It's unclear to what the future holds for the Grantham Spur as Gio Railway runs it's last scheduled train Feb 29, 2024 down the Grantham Spur in St. Catharines, Ontario.
Most people feel like it will eventually be torn out as more then half of it's remaining customers is rumour to be pulling out of the Area.
Mostly likely it would be related to Gio Railway giving up on servicing the Grantham Spur any further to what is perhaps not a profitable segment of track.
Further not long after this event Trenergy has put up for sale signs on its property and it would seems to sugguest the unconfirmed rumours of moving to the old Hayes Dana plant in Thorold South are probably true.
Dunn Paper warehouse which has also been rumoured to be moving it's operation to Thorold new multimodal hub transloading facility HOPA.
Bringing both of these customers closer to other Gio Railway operation in the Thorold South area.
A permanent red flag was also put up not long after this event and was place near Daimley Parkway in Welland, Ontario.
This marking potentially signifies that about 12 miles of tracks north of Welland could be remove sometime in the future.
Strategically these moves will make it potentially cheaper for Gio Railways to operate will also concentrate it's customer base to a smaller area further reducing cost relate to fuel, crewing efficiencies, travel time, and other maintenance cost.
While this event has emotionally sadden many railfans in the community.
It will mark the end of about combination 150 years of rail operations of both passenger and freight service for the area.
Most notably the NS&T interurban service, Canadian National Railway(CNR), Trillium and most recently Gio Railways in the St. Catharines area.
However Is this really the end of the line for the Grantham Spur?
At least one customer "Kemira" on the Grantham spur who had reportedly invested large sums of money to increase rail carloads as mentioned in Stephen C. Host article "GIO Railway ends service to St. Catharines, Ontario" is trying to restart rail service in the area.
I imagine in this scenerio it could be something like what had happen with the Burford Spur in Brantford, Ontario many years ago(circa september 2018).
Where one company namely Ingenia Polymers purchase a small isolate segment of tracks known as Burford Spur from the CNR.
Made arrangements to have cars supplied by CN at designated cars transfer location nearby the CN Yard in Brantford. Then using trackmobile vehicle Ingenia would switch and manage it's own rail cars betweem them and their CNR transfer point on the Burford Spur.
Could Kemira make a similar arrangement with CN and purchase the Grantham Spur? Where cars could be supplied by CN and transfer would made out of the old CN Merritton Yard?
Perhaps it may not be the end and but only with time will we know for certain.
Notes regarding video content locations below
Birch Lane / Merriton CNR Overpass
Elm Street
Eastchester Avenue
Berryman Avenue
Date: Feburary 29, 2024
Location: St. Catharines
Footnotes:
Regarding Former NS&T Merriton / Townline Spur CNR Overpass abandon abutment:
Once junction with Grantham Spur south of Lincoln Avenue in St. Catharines, Ontario existed the CNR / Trillium Townline Spur formerly part of the old NS&T interurban transit system.
At one time three bridges expanded across Abbot Street and Oakdale Avenue and over CNR Merriton railroad tracks.
One of 3 of the Townline Spur bridges was set on fire sometime of March of 2007 and the line was soon abandon afterwards.
With the bridge too expensive to repair would eventually lead to the entire line torn out except for the old NS&T Townline Spur Merriton abutments little remains of the ex-NS&T / Townline Spur.
Thanks for watching!!