Building (B&B) department for many years. A station was also located at Quebec Street and remained in existence until 1962, having been used for many years as a yard office. By 1921 Quebec Street yard had some 57,898 feet of sidings. Tracks in the marshalling yard consisted of two groups of six tracks each, 2380 to 2680 feet long. There was also an icing track, coach track, two repair tracks, and an auxiliary track. Two inbound and two outbound shop tracks, cinder track, stores track, coal (boiler house) track, and a coaling plant track that included a 443' trestle. There were also two team tracks behind the roundhouse and some other tracks. There was also provision for three more yard tracks to the north of the main line. It would appear from later maps that two of these tracks were eventually laid, but went much farther east beyond Quebec Street, one of them becoming the present main line. Since at least 1922 local management had been trying to get approval to expend $35,000 for a new 90-foot turntable due to difficulty obtaining a proper balance to turn P1 power then being used on the Galt Subdivision. Finally, a 100' turntable replaced the smaller one in January 1930. Quebec Street level crossing was over-passed in 1965. Some yard tracks were changed including removal of some of the shop tracks and shortening of the team tracks, until by 1991 yard capacity was shown as 1374 cars. A 1996 TRACK MAP shows two long tracks next to the mainline of 8400 and 7500 feet, while 14 yard tracks range from 1950-2450 feet. Another track one and three quarter miles long was added in the Fall of 2002 to the far side becoming the main line which became a passing track (rule 105) to aid in handling through trains during inspection, crew change etc. To further assist operations at this terminal CTC was extended in 2003 eastward to Nissouri (9 miles) where a signalled siding 10150 feet long was created out of the old 6350 foot non-signalled siding. Signalling permits a doubling of siding speed to 30 mph. A similar arrangement for Lobo, 6 miles west of London was planned but, cancelled. This is the only signalled siding on the Galt and Windsor Subdivisions.
Most of the roundhouse was demolished with only four stalls remaining by December 9,1996 when further demolition left only a small portion (for the B&B). The turntable was dismantled in November 1996.

6701 at far left; 6700 next; wooden coal tower and water tank; 8031 on shop track.
Quebec Street Yard, London. October 20, 1959. R. L. Kennedy

Pit check (inside house)

Two views of yard looking west. August 1971 Al Howlett

Windsor

The CPR wanted its own track to reach the USA without depending upon the CASO at St.Thomas. In July 1888 the CPR under its O&Q charter sought an extension westward from London, 65 miles to Chatham, and on September 4th. a contract was let on the first portion of the "Detroit Extension". The line included a steep, but short grade just west of London to Hyde Park. It rose 53 feet per mile for a distance of 9000 feet, a 1% grade that reduced tonnage by 50%. From there on it was easy going with a maximum grade of only 18.5 feet to the mile. In April 1889 the CPR applied to build to Windsor which was reached in January 1890, and the line opened on June 12, 1890; where two CPR ferries connected with Detroit until 1916. These were later replaced by the Detroit River Tunnel, owned by CASO/MCR. Construction of a new Windsor yard began in June 1910, and in June 1911 a contract was let for a 22-stall roundhouse with a 70' turntable. There was a planned double tracking, and a branch to Goderich or Sarnia, none of which happened.

Two steel car ferries were ordered in 1889, each capable of carrying 16 freight cars on two tracks. The Ontario was built in Owen Sound by Polson Iron Works, which had recently launched the lake steamer Manitoba, the first steel ship built in Canada, for the CPR's service between Owen Sound and Fort William. The engines and boilers were built in Toronto at Polson's plant and were the largest in Canada at 37 tons each! The other one, Michigan, was built by F.W.Wheeler & Co. of Bay City, Michigan.

Pere Marquette Ry. ferry number 14 at CPR slip, foot of Elm Avenue, Windsor. c.1910.

Similar scene, 1973 Jeffrey Willsie

The ferries carried passenger cars as well as freight, but it all ended in Detroit, instead of St.Thomas. What was lacking for the CPR was its own track to Chicago. The CPR supposedly had a chance to remedy this situation again during the Great Depression when the Wabash got into serious financial trouble. However, ever frugal, the CPR only wanted to buy the Detroit-Chicago main line, nothing else. Parent PRR did not sell the Wabash, and the CPR never acquired its own line to Chicago unlike its competitor CNR/GTW. It remains a problem to this day!

Windsor Yard was always an important yard since this was where all freight trains began or ended their run until the advent of run-throughs into Detroit. Prior to this the US roads ran transfers over to Windsor, or traffic moved on car ferries. Pere Marquette used Windsor yard, (a portion of which still showed as P.M. Yard on the north side of the mainline) and was switched by CPR engines later known as the C&O Lead when the Pere Marquete was acquired by them in 1947. PM/C&O engines used the roundhouse. Tracks 1 to 9 on the south side show as C.P. Yard. A one-spot Car Shop was built in 1973, and a new yard office in March 1975. A 2-track (12 cars each) Piggyback Yard between the old freight shed and CP Express, dates from 1964; later, 4 tracks of 10 cars each. The roundhouse was reduced to only 3 stalls, but retained its turntable. A 3 track auto compound was added near the roundhouse. In 1991 Windsor Yard was shown as having a capacity of 1215 cars. The Windsor Sub. was upgraded to 115 lb. CWR 1969-1976 and slag ballast 1979-1987. The Interlocking with the ETR at M.109.9 was added to the CTC effective March 25, 1992 which abolished the operators jobs, some of the last of these positions on the CPR.

