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Crossing the speed River in Hespeler Ontario, L542 is trundling onward to Guelph after working customers on the Fergus sub and the Galt Industrial Spur. At left is the town of Hespeler, and you can see some gravel/ballasted roadway behind the houses - that was the former Grand River Railway Hespeler Subdivision which until the 1950's ran 14 scheduled passenger trains and 2 freight trains each way in only 3.6 miles. CP would continue to serve American Standard factory at the end of the line until the early 1990's - where after the 401 reconstruction closed the line they took out the automatic interlocking with the CNR and put in a switch to allow CN to service them instead. I don't know if they lasted until the GEXR days, but there was a crossbuck at Guelph Ave in the early 2000's that I remember. While the GRR may be gone, GEXR has come and gone and CN's still here.. surprisingly.
Copyright Notice: This image ©Stephen C. Host all rights reserved.



Caption: Crossing the speed River in Hespeler Ontario, L542 is trundling onward to Guelph after working customers on the Fergus sub and the Galt Industrial Spur. At left is the town of Hespeler, and you can see some gravel/ballasted roadway behind the houses - that was the former Grand River Railway Hespeler Subdivision which until the 1950's ran 14 scheduled passenger trains and 2 freight trains each way in only 3.6 miles. CP would continue to serve American Standard factory at the end of the line until the early 1990's - where after the 401 reconstruction closed the line they took out the automatic interlocking with the CNR and put in a switch to allow CN to service them instead. I don't know if they lasted until the GEXR days, but there was a crossbuck at Guelph Ave in the early 2000's that I remember. While the GRR may be gone, GEXR has come and gone and CN's still here.. surprisingly.

Photographer:
Stephen C. Host [1500] (more) (contact)
Date: 4/30/2022 (search)
Railway: Canadian National (search)
Reporting Marks: CN 9416,4138 (search)
Train Symbol: L542 (search)
Subdivision/SNS: Hespeler (search)
City/Town: Hespeler (search)
Province: Ontario (search)
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4 Comments
  1. Another nice angle! Nice working the GRR roadbed in.

  2. Stephen, a beautiful picture ! Great reflection in the river, the low sunlight and being on the edge of the Town of Hespler, all makes this scene most enjoyable, supported by an nicely written caption. It definitely is ironical, this line gone full circle from CNR through other entities back to CN
    Rail. Well done, John

  3. Great shot.

    I believe GRR/CP ceased operations on this section of the Hespeler Spur due to flooding just north of the 401 in the 80’s. CN renamed this section the Solaware Spur, and used it mainly to store auto parts boxcars for the various parts plants on the Galt Industrial Spur. GEXR never used the Solaware Spur and it was slowly parted out to make repairs along the Fergus Spur.

  4. Thank you. According to a website source the Solaware spur did make it into GEXR era, but as you state, never used.

    Parts plants on the Galt spur… man.. if only they still used rail today.

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