Caption: CNR U-1-b Mountain 6034 pauses at Cornwall with train number 26. Per the CNR timetable effective April 24, 1955, train 26 was an all stops local from Brockville - Montreal, arriving Cornwall at 0728h.

The CNR Cornwall Subdivision running from Montreal Central Station to Brockville Yard makes up a portion of today's Kingston Subdivision. The section pictured above however would be removed from service between Cornwall and Cardinal as part of the St. Lawrence Seaway Diversion Project. Canadian and American governments wished to develop the St. Lawrence into a major shipping lane, requiring an increase in the depth and width of the river. Part of this included the flooding of ten villages and portions of other communities, all of which are remembered as The Lost Villages with elements of them preserved at Upper Canada Village on Highway 2, just east of Morrisburg. The old Cornwall station, seen at left, built in 1856 would be demolished in 1962, having been replaced in 1957 by the new flat-roof station still in use today.

Per an article in the July - August, 1957 issue of Canadian Rail, all rail traffic was officially routed to the diversion effective 12:01AM, July 21, 1957, though freights had been diverted a few months earlier to break in the roadbed. Most of the old line can still be be seen on Google Earth, most of it submerged just off the shoreline. Portions of the roadbed remaining on land have been repurposed into road segments, and one section retains a few hundred feet of the original track. Alongside Highway 2 between Morrisburg and Upper Canada Village sits Grand Trunk Railway 1008, previously CN E-10-a class 2-6-0 number 88. 88 would be the last move over the original right of way in 1957, and sits with two wooden passenger cars alongside the relocated Aultsville train station. Aultsville being one of the flooded villages.

The St. Lawrence Seaway would be officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II and American President Dwight D. Eisenhower on June 26, 1959.

Al Chione Duplicate, Original Photographer Unknown, Jacob Patterson Collection Slide.