Wellington, Grey and Bruce Railway

Although plans for railways in Ontario date into the 1830s, the first real efforts began in the 1850s with construction on the Great Western Railway (GWR) running west from Hamilton to Windsor and what became the Northern Railway of Canada (NRC) running north out of Toronto to Barrie.[1]

Counties to the north and west of these lines, especially the port towns on Lake Huron and Georgian Bay, clamored for connections, but by the time the Northern had reached Collingwood they were uninterested in service further west. As the need for rail service grew, the counties and townships in the area began to organize their own operating companies to serve these markets.[1]

In May 1856, the year after the Northern reached Collingwood, the Canada North-West Railway Company was formed to build a line running roughly northwest from Toronto to Southampton, with various options for Owen Sound and other points. Sandford Fleming carried out a preliminary survey, but little else was done as there was little investment money to be found. The charter lapsed in 1861.[2]

In 1864, Francis Shanly led the effort to get things moving again. The opening of the Great Western line to Toronto in 1855 made their own line to the city unnecessary, and the company rechartered with the specific intent of starting at the Great Western in Guelph instead. The new name indicated the three counties that would be part of its route. The route would run out of Guelph to Fergus, and from there two routes were considered, a southern route running through Palmerston and a northern one running through Arthur, both running to Walkerton. Here, the line would split with one line running northward to Southampton and the other westward to Kincardine. A branch to Listowel was also considered.[3]

Work began with a sod turning in Fergus on 28 June 1867, running west through Elora and reaching Alma by the end of 1870. In June 1869, the Great Western took over physical operations of the line. Meanwhile, the southern section from Fergus to Guelph began construction, reaching Guelph in 1870. That same year, the charter was amended to switch from Provincial gauge to standard gauge, adding an extension to Kincardine, and opening the possibility of a lease to the Great Western. The line reached Harriston, 49 miles (79 km) from Fergus, in October 1871, Paisley in June 1872, and Southampton on 7 December 1872.[4]

Before the line reached Southampton, work on the branch to Kincardine began. This was a "subscriber's route", selected based on the subscriptions raised by the various levels of governments. As a result, this path is somewhat circuitous, running south from Palmerson along Mitchell Road, then turning northwest at Atwood to Brussels and then roughly northwest for Kincardine. Sod was turned at Palmerston on 17 December 1871, opening to Listowel on 19 December 1872, and reaching Kincardine in November 1873. However, the company had run out of funds by this point, and due to non-payment clauses with the contractor, the company was not allowed to begin service on the line until these were paid. The line finally opened on 29 December 1874.[4]

A lack of funds precluded further development, and the plans to reach Owen Sound from Kincardine, which would also connect at Southampton, along with a shorter line from Clifford to Durham were both dropped. The WG&BR's lack of further building was exploited by a number of other companies that formed while it was under construction. Notable among these was the Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway (TG&B), which formed in 1868 to run a narrow gauge line to Southampton with branches to Kincardine and Owen Sound. The WG&BR beat them to Kincardine, so they realigned on the Owen Sound branch and abandoned work on their own Kincardine branch in Teeswater.[4]

Other lines in the area included the Guelph and Goderich Railway, Buffalo and Lake Huron Railway, the Port Dover and Lake Huron Railway and the Georgian Bay and Wellington Railway, as well as a number of smaller lines like the Stratford and Huron Railway, London, Huron and Bruce Railway and Walkerton and Lucknow Railway. By the turn of the 20th century, most of these had been bought up by either the Canadian National or Canadian Pacific Railway, leaving the area well covered by rail transit.[4]

A traffic sharing agreement was signed with the Great Western in 1873, and they purchased the company's bonds in 1876. In 1882, the Grand Trunk Railway merged with the Great Western, at which point the president of the Grand Trunk, Henry Whatley Tyler, noted "the old Wellington, Grey and Bruce did not do well for the Great Western and is not doing well for us."[1]

In 1893, the Grand Trunk amalgamated all its operating companies and the Wellington, Grey and Bruce officially disappeared. As part of the Grand Trunk's 1918 bankruptcy, in 1923 the lines became part of the newly formed Canadian National Railway (CNR). CNR reorganized their lines into subdivisions, with the WG&BR lines becoming parts of the Fergus, Owen Sound and Southampton Subdivisions.[1]

In 1970, CNR began construction of the Douglas Point Spur, running south from Southampton to the new Bruce Nuclear Generating Station that was under construction. The plant is slightly closer to Kincardine than Southampton, but the land south of Southampton is swampy and the line was able to skirt this through relatively undeveloped areas. The line was complete in 1971 and ultimately abandoned in 1988.[1]

The section of the mainline from Fergus to Palmerston was abandoned in August 1983, along with a major section of the Kincardine branch from Kincardine to Wingham. The now disconnected remaining western sections were connected to the CNR mainline via the Stratford and Huron at Listowel. The remainder of the Southampton branch from Harriston to Southampton was abandoned in 1988, along with the short remaining section on the eastern end from Fergus to Guelph. The remaining part of the Kincardine branch from Listowel to Wingham was abandoned in 1991, leaving only the short section between Palmerston and Harriston, which was abandoned in 1995.

After being abandoned, parts of the railway route were re-purposed. The section from Southampton to Port Elgin is part of the Saugeen Rail Trail,[5] and the section from Port Elgin to Kincardine is part of the Bruce County Rail Trail.[6]

• "The Wellington, Grey & Bruce Railway". Railways of Ontario. 30 December 1997.
• Brown, Adam (January 1868). Prospectus of the Wellington, Grey & Bruce Railway. ISBN 9780665405075.
• Cooper, Charles (2014). "Grey and Bruce Counties".