Train stations remembered as community hubs

As published in Sideroads Magazine

In the railroad boom of the late 1800s, four companies built an ambitious web of steel among villages between Georgetown and Orangeville.

The local train station became the new community hub – a meeting place where farmers and millers would ship products, visitors could arrive without a grueling stagecoach ride, shops would receive efficient deliveries and residents might gather to get election results by telegraph.

A scale model of the CVR station at Forks of the Credit, part of a model 

landscape created by Erin rail enthusiast Steve Revell. Photo - Phil Gravelle

As rails emanated from the economic powerhouse of Toronto, the first train station in Peel County was in Bolton. It was on the Toronto Grey and Bruce (TG&B) line that headed west starting in 1869.

In 1908, Bolton became a major junction point for a new line running north through Palgrave and up to Sudbury – an all-rail route to the western provinces.

In order to reach Caledon Village, TG&B builders had to climb Caledon Mountain. They designed the Horseshoe Curve, where the rail line doubled back on itself to gradually gain altitude. Trains could only climb with five rail cars per engine.

The Great Horseshoe Wreck killed seven people in 1907 when a Canadian National Exhibition excursion special came down the Curve too fast and derailed.

The TG&B brought passenger rail service to Orangeville in 1871 and it was to last 100 years. Within six months, Orangeville was shipping up to 16 loads of grain a day as well as timber, lumber, and fence rails. In the 1880s a stagecoach ferried visitors to and from the railway station on Mill Street and the hotels and businesses along Broadway. 

A scale model of the Orangeville CPR station and rail yard 

created by Steve Revell. 

The Orangeville CPR Station was moved to Armstrong Street in 1989 

and is now home to the Barley Vine Rail Co. restaurant and bar. 

Photo - Elizabeth Willmott

The smoke of three steam engines can be seen as this train blasts north 

out of Orangeville in the mid 1950s. The extra horsepower was needed 

for the steep grade up to Fraxa Junction. Photo - Robert Sandusky

The TG&B was taken over by Canadian Pacific (CP) in 1884. In 1907, they built a new Orangeville station on the east side of the rail yard on Townline. The distinctive conical roof resembling a witch’s hat covered a waiting room that once had separate sections for men and women. It is one of only three stations in Canada constructed in this exact style. 

In 1989, to avoid demolition, it was moved to Armstrong Street and converted to commercial use. The nearby rail yard bunkhouse and lunch bar, built in 1943, burned down in 2006.

Just past Orangeville was Fraxa Junction, where a northern branch of the TG&B carried on through Shelburne, reaching Owen Sound in 1873.

A scale model of the Fraxa Junction station on the TG&B line
just west of Orangeville, created by Steve Revell.

Elizabeth Willmot, in her book Meet Me at the Station, says people would gather along that line to see the Steamship Express headed north. This train was considered glamorous because passengers would later sail out of Owen Sound harbor, headed for Sault Ste. Marie.

The passenger office at the original two-storey Shelburne station, 

on the Orangeville-Owen Sound line. It was replaced during Canadian 

Pacific’s modernization and upgrading program, carried out in the 1910s.

Photo - Dufferin County Museum

About 10 miles north of Orangeville was Crombies station, a tiny board and batten building where travellers would wave a green and white flag to get trains to stop. It is preserved at the Dufferin County Museum.

The Crombies flag stop station north of Orangeville.

Photo - Elizabeth Willmot

The Credit Valley Railway (CVR) served an area west of the TG&B. It had a route from Streetsville through Cheltenham, Inglewood and Alton, ending at Orangeville. Alton had a CVR station in the village, plus a TG&B station a mile’s walk away. 

CPR steam engine 183 rolls into Forks of Credit station in 1905.

 The station was between the tracks and the road, near 

the trestle bridge over the Credit River.

The handsome brick union station in Inglewood, 1954, serving both 

the CNR Milton and the CPR Streetsville subdivisions. 

Published in Steam at Allandale by Ian Wilson, 1998.

Photo - Robert Sandusky

Cataract Junction Station in the 1890s, published in 1980 by Boston Mills 

Press in Running Late on the Bruce, by Ralph Beaumont and James Filby. 

This was the point on the Credit Valley Railroad line to Orangeville 

where a branch line split off towards Elora, passing through Erin, 

Hillsburgh, Orton and Fergus. It is now the Elora Cataract Trailway.

At Cataract, the 47-km Elora Branch of the CVR split off towards Erin and Hillsburgh. The CVR was never financially secure, and like the TG&B, it was taken over and revitalized by CP in 1884. In Orangeville, the CVR station on East Broadway in the Credit flats was abandoned in favour of the TG&B station.

For the past 18 years, Cando Rail Services has used the old CVR route to run scenic Credit Valley Explorer excursions and freight deliveries between Orangeville and Mississauga. The firm recently announced it is ending these services, and a new operator is being sought.

The arrival of the railroad prompted incorporation of the Village of Erin in 1879. The simple wood frame train station was a combination passenger and freight depot, with a grain elevator and coal dealership nearby.

