Niagara, St. Catharines and Toronto Railway

Niagara, St. Catharines and Toronto Railway
Locale	Ontario, Canada
Dates of operation	1899 – 1959
Track gauge	4 ft 8½ in (1435 mm) (standard gauge)
Headquarters	St. Catharines, Ontario

The Niagara, St. Catharines and Toronto Railway (NS&T) was an interurban electric railway that operated in the Niagara Peninsula from 1899 to 1959. It was based in St. Catharines and operated electified tram cars connecting to Niagara-on-the-Lake, Port Dalhousie, Niagara Falls, and Port Colborne.

History

The NS&T was created in 1899 when a previous railway, the St. Catharines and Niagara Central Railway, was reorganized. The new railway was originally under U.S. ownership but was sold to a Toronto group in 1904. The initial layout was about 32 km. This was mainly between St. Catharines, Thorold, and Port Dalhousie. Several plans were made to extend the rail network to Hamilton and Toronto, however none of them were successful. This included a plan to build a radial network along hydro right of ways. This plan was encouraged by hydro pioneer, Sir Adam Beck, but provincial and municipal subsidies requests were turned down and the plan died on the drafting table.

In 1908, control passed to the Canadian Northern Railway. Due to financial difficulties, the government decided to takeover this company and in 1918 it was renamed as the Canadian National Railway.

In 1923, CNR formed a subsidiary called Canadian National Electric Railways which placed the NS&T, the Toronto Suburban Railway, the Toronto Eastern Railway and the Oshawa Railway under the same administration. Since the only thing connecting them was the fact that they were all electric railways, the NS&T retained its name during subsequent operations.

The rail network was expanded to Port Colborne in the mid 1920s and much repair work was done on the existing network. The NS&T started running buses in 1929 to complement its rail network but by the mid 1930s, buses started to replace some of the rail service. During the Second World War, the rail service experienced heavy use as fuel for bus service was rationed.

After the war, a program of dieselisation started to replace many of the electric trams but the decline of the railway continued. Two of the mainlines were replaced by buses in 1951 and 1954 and passenger rail service stopped altogether in 1959.

The NS&T amalgamated with the CNR in 1960 and ceased operations as a separate entity.

References

Mills, John M. (1967). History of the Niagara, St. Catharines, & Toronto Railway. Rockwood, Ontario: Upper Canada Railway Society and Ontario Electric Railway Historical Association.