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Railways

Brantford & Hamilton Electric Railway (B&HE)

The Haines Brothers of New York planned to build a Niagara to Hamilton to Brantford railway line. After taking over the Hamilton, Chedoke & Ancaster Railway in 1900 they changed the name to the Hamilton, Ancaster & Brantford Railway and acquired the rights to the land needed for the line. However, when they ran into financial difficulties in 1904 they abandoned their plan. Meanwhile, S. Ritter Ickes and the Von Echa Company from Pennsylvania had incorporated the Brantford & Hamilton Electric Railway. The Von Echa Company was forced to give up the business because of financial problems and ownership changed hands twice before the Dominion Power & Transmission Company of Hamilton took over the railway. Train service started between Hamilton and Ancaster on December 21, 1907 and was extended to Brantford on May 23, 1908. Since this railway did not have permission to cross the Grand Trunk Railway’s (GTR) Tillsonburg line the first terminal in Brantford was located on Alfred Street for about six months. Once they had reached an agreement with the GTR allowing them to cross these tracks a temporary station was built on Market Street South next to the bridge over the canal. On July 5, 1912 an accident a mile east of Cainsville between two B&HE trains resulted in the death of a conductor. The B&HE reached an agreement with the Lake Erie & Northern Railway (LE&N) to share their new station in 1916. With the B&HE using a 600 volt line and the LE&N using a 1500 volt line crews had to make sure that they selected the correct trolley wire at the station. Buses replaced many of the Brantford to Hamilton trips in January 1929 and Dominion Power sold its bus operations to Highway King Coach Lines with the understanding that they would abandon their interurban lines The final train trip was made on June 30, 1931 with the tracks east of Brantford being removed the following year. More information about this railway can be found in Cataract traction: the railways of Hamilton by John M. Mills.

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Brantford Municipal Railway (BMR)

Some local citizens had formed a street railway company in 1879 but nothing further was done until March 1886 when C. H. Flack of Cornwall purchased the charter. The horse-drawn street railway started running in September 1886 (Brantford Expositor, September 6, 1886, p. 1). The tracks were located along Colborne Street from the eastern city limits to the Lorne Bridge; across the bridge to West Brantford; up Market Street to the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) tracks; into North Ward from Colborne via King to Darling to William to Richmond to Brant Avenue, ending at the entrance to the Ontario School for the Blind. The stables and sheds were located on Gilkison Street in West Brantford. The four cars used for the regular twenty minute service were named after R. Henry, C. B. Heyd, S. G. Read, and A. Harris with their names painted in gold letters on the side of the cars. There were also two forty-passenger open cars used on market days and holidays. In March 1893 (Brantford Expositor, April 1, 1893, p. 4) F. Nichol of Toronto General Electric changed the operation to an electric railway and the car barns were moved to Colborne and Clarence Streets. By 1895 the tracks had been extended along Colborne Street to Mohawk Park. S. Ritter Ickes and the Von Echa Company of Pennsylvania took control of the line in 1902 and extended service to Paris. He merged the Brantford Street Railway with the Port Dover, Brantford, Berlin & Goderich Railway which he renamed the Grand Valley Railway (GVR). However, Ickes vanished in 1905, leaving behind many unpaid bills and a group of men from Toronto took over the company in November and extended the line to Galt, Ontario. In 1906 the car barns were moved to Brant Avenue at St. Paul Avenue. M. A. Verner of Pittsburgh was the last private owner before the company went into receivership. The City of Brantford acquired the Grand Valley Railway in 1914 (Brantford Expositor, February 19, 1914, p. 11) and appointed a commission of C. H. Hartman, W. R. Turnbull, and A. K. Bunnell to manage the railway until the following year when the ratepayers elected a board to take over. It was renamed the Brantford Municipal Railway (BMR). The new station, at the corner of Market and Colborne Streets, opened on September 19, 1916. The system was expanded with lines running to Eagle Place, Holmedale, Terrace Hill, and West Brant. The increasing popularity of the automobile reduced ridership on the electric railway and by 1924 the commission had a $38,000 deficit and a consultant was hired. The former Grand Valley Railway line to Paris, which had been losing money for years, stopped running on June 15, 1929. The Brantford Public Utilities Commission took over the public transportation system in 1935. The Brantford streetcar system stopped running on January 31, 1940 (Brantford Expositor, February 1, 1940, p. 10) and was replaced by buses. The carhouse, built in 1902 by the Grand Valley Railway, was used by the buses for many years before being torn down in late 1971. By 1942 all of the street railway tracks had been removed. More information about this railway can be found in Traction on the Grand: the story of electric railways along Ontario’s Grand River Valley by John Mills.