TRACK MAP 1996

Guelph Junction

Division Superintendent's Business Car 24
It has been preserved as a private car.
Craig Jolliffe

Changes Over the Years

Expanding traffic not only required bigger yards in London and Windsor, not to mention Toronto; it also required double tracking. Starting in 1904 between Parkdale and (West) Toronto Jct. and in 1911 to Obico, (except for the Humber River bridge which got by with a gauntlet track until it was rebuilt in 1914). In October 1912 it was added from Obico to Cooksville, and in 1913 it went on to open to Guelph Junction by the end of November. Surveys were also completed for double tracking to Woodstock where branches connected with the main line; but it was not to be, for there the double track ended, far short of London. It was not until the start of GO trains October 26, 1981 between Toronto and Milton, that a third track was added to parts of the Galt Sub. between Toronto and Streetsville. Bi-directional CTC was also installed to replace ABS signaled for one direction only. Guelph Jct. yard was rebuilt to accommodate over night storage of the commuter trains.

Rail was upgraded by 1930 to 100lb. between Montreal and Windsor, and this 39' long bolted rail safely handled Royal Hudson's at 90 mph and Jubilees at well over 100 mph! In 1977-82 rail went to 115lb, and with the advent of GO commuter trains, 136 pound CWR (1980-81) on the portion of the Galt Sub. used by GO.

Automatic Block Signals (ABS), had been installed on the Windsor Sub. over an eight month period beginning March 1,1944. It required 148 high signals and 40 dwarfs (on passing tracks) for the 108 miles from London to Walkerville Junction. It also required a major re-arranging of the 6 miles of ABS from London to Lobo. A total of 1,475 miles of ABS then existed on Eastern Lines. The first ABS of this type went into use early in 1944 between Chapleau and Schreiber. ABS was later added to the Galt Subdivision.

...

Red block facing abandoned CNR (ex Port Dover & Lake Huron) branch at Mileage 87.5 Galt Sub. interlocking diamond crossing in Woodstock. By this time what was left of the branch only ran as far as the Ontario Hospital's power house and perhaps Standard Tube. 6/17/72 Al Howlett

Train orders issued by dispatchers and written out by Operators all along the line were the way trains operated all across Canada for more than a century. It all came to an end when a new system known as Manual Block System (MBS) was introduced whereby Operators were eliminated and Conductors wrote out their train's authority to operate by radio instruction issued by train dispatchers. Its passing included removal of the familar train order signal or, order board, as it was commonly called, from stations all along the line. London Division was changed effective 0001 July 6, 1986.

The London Division was combined with the Toronto Division October 27,1991.

RoadRailer trains began operating May 15,1991 and were the most innovative change to the London Division. Triple Crown Service, a subsidiary of Norfolk Southern in the USA operates a network of these trains over its lines. This was the first time RoadRailer trains were operated in Canada or anywhere else off NS. These trains consist of specially-reinforced highway trailers connected to each other. Early models had steel rail wheel sets along with the rubber tires. Later versions used "bogies" or special trucks in place of tires. Early trains were restricted to 75 trailers, while later ones were re-inforced to allow 125 trailers. These trains operated on CP between Detroit and Lambton Yard in west Toronto. Eventually, the service was re-routed by NS over CN.

Expressway is another method of handling highway truck trailers on flat cars. Expressway trains began operating over the London Division between Detroit and Milton (Hornby) in June 2000 following relocation of the Toronto Terminal from Lambton Yard.

Just west of London is Melrose, a new point on the Windsor Subdivision. Previously at Mileage 11.8 just a diamond with the CN Strathroy Sub. (Mileage 12.2) existed west of Komoka (M. 9.8). A new connection was opened at 1400 February 2, 2001 between CP and CN allowing some CP trains and crews to operate between London and Sarnia and to use the new tunnel enroute over the old GTW to and from Chicago.

The Detroit River Tunnel Company (controlled by New York Central), opened tenders in March 1906 (and dredging began in October), to tunnel under the Border. The year before, four MCRR ferryboats were handling 1000 cars per day between Canada and the USA. The majority of these trains were NYCL which operated over the CASO between Windsor and Niagara Falls/Fort Erie. The tunnel was completed July 1,1910, and the first official trip was on July 26th. By September 15th all freight, and by October 16th. all passenger trains were using it except for the local Detroit-St.Thomas MCR train which continued using the old waterfront station until December 17th. The new station opened in April 1911. The ferries ceased to operate, were laid up until 1924, stripped of boilers, engines etc. and sold as pulpwood barges for use at Port Arthur.