GIO Railway ends service to St. Catharines, Ontario – Trains

This is another interesting video of the Trillium Railway operations circa 2012. The back story is that CP was on strike at the time, preventing Trillium from using its normal interchange at Feeder. Instead interchange was done with the CN at Merritton. The video shows that all three Trillium locomotives were called into action.

Trillium Railway Detour Interchange, Merritton, May 26, 2012

The video does show the differences in traffic between the north and south parts of the railway. The south part is dominated by tank cars and covered hoppers, while north of Merritton, boxcars and gondolas are more prevalent.

Found a new video of the Trillium Railway at the Port Colborne end. Looks like two covered hoppers are destined for the elevators at the south end of the railway

Gotta love the latest generation of HD video cameras!

In the past, the best way of understanding how the Port Colborne Railway was set up was from their parent company website: Trillium Railway. It had maps, photographs and information about the companies who ship via the PCHR. Unfortunately as of 2021, the website has been rebranded and much of the information has disappeared. I was able to make screen captures of the original maps and here is the lower part of the PCHR circa 2011:

To get a better feel how these are physically located, I’ve created a Google Map with the key parts of the PCHR marked on it:

View Port Colborne Harbour Railway – Trackage Map in a larger map

An excellent resource for photos of the PCHR is Paul Duncan’s Niagara Rails website. Paul has divided his photographs up into two groups: one for the physical plant and one for trains on the physical plant. Here are the direct links for each of the sections of the PCHR (called spurs by the company):

Cayuga Spur: Track
Cayuga Spur: Trains
Covers Feeder East to Feeder West to End of Steel

Canal Spur: Track
Canal Spur: Trains
Covers Feeder West to WH Yard to Forks Jct to Dain and points north

Harbour Spur: Track
Harbour Spur: Trains
Covers Forks Jct to Fielden Jct to Macey Yard

Government Spur: Track
Government Spur: Trains
Covers Fielden Jct to End of Steel (ADM and Southpier)