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A nice surprise to find today was Trillium Railway's newest customer.  Located just across the Canal Sub from Valbruna ASW's former Atlas Steel site, Fonthill Lumber recently expanded to this forty acre property with the spur being built in the last couple of months.  Reportedly it has only been in service for the last 1-2 weeks but has been receiving steady traffic.  TRRY 1859 is seen pulling a boxcar and empty centrebeam from the spur before setting off a loaded car.  The vintage MLW will continue north to St. Catharines, to work Clearwater Paper and Steelcon before making their return south.
Copyright Notice: This image ©Jacob Patterson all rights reserved.



Caption: A nice surprise to find today was Trillium Railway's newest customer. Located just across the Canal Sub from Valbruna ASW's former Atlas Steel site, Fonthill Lumber recently expanded to this forty acre property with the spur being built in the last couple of months. Reportedly it has only been in service for the last 1-2 weeks but has been receiving steady traffic. TRRY 1859 is seen pulling a boxcar and empty centrebeam from the spur before setting off a loaded car. The vintage MLW will continue north to St. Catharines, to work Clearwater Paper and Steelcon before making their return south.

Photographer:
Jacob Patterson [515] (more) (contact)
Date: 05/23/2023 (search)
Railway: Trillium Railway (search)
Reporting Marks: TRRY 1859 (search)
Train Symbol: N/A (search)
Subdivision/SNS: Canal Sub. (search)
City/Town: Welland (search)
Province: Ontario (search)
Share Link: http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=52027
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Photo ID: 50729

Map courtesy of Open Street Map

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25 Comments
  1. Finally some good news in the rail industry. ;)
    And a new spur to boot! Thanks for posting. Always loved engine as well.

  2. Nice running into you yesterday!

  3. Jacob…I noticed the spur addition a week or two back, was surprised to see it..Valbruna commissioned a new EAF late last fall, so the production of specialty/ stainless blooms, billets and ingots has a future. Much of what is melted and cast in Welland is converted to bar or wire rod at the Valbruna plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana. That is the 3rd Melt shop on the property in the last 100 years, the first on East Main (now the new firehall ), then the 1940 Melt Shop due south of the current (built for the War effort) and the one shown here completed in 1977/78, and upgraded in 2022…nice capture.

  4. Its GIO Railways

  5. Valbruna doesn’t seem to use rail service other than an internal railway.

    Slm does get cars though. That is also the team track or it was under trillium as I recall.

  6. Docta, nice meeting you as well.
    Michael, very interesting. Thanks for the information.
    Steve, thanks for linking that article. Initially I assumed the lumber car was going to the team track. I hadn’t even noticed the spur until they backed down it.
    Dean, my understanding is it is still Trillium Railway, owned by GIO (holding company).

  7. Great to see. Heard this was coming quite a while back then kind of forgot about it. I guess I haven’t been by Atlas in years as I didn’t even see any of the construction.

    I think there still is a team track there but I can’t say with certainty. Their website does mention it as one of two team tracks.

  8. Railways have lots of subsidiaries and paper railways, some shortlines are no different.

    We don’t call the Sarnia subdivision the “Lake Erie and Detroit River Railway” anymore despite it still existing, still meeting annually, and the actual owners of the railway line and remaining lands between Blenheim, Sarnia, St. Thomas and Windsor.

    They still meet annually.. two Americans and one Canadian on the Board.

    Trillium is indeed a subsidiary of GIO, but on their DBO’s it’s “GIO Railways – Trillium Railway” for the St. Catharines to Port Colborne lines.

    The St Thomas and Tillsonburg Railway would I believe be the subsidiary for the Tillsonburg line.

    The trillium railway died when Mr. Gionet purchased the remainder of Trillium and folded it into GIO in 2018. It’s just another paper subsidiary now. The trillium website and branding is basically gone now. Call it either or, but GIO has taken over.

  9. I should also mention Trillium itself was an amalgamation or holding company or both for the ‘Hamilton and Caledonia Southern Railway’ and the ‘Port Colborne Harbour Railway’

    And St Thomas and Eastern..

