Great Western Railway (Ontario)

Great Western Railway
Locale	southwestern Ontario, Niagara Peninsula
Dates of operation	1853 – 1882
Track gauge	4 ft 8½ in (1435 mm) (standard gauge), built to 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) but converted by 1870s
Headquarters	Hamilton, Ontario

This article is about a historic railway which operated in the British colony of Canada West, later the Canadian province of Ontario. For other articles of the same name, see Great Western Railway (disambiguation).

The Great Western Railway was a historic Canadian railway that operated in Canada West and later the province of Ontario, following Confederation. Entrepreneur Samuel Zimmerman was instrumental in promoting its construction.

This system stretched 1371 kilometers, running from Niagara Falls to Toronto and connecting lines to London, Windsor and communities in the Bruce Peninsula. Having begun operations in 1853, the company was purchased in August 1882 by the Grand Trunk Railway system and fully merged by 1884.

The main Niagara Falls-Windsor line is now the Canadian National Railway's Grimsby Subdivision, Dundas Subdivision, and Chatham Subdivision. The Toronto branch is the Oakville Subdivision, and the Sarnia branch is the Strathroy Subdivision (which also includes a short piece of the main line, from London to Komoka).