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Caption: This is different. Initially I was not going to post this image, but I was convinced there may be a few of you out there in the Hamilton/Burlington area that might find this interesting. I am on the new Fairview Av overpass looking northwest. The old Burlington West CN station is in the center background, and the Hercules Chemical plant is on the left. The CN Oakville sub runs east-west in the background. "In front" of the station is the former "yard"...there was a few industries there that were serviced by both CN and also CP, which had permission over CN into the diminutive yard. I forget whom they switched, but it probably was Hercules. You can see on the left of the photo the number of tank cars indicating they were an important customer of the railroads back then. The track that runs below me on the left is now only a stub, just enough for plant switching. The line used to run from the connection at Burlington West all the way down to Stoney Creek where it connected with the Grimsby Sub near Lake St. The line was severed around 1970 when the QEW Traffic Circle that it ran over top of, was removed. The line then ended at Lang's (Frozen) Foods. That building still stands by Confederation Park. The whole of the Beach line was removed by late 1983. In the foreground of this photo, almost dead center, stands the Mandarin Restaurant today.
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Beach sub was double track through Burlington too and still double track for what remains.. still in place – hasn’t changed since ’84 when they stub ended it.
I note the approach signal is still there in your photo by the boxcar – I don’t think it’s there now.
Thanks for sharing – I would have been visiting this area a few years later to watch trains as a kid. I Move to Burlington in ’85 or ’86.
Steve: I have another view of this area looking south-east from the Fairview bridge showing the double track down to around Ontario St/Maple where the Nicholson Lumber plant was situated before it was destroyed in a spectacular fire in 1974. Further on the line was all single track by 1970s. The Beach Line was once on the outskirts of Burlington’s west side. And a wooden station once stood at Ontario St as well.
I traveled over the Beach Sub in a Budd car excursion somewhere around 1975, I think. dammed if I can find the slides of it though.
They did a runpast over the canal bridge.
Another great shot there Arnold! Hard to believe how much everything has been built up commercially…at least the station survives just to the left of you in this photo beside the fire station on Fairview.
Someone will pull Beach sub excursion photos – i’ve seen more than enough of them at shows. I believe they also went down the Milton Town spur on same excursion too – a N&NW extravaganza.