    Source:

    https://www.cfontario.ca/index.php/success-stories/450-entrepreneurs/archives/1343-locomotive-passion-becomes-a-reality

  10. They still call themselves Trillium, they did over the scanner when crossing over the Grimsby this very day

  11. Right, they’ve got to diffrentiate from their separate rail lines for different reasons. IMO.
    But @deanstrains, thanks for ‘setting us straight’. Yes, the owners are GIO…you are correct. And thanks to Steve and @DoctaPinklaces and others for the clarification.

  12. NS C93 still calls themselves the Wabash to CSX NG…. we don’t call them the Wabash :)

    I think it’s still a toss up what you want to call it but it’s clearly being changed to GIO :)

  13. Haha who’s we? I call them the Wabash all the time. So does CN RTC. They’re the Wabash to all of NS, CSX, and CN, but also have a unique symbol on each (C93, CSX one escapes me, and I think 369 on CN? i am rusty).

    Anyways, way off topic here.

  14. @stephen C Host Very nice ‘Mr. Gionet’ picked up Trillium and St&E. Just like RJ Corman did in South Carolina with Carolina Southern North of Myrtle Beach that laid dormant for almost 4 Years! Wonder what else he can save?

  15. St&e was gone by the time GIO acquired trillium
    Yes, 369 on CN still

  16. Firstly, thanks to Jacob for posting the interesting picture – it is definitely encouraging to see a newly constructed siding, and am glad to hear Fonthill Lumber is still in business – my picture of NS&T UCRS Farewell excursion taken Mar 1959 at Fonthill Station shows Fonthill Lumber sign very clearly, so 64 years later they are busy now on the other (east side) of the Welland Canal and still being served by rail, and nice to see steam (?) coming from the old steelworks plant on the left. Secondly, most interesting to read all the comments regarding Trillium, GIO, references to “Wabash”, am always learning something new. Question Jacob, ere those NSC manufactured steel coil cars for NS in storage at this location waiting to be moved to Steelcon or are they in transit ? Love the railway history in the Welland Canal area-Thorold-Welland-Port Colborne localities from when I first visited – then CNR, WABASH, N&W, NYC, C&O, TH&B, NS&T and today now being CP Rail (guess I should say CPKC), GIO or Trillium (whatever it is) and CN Rail. Does Port Colborne Harbour Railway still exist, or was it folded into Trillium into GIO ? Thanks for all the comments. John

  17. John, thank you for the note on Fonthill lumber being a customer in the late 50′s. Very cool.

    I believe the Port Colborne Harbour Railway still exists but is like the Guelph Junction Railway – owned by the town of Port Colborne and operated by GIO/Trillium.

  18. john, the 8 coil cars pictured were in transit to Steelcon for hoods, setoff there just after 12 noon. 8 cars with hoods were lifted. There are a bunch of these cars stored around Feeder. I didn’t take the time to poke around elsewhere to see what is still in storage.

  19. They’ve interestingly been to St.Catharines three days in a row now, which is uncommon for them considering it’s usually a S/T/TH operation.

  20. They’ve interestingly been to St.Catharines three days in a row now, which is uncommon for them considering it’s usually a Sat/Tue/TH operation.

  21. There’s also a new spur in Tillsonburg, another lumber industry called ‘Townsend Lumber’that is now being served. Good to know the lumber industry is creating new business for GIO!

  22. Brad, it’s not a new spur, Townsend lumber is located between Tillsonburg and courtland and they take cars on the mainline. OSR serviced them a couple times a month and GIO is doing the same. It’s still new GIO business though – which is great. GIO is kicking ass.

  23. Stephen, I was looking at the Townsend Lumber Satellite. How do they unload/load the trucks from the manline? sorry to the op for getting a wee bit off the photo topic. Stephen, maybe PM me? cheers.

  24. I believe they do it right on the main at one of their two ‘road’ crossings. Just load and unload right there.

    It’s GIO so it’s topical. They are doing great attracting new business.

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