In the early 1900s it was often busy with train excursions for sporting events, dances, boating and cottaging at Stanley Park, a major tourist attraction.

Erin CPR station in 1909, as published in Early History of the Township of Erin 

by The Boston Mills Press.

“The railway was more of a convenience than a stimulus for economic growth,” said Steve Revell, in A Brief History of Erin Village. “Passenger service was limited after the Crash of 1929 and abandoned in 1958. The station was demolished in 1971, the last train left in 1987 and the rails were lifted in 1988.”

The Hillsburgh station was built on the west side of the millpond created by the Gooderham and Worts dam. A station road and bridge had to be built over the dam to connect with the village. 

The Hillsburgh station and grain elevator in 1884. 

Published in 1977 by The Boston Mills Press, in Steam Trains to the Bruce 

by Ralph Beaumont.

The station burned down in 1932, and a new small building was erected in 1933. In that year, service on the branch was cut from four daily trains to two, one going from Orangeville to Elora at 11:30 a.m. and one returning about 5:00 p.m.

In its later years, the HIllsburgh station became a flagstop on the CPR branch 

line from Cataract to Elora, which opened in 1879. 

The rails were lifted in 1988.

The Caledon area was also served by the Hamilton and North-Western Railway line running through Georgetown to Barrie (later owned by Grand Trunk and CN) starting in 1877.

Along what is now the Caledon Trailway, there were stations at Terra Cotta, Cheltenham, Caledon East, Centreville and Palgrave. There was a “union station” at Inglewood (Sligo Junction) where it intersected the Credit Valley line.

With a gas lantern lighting its train order board, the Cheltenham station 

was typical of those on southern Ontario branchlines. In October of 1952, 

it saw two daily passenger trains. Published in Steam at Hallandale 

by Ian Wilson, 1998. Photo - Robert Sandusky

The Caledon East Grand Trunk station in the mid-1950s. 

Published in Steam Scenes of Allandale by Ian Wilson, 2007.

Photo - William Flatt

The Grand Trunk Railway built a Georgetown station on its Toronto to Guelph Line in 1858 with attractive stone construction and unique woodwork. It was taken over by CN in 1923.

Steam engine at Georgetown CN station in the 1950s. 

Published in Steam Scenes of Allandale by Ian Wilson, 2007.

Photo - Keith Simon

In his book Steam Scenes of Allandale, Ian Wilson reports that Georgetown remained busy through the 1950s with 14 passenger train arrivals and departures on most days. It became a VIA Rail station in 1977 when CN and CP merged passenger service, and GO train commuter service started the following year.

The Georgetown train station remains well used today.

The role of train stations has certainly changed, but they are key to understanding how small rural communities once flourished as industrial centres in a bold new country.

Museum offers rides on antique streetcars

As published in The Erin Advocate

It was a bit spooky, wandering through the maze of antique streetcars, in the huge display barn at the Halton County Radial Railway Museum just south of Rockwood. The best of them have been protected and restored like works of art, while others remain outdoors to face the elements.

The museum is on Guelph Line in Milton, but it is just 25 minutes from Erin and makes for an interesting excursion. It is a non-profit education centre and tourist attraction, complete with gift shop and streetcar ice cream parlour, operated there since 1972.

There has been interest lately in LRT (Light Rail Transit) for urban areas – a new rail and rapid bus corridor was approved just a few weeks ago for Waterloo-Kitchener-Cambridge. But less well-known is that there was once a system of inter-city electric trains, radiating like spokes out of Toronto.

One of these radial lines, opened in 1917 by the Toronto Suburban Railway company, went to Guelph, via Meadowvale, Churchville (Eldorado Park), Georgetown, Limehouse, Acton and Rockwood. It was bought and subsidized by Canadian National Railways, but it never had commercial success and was discontinued on August 15, 1931. The Guelph Hiking Trail Club now maintains a 33 km route on the rail bed, as a link to the Bruce Trail in Limehouse.

The museum has rebuilt a section of line and overhead power supply, so they can test their collection of about 75 vehicles. They offer guests a 20 minute ride through the forest, with an attractive park at the east-end loop.

The collection includes streetcars, subway cars, trolley coaches, locomotives, box cars, cabooses, rail grinders and snow plows. There's even a bus from the Hamilton Street Railway, in the old rounded style that I used to take to high school.

Many cities used to have belt lines – rail loops through their busiest areas. The Niagara Gorge Belt Line operated from Niagara Falls to Queenston on both the U.S. and Canadian sides of the river, from 1893 to 1935, carrying up to 17,000 passengers a day. Toronto's radial railways did not go into downtown Toronto, and ultimately could not compete with standard freight trains or the expanded highway system and the conveniences offered by bus transportation.


I took a ride on Car 327, a streetcar with open sides and running boards. It is a replica built by the TTC for Toronto's centennial in 1934, with components salvaged from the original #327, built in 1892. The conductor would walk along the running board with a tin cup to collect the fares, and people would often hop on and off while it was still moving. Such vehicles were taken out of service about 1915, because of the dangers posed by that other horseless invention, which remains popular today.

