April 2024
Since the early Nineteenth Century, railroads have have been an effective transportation option for goods and passengers. While the railways once dominated transportation, particularly land transportation, the emergence of automobiles, trucks and improved road networks gave the business community and the general public better options, leading to the demise of many railway companies and the abandonment of many rail lines across Canada.
Some of these abandoned railway lines have been bought by municipalities and community groups and turned into rail trails. After removal of the steel rails and wood ties, these shared-use paths are primarily used by non-motorized traffic, including pedestrians, bicycles, horseback riders, skaters, and cross-country skiers, but some are for snowmobiles and ATVs.
The Caledon Trailway is a multi-use recreational trail for non-motorized vehicles, including walkers, runners, cyclists and horseback riders. While the trail once had rails that once carried the locomotives and rail cars are long gone, many of the bridges and trestles that spanned over rivers, valleys and road crossings can still be found, including the stone block bridge that crosses over Duffy’s Lane in Palgrave.
Indeed, one of the benefits of the development of rail trails is the preservation and restoration of these railway bridges and trestles, many of which can be architecturally significant.
The popular 39-km rail trail follows the abandoned Canadian National Railway line through Caledon, Ontario. Originally opened by the Hamilton & Northwestern Railway in the 1870s, the line and the company were taken over by the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) in January 1888.
With the bankruptcy of the GTR in 1923, the line became part of the Canadian National Railway inventory. After the rail line from Georgetown to Barrie was abandoned in the 1980s, the section from Terra Cotta to Palgrave was sold to the Town of Caledon in 1989.
The full length of the Caledon Trailway is a part of the Greenbelt Cycling Route across the Golden Horseshoe-Oshawa area southern Ontario, including sections that were once part of the Trans Canada Trail. Caledon East is the home to the first Trans Canada Trail Pavilion, a series of small, red-roofed pavilions along the trail featuring plaques listing the names of financial supporters.
Sources: https://www.ontariotrails.on.ca/trail/caledon-trailway, https://www.visitcaledon.ca/pages/trails, Hamilton and North-Western Railway – Wikipedia, Caledon Trailway.