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Brantford Municipal Railway

Brantford, Norfolk & Port Burwell Railway

In 1874 the Earl of Dufferin, the Governor General, turned the first sod for the Brantford, Norfolk & Port Burwell Railway. George H. Wilkes, a former Brantford mayor, was president of this railway which started operations in April 1876. Although the plan was to build a line running from Brantford to the Lake Erie shore the track was only completed as far as Tillsonburg because of delays and mismanagement. The railway used a temporary station in West Brantford while waiting for its bridge over the Grand River to be finished. Once the bridge was completed passengers were picked up and dropped off near Market Street. Brantford’s town council had offered a $70,000 grant to the company but withheld $40,000 when the railway wasn’t completed. In January 1877 the BN&PB was leased to the Canada Southern Railway (CSR), owned by the Vanderbilt family. Unhappy with the encroachment of the CSR on their territory, the Great Western Railway (GWR) talked the BN&PB board into revoking the CSR’s lease in April 1877. The GWR purchased the railway and on September 18, 1877 they joined their tracks with those of the BN&PB and a few days later the BN&PB train was travelling the extra mile from its station in West Brantford to the GWR’s Colborne Street station. On November 9, 1877 a BN&PB train headed to Tillsonburg was crossing the bridge over the Grand River when one span gave way, plunging the engine, the coal car, the baggage car, and the one freight car into the river. Fortunately, the passenger car stopped on the second span of the bridge and none of the passengers or crew was killed. The GWR was eventually taken over by the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR).

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Brantford, Waterloo & Lake Erie Railway (BW&LE)

A charter was obtained in the 1880s by prominent local citizens to build this railway. George Wilkes, president of the company, tried to get the Michigan Central Railroad (MCR) to pay for the line since the planned route of the BW&LE Railway would intersect at Waterford with the Canada Southern Railway which was run by the MCR. When the MCR refused to contribute to this line the people of Brantford voted to give the BW&LE a $50,000 bonus. The railway also received a federal government grant of $3,200 per mile and some bonuses from Oakland Township which provided enough money to build the line. The station was located in West Brantford at the intersection of Oxford Street (now Colborne Street) and Burford Street. The first train left on February 1, 1890 (Brantford Expositor, February 1, 1890, p. 3). J. N. Young of Chicago bought the railway but failed to get a $75,000 bonus when he was unable to make good on his promise to build a bridge over the Grand River and extend the line to Hamilton in a specified time. The BW&LE was amalgamated with the Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo Railway (TH&B) in 1892.

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Buffalo, Brantford & Goderich Railway (BB&G)

The Buffalo and Brantford Railway Company was formed in 1850 a year after the Plank Road Act was passed by the government. This act allowed railways to be built by groups of citizens without obtaining a charter from Parliament. Brantford citizens contributed $34,000 towards the line while the town held $100,000 of its stock. The railway was renamed the Buffalo, Brantford & Goderich Railway in 1852 to reflect the plans to extend the line to Goderich. The grand opening of the new railway took place on Friday, January 13, 1854 (Brantford Weekly Expositor, January 17, 1854, p. 2). The day was declared a holiday and bad weather did not deter thousands of people from coming to the Brantford station to meet the first train. Money was also spent to build the car shops in Brantford. These shops as well as the station, roundhouse, two locomotives, seven passenger cars, and a large amount of freight were destroyed by fire on May 9, 1854 (Brantford Weekly Expositor, May 16, 1854, p. 2). However, the town of Brantford loaned the railway money to help rebuild the shops. Financial problems led to a British group taking over the railway a few years later and the name was changed to the Buffalo & Lake Huron Railway. It was June 1858 before the line to Goderich was completed (Brantford Weekly Expositor, July 2, 1858, p. 2). The Governor General chose Thomas Burnley’s design of a forty foot sleeping car for Edward, the Prince of Wales and son of Queen Victoria, to use while travelling through Upper Canada in 1860. The exterior was royal blue with the Royal Coat of Arms on the side of the car. This car was built by the Buffalo & Lake Huron Railway at their shops in Brantford. By the 1870s the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) had taken over the line.

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Grand Trunk Railway (GTR)

By the 1870s the Grand Trunk Railway had taken over the operations of the Buffalo & Lake Huron Railway. The GTR absorbed the Great Western Railway (GWR) in August 1882. After the amalgamation all ticket were sold at the GTR station on Wadsworth Street off West Street. The final stop for the Harrisburg trains was moved to the GTR station and the railway laid new track to connect the former BB&G and GWR lines. On February 27, 1889 a steel tire broke on the engine of the St. Louis Express causing two passenger cars to fall off the St. George bridge, killing 11 people and injuring 32 others (Brantford Expositor, February 28, 1889, p. 1) By July 1905 the city of Brantford had reached an agreement with the GTR to run all of their main-line trains through the city (Brantford Expositor, July 12, 1905, p. 1). A new station, completed in July of that year, was slightly to the west of the old station which was torn down. The official opening took place on September 30, 1905 with the newspaper publishing a special GTR Main Line Number (Brantford Expositor, September 30, 1905). The GTR lines and station became part of the Canadian National Railway in 1923. Passenger trains to Buffalo, Goderich, and Guelph stopped in the 1950s. The passenger lines became known as VIA Rail Canada in the 1970s. Via Rail spent $350,000 to refurbish the train station in 2002.

