Comments on: Wanless Drive in Brampton was and is today still home to Brampton Brick Limited. During the 90’s, CP still serviced this facility on the Owen Sound Subdivision at Mile 11. As our chase of the Moonlight continued through Brampton we noticed the train had stopped in the middle of Brampton at Sandalwood Parkway. We paused at Wanless Drive to observe and eventually CP 8208, 1117 and 8243 approached the crossing with an open air-dump car, which they quickly set-off on the main before proceeding to reverse into Brampton Brick to lift a waiting car as seen in this photo.

By: Noe

Noe — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 17:22:07 +0000

@MrDan- Thanks for the link and other info on the spur to the quarry. I had a feeling that was the Brampton mileboard sign back there. Thanks for confirming that.

@Railfan99- Thanks for the additional info about Brampton Brick. Interesting that Cando went in there at least a couple times.

By: Railfan99

Railfan99 — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 02:30:08 +0000

Regarding if Brampton Brick was a customer when OBRY started up: as confirmed by Steve Bradley to me in 2018, he said that if his memory was correct he’s pretty sure that just once out of the blue moon in either 2001 or 02, BB took a couple empty flatcars from OBRY to ship some bricks out by rail & that was it for them as they had already discovered by 2000 that loading containers & trucking them to CN BIT was way more efficient & faster, according to Aerial views it appears their spurs switch was gone by spring of 2004

By: MrDan

MrDan — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 02:13:30 +0000

Noe: I was poking around there back in 2008, and found the wide switch ties for the former spur (long gone) were still present. It’s right by the northern “Brampton” mileboard sign.

About halfway up in this 1968 aerial you can make out the spur (the small quarry expanded to the north in the following years):
http://jpeg2000.eloquent-systems.com/toronto.html?image=ser12/s0012_fl1968_it0312.jp2

By: Noe

Noe — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 15:11:58 +0000

Thank you for the comments guys.

Also, thanks MrDan for the additional information on Brampton Brick. The area where the spur was today looks quite different on Google Earth. It’s hard to even tell there was a siding there.

By: MrDan

MrDan — Sat, 18 Dec 2021 21:51:05 +0000

Nice to see someone caught it switching the Brampton Brick plant. I don’t recall them being a customer when OBRY started up.

They used to have a quarry to the south (SE corner Main & Bovaird, where the big WalMart/Fortinos plaza is) until the 1980′s, and it had its own rail spur off the Owen Sound Sub that crossed Main Street. That quarry was closed (I think they moved all their quarry operations to Cheltenham) and the spur RofW sold off to residents as backyard extensions around 1986.

By: Klaucker

Klaucker — Sat, 18 Dec 2021 16:25:36 +0000

Very cool