Hamilton’s Other Railway (2001)

Charles Cooper

ABOUT THE BOOK

Hamilton’s Other Railway traces the 19th century Hamilton & Lake Erie and Hamilton & North Western Railways through their pioneering construction to the eventual absorption of the successor Northern & North Western Railway into the Grand Trunk Railway, and in turn on to its take-over and assimilation by Canadian National Railways.

Historically, this book is not only a tale of civic pride and ambition as Hamilton struggled to rival Toronto in its emergence as Ontario’s Queen City, but from the perspective of early Ontario’s tumultuous railway history, also a compelling summary of the reasons for the gradual transformation of 19th century railroading in Ontario. The ambitions of the Hamilton & North Western were a thorn in the sides of both the Grand Trunk and the Great Western as they duked it out for supremacy. Then, through its own politically and economically necessary merger with the Northern Railway of Canada to become the Northern & North Western Railway, it proceeded to heed the economic imperative of the budding transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway project, and thus became a strategic property in the emerging bid of the Grand Trunk to keep the Canadian Pacific out of Ontario.

Hamilton’s Other Railway features many unique, previously unpublished images from archival and other collections, along with great photographs from the Al Paterson, Dave Shaw, James Brown and Keith Sirman collections, and many other individual contributions, such as from the Gary Mauthe postcard collection, and the carefully researched track diagrams and the timeless photography of Bob Sandusky. All of these have been reproduced with singular care to provide a unique pictorial treasure trove of our railway past that reaches into all the communities that were touched by this railway; south from Hamilton to Port Dover via Caledonia, Hagersville and Jarvis; and north from Hamilton to Barrie via the Beach, Milton, Georgetown, Beeton and Allandale; with the branch from Beeton to Collingwood via Alliston and Creemore. Also included are the later services to Meaford and Port Rowan.

AUTHOR: Cooper, Charles
ISBN: 9780921871040

PUBLISHER: Bytown Railway Society
DATE OF PUBLICATION: 2001