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Grand Valley Railway (GVR)

S. Ritter Ickes of the Von Echa Company purchased the Brantford Street Railway (BSR) from the Canadian General Electric Company in 1902 so that he could use the track for interurban cars to reach the centre of the city. He obtained the charter for the Port Dover, Brantford, Berlin & Goderich Railway (PDBB&G) and renamed it the Grand Valley Railway. Regular operations between Brantford and Paris began in 1903 with the Brantford waiting room at the Kerby House on the corner of Colborne and George Streets. The two new railcars, Hiawatha and Red Cloud, used too much electricity so they were returned to the Ottawa Car Company and instead four second-hand open railway cars were purchased from New York City. The route started at the corner of Market and Colborne Streets, to Brant Avenue, along Ava Road to Paris, then along Willow Street before stopping just past William Street. Service to Galt began in November 1904. When Ickes disappeared in 1905 the company was sold to a Toronto group who amalgamated the BSR, the GVR, and the Woodstock, Thames Valley & Ingersoll Railway (WTV&I). M. A. Verner of Pittsburgh was the last private owner before the company went into receivership in 1912. The city took ownership of the company on August 5, 1914 and renamed it the Brantford Municipal Railway (BMR). They sold the Paris to Galt line to the LE&N Railway. More information about this railway can be found in: Traction on the Grand: the story of electric railways along Ontario’s Grand River Valley by John Mills.

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Great Western Railway (GTR)

In the early 1850s the Great Western Railway had plans to build a line from Niagara Falls via Hamilton to London. Feeling sure that the tracks would have to go through Brantford the town didn’t offer any monetary incentives to the railway. To the town’s dismay the GWR built its line through Paris via Harrisburg, which meant that local citizens had to take the stage coach to get the train. In January 1871 the people of Brantford voted to give the GWR a $75,000 bonus to build an eight mile branch line from Harrisburg to Brantford. The first train arrived in Brantford on November 23, 1871 (Brantford Weekly Expositor, November 24, 1871, p. 2). The station was located near the intersection of Colborne and Clarence Streets. In 1877 the GWR acquired the Brantford, Norfolk & Port Burwell Railway. The Grand Trunk Railway took over the GWR in August 1882. The former GWR station was used as a waiting room for people traveling on the Brantford to Tillsonburg trains. In 1922 this station was replaced by a small brick shelter but once service on the Tillsonburg line was stopped in 1948 the building was no longer needed.

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Lake Erie & Northern Railway (LE&N)

In 1907 some local men formed a syndicate and obtained an Ontario charter for a Brantford to Port Dover railway but no work was ever done. A second group of men obtained a Dominion charter and incorporated the Lake Erie & Northern Railway company in 1911. Financial difficulties and delays in construction led to the Canadian Pacific Railway purchasing the company in 1913. Construction of the line was completed by 1915. Passenger service between Galt and Brantford started on February 7, 1916. The first station, a box car at the foot of Scarfe Avenue, was used until a station at the east end of the Lorne Bridge was ready in March 1917. The new station was also used by the Brantford & Hamilton Electric Railway. With the B&HE using a 600 volt line and the LE&N using a 1500 volt line crews had to make sure that they selected the correct trolley wire at the station. The railway extended service to Simcoe on June 2, 1916 and to Port Dover in July. This railway was nicknamed “Late, Early or Never” and “Late Every Night”. The city of Brantford sold the Paris to Galt line of the Grand Valley Railway to the LE&N in 1918 for $30,000. After the LE&N’s application to stop passenger service was turned down, they cut back service in August 1950. Their second application to stop passenger service was granted and the last passenger train ran on April 23, 1955. The Brantford station was torn down in the late 1950s. Traction on the Grand: the story of electric railways along Ontario’s Grand River Valley by John Mills provides more information about this railway.

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Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo Railway (TH&B)

A charter was obtained to build a railway between Toronto, Hamilton, and Buffalo in March 1884 but the line wasn’t completed before this charter expired. Another group got a new charter which required the line to be finished by February 1894. The TH&B took over the Brantford, Waterloo & Lake Erie Railway between Brantford and Waterford in 1892 after J. N. Young, the previous owner, ran out of money trying to extend the line as far as Hamilton. In 1895 the Canadian Pacific Railway and the New York Central Railroad purchased the TH&B in order to gain access to the Hamilton section of the railway. Regular service between Brantford and Hamilton started on May 27, 1895 (Brantford Expositor, May 27, 1895, p. 3). A temporary wooden station was built near the intersection of Market and Erie Streets. A new brick station at the same location opened in September 1896. The TH&B was the first railway in the world to install the electric block signal system for single-track operation with signals one mile apart on the line between Brantford and Hamilton and Hamilton and Welland. On August 4, 1900 a crash between a passenger train travelling from Hamilton to Waterford and a gravel train occurred on the TH&B line near West Brantford killing the engineer of the passenger train and injuring many others (Brantford Expositor, August 4, 1900, p. 1). In 1915 the railway completed a branch to Port Maitland at the mouth of the Grand River. The last passenger train stopped at Brantford’s TH&B station on September 25, 1954 (Brantford Expositor, September 25, 1954, p. 2). This station was converted to a restaurant in the 1970s but was later damaged in a fire and is currently vacant. In the Shadow of Giants: the story of the Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo Railway by Norman Helm provides more information about this railway.

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