No trackage exists on this line.
Mile 0.0 : At Mile 0.0 is the junction switch to the TR Canal Spur. It is now removed from service.
Mile 0.3 : At this location is a siding. The line is no longer in place.
Mile 0.8 : This is the back of the John Deere industry.
John Deere as a company opened up their factory in 1904 in Dain City. The rail line that originally fed the factory came directly from the north.
The former John Deere Lead appears to have been an extension of the former CP Page Hersey Spur. Once the train entered the Page Hersey plant, the train turned south and headed directly south across what is nor the old section of the end of Humberstone Road, then across what is now the Townline Road and the tunnel cut that has existed since the early 1970's then through the edge of the bush and into the John Deere plant.
After the excavation of the west end of the to-be Townline tunnel cut, John Deere then needed rail service reinstated.
CN built a line off of the CN Canal Subdivision heading west with switch points facing south, just south of the new bridge over the tunnel cut. The new rail line for John Deere then curved west along the upper edge of the south hill of the tunnel cut until it hit the back side of the John Deere plant, then took a bend to the south and rejoined the old line mid way to the plant in the property.
This new rebuilt line was almost one mile in length, including part of the existing original trackage.
A friend who worked for CP once told me that after the line was rebuilt they had running rights on the CN Canal Subdivision down to their company that they still had rights to service. There is a good possibility that CN never acrtually was a service provider to John Deere. They may have only made it easier for CP to continue service. At the time if John Deere was only getting plant service of railcar movements, it would have been done by Conrail.
I believe sometime in the late 1970's or very early 1980's John Deere stopped shipping by rail and went to transport truck.
During the 1980's and part of the 1990's, the CN/(N&W/NS) Dain City Intermodal yard began to store double-stack railcars on this rebuilt and last existing version of the CP John Deere Lead.
The John Deere Lead sat abandoned since 1991 until February of 1999, because CN pulled the double-stack railcars off the rail line, for the last time. I used to see the railcars on the rail line when I started railfanning back then.
On February 24, 1999, the switch connecting this line to (at the time the CN Canal Spur, was taken out of service and trackage partially removed. I believe this was done in anticipation of Trillium servicing CN and CN wanted to eliminate unnecessary things.
In November 2001, I spotted the rest of the abandoned CP John Deere Lead being lifted along the back of the John Deere property.
In early September of 2008, John Deere announced that the Welland (Dain City) plant will be closing by the end of 2009. That did happen and the many of the John Deere plant building were torn down. Nothing has since chosen interest publicly to use the property for a business location.
I later learned that the Dain City location of John Deere was more advanced in technology than any of their other plants. Because when John Deere left for the U.S., their equipment wasn't compatible with the more outdated equipment that was being used already down south.
47 photos in gallery
 Mile 0.00 Looking North (1999) |
 Mile 0.00 Looking North (2003) |
 Mile 0.00 Looking North (2005) |
 Mile 0.00 Looking North (2010) |
 Mile 0.00 Looking North (2012) |
 Mile 0.00 Looking North (2012) |
 Mile 0.00 Looking South (2005) |
 Mile 0.00 Looking South (2010) |
 Mile 0.00 Looking South (2012) |
 Mile 0.04 Looking Northwest (2012) |
 Mile 0.04 Looking Southeast (2012) |
 Mile 0.10 Looking East (1997) |
 Mile 0.10 Looking East (2005) |
 Mile 0.10 Looking East (2012) |
 Mile 0.10 Looking West (1997) |
 Mile 0.10 Looking West (2005) |
 Mile 0.10 Looking West (2012) |
 Mile 0.12 Looking East (2005) |
 Mile 0.12 Looking East (2012) |
 Mile 0.12 Looking West (2012) |
 Mile 0.20 Looking East (2012) |
 Mile 0.20 Looking West (2012) |
 Mile 0.26 Looking East (1997) |
 Mile 0.26 Looking East (2005) |
 Mile 0.26 Looking East (2012) |
 Mile 0.26 Looking West (2005) |
 Mile 0.26 Looking West (2012) |
 Mile 0.30 Looking Northeast (2012) |
 Mile 0.30 Looking East (1997) |
 Mile 0.30 Looking Southwest (2012) |
 Mile 0.30 Looking West (1997) |
 Mile 0.30 Looking West (2005) |
 Mile 0.32 Looking Northeast (2012) |
 Mile 0.32 Looking Southwest (2012) |
 Mile 0.33 Looking Northeast (2012) |
 Mile 0.33 Looking Southwest (2012) |
 Mile 0.34 Looking Northeast (1997) |
 Mile 0.34 Looking Northeast (2005) |
 Mile 0.36 Looking Northeast (2005) |
 Mile 0.36 Looking South (1997) |
 Mile 0.36 Looking South (2005) |
 Mile 0.38 Looking North (2012) |
 Mile 0.38 Looking South (2012) |
 Mile 0.39 Looking South (2005) |
 Mile 0.40 Looking South (1997) |
 Mile 0.40 Looking South (1999) |
 Mile 0.42 Looking South (2012) |
These photos are of of what I believe is the old ROW just west through the trees about 200 feet, as the other section through the trees.
Before the WCRP in the early 1970's this plant was serviced from a track directly out of Welland by Oontario Road, just west of where the TR Canal Spur is now.
When Townline Road and the Townline tunnel were excavated, this line was abandonded and connected int othe old CN Canal Subdivision, which later became the TR Canal Spur.
Photos are shown from north end of the tree cut to south into the field north of the John Deere plant, that once was, as it is now closed.
 Looking North (2012) |
 Looking South (2012) |
 Looking North (2012) |
 Looking South (2012) |