The most striking aspect of the interiors of the older cars are the wooden fixtures, varnished and glowing, with attention to detail that has become unfashionable or too expensive to maintain in more modern settings. There is also some impressive woodwork in the old Rockwood train station, purchased from the town in 1971 and moved to the museum.

The Ontario Electric Railway Historical Association was formed in 1953 by a group of men who wanted to save a Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) streetcar from being sent to the scrap yard. Eventually, they started the museum, which is now open on weekends from May to October, and daily in the summer. Go to www.hcry.org for details, including school programs and special events. There is an archive of drawings, photographs, uniforms, maps and books, which are available for research.

For those with a general interest in trains, there are museums across Canada, the largest being the Canadian Railway Museum (Exporail) south of Montreal. I have visited a few, and can recommend the Museum of Science and Technology in Ottawa, and the Canadian Museum of Rail Travel in Cranbrook, BC, particularly notable for its preservation of intricate inlaid woodwork in the luxury cars.

Here are some more photos from my visit:

Active Transportation Plan will get assets moving

As published in The Erin Advocate

Gill Penalosa cut to the heart of the matter last week, in a discussion of Erin's future transportation needs: How do we really want to live? Are we content with a car-dominated culture, or are we prepared to demand an infrastructure that values walking, cycling and other modes of human-powered locomotion?

"It's not about the money, it's about having the vision," said Penalosa, an internationally renowned liveable city advisor, speaking at a series of workshops throughout Wellington County. An audience that included business people, environmentalists, trails enthusiasts and town councillors attended the session at Centre 2000, part of an initiative to develop a Wellington Active Transportation Plan.

"It's time to build alliances, to get everybody working together – it might not be easy," said Penalosa. "We've got to develop a sense of urgency. We have to make the best quality of life – the general interest must prevail. We need to make walking and cycling a normal part of life."

Penalosa is the Executive Director of 8-80cities, a Toronto-based non-profit group that promotes healthy, people-oriented communities. Their name is based on the strategy of designing public areas that are not only safe and comfortable for able-bodied adults, but also for eight-year-olds and 80-year-olds. Check out www.8-80cities.org.

An Active Transportation Plan (a process that is already well-advanced in nearby regions) provides a guide for future development that could, for example, require adequate bike lanes when roads come up for reconstruction. It a joint initiative of the County, local municipalities and the Health Unit, which is concerned about rates of obesity, heart disease and other consequences of inadequate levels of physical activity.

Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health already sponsors the "WDG in motion" initiative, with a mandate to “create a culture of physical activity” in the region, according to their website, www.wdginmotion.ca. If you have ideas for the Active Transportation Plan, you can write to Karen Armstrong, In Motion Coordinator at the Health Unit: karen.armstrong@wdghu.org. A consultant will be hired next year to work on the project.

It will be on a broad scaler than other related efforts, such as a Trails Master Plan for Erin, which is also being discussed. As with all such plans, they should not be used as an excuse for doing nothing until the plan is complete. If there is a consensus on the need for a certain project, it should proceed. The bias needs to be in favour of action.

Here are some of the ideas being floated to create a better environment for pedestrians and cyclists. The fact that some have been floating about for decades, but never achieved, does not make them less worthy of consideration.

• A bypass to take traffic, especially trucks, away from the downtown core of Erin village. This was mentioned by many participants at the workshop as a major factor in improving safety and quality of life in the village.

• Cross-walks or traffic lights to improve safety and discourage vehicle traffic.

• Improved off-street parking and elimination of some on-street parking to create a bike lane, with a concrete curb or barrier between the cars and the bikes.

• Improved trails, including a bridge over the river to link McMillan Park with the Woollen Mills Trail, a loop route on the water tower hill, a link from Stanley Park to Elora-Cataract rail trail, a loop including the rail trail in Hillsburgh and improved access to Barbour Field.

• Pedestrian-based areas of retail stores, restaurants and offices close to the downtown cores. Any significant redevelopment would require a sewage system.

• Bike lanes on selected rural roads to create a network among various destinations. Increased construction costs would be offset by the fact that wider roads last longer.

• A boardwalk along downtown sections of the river. The fact that some of this land is now privately owned would make such a project more complicated, but not impossible.

• Better bicycle parking areas in public places and at schools.

• Bus service to neighbouring municipalities.

• More parks and renewal of existing parks to make them more appealing to the public.

• More closures of downtown streets to vehicle traffic for special events on weekends.

• More local employment to reduce the rate of long-distance commuting.

Of course, in a town where the majority of residents live outside the urban areas and work elsewhere, cars and trucks will remain a necessity for many people. But we can still give higher priority to "active" transportation, and enjoy a better quality of life as a result.

Erin could be an oasis in Ontario landscape

As published in The Erin Advocate

Is resistance futile? Is the charming small town about to be assimilated by the urban monster as it stretches out its tentacles? Is it already too late?

The answer to all three questions is "No" – for now, at least. When people in Erin look to the south, they have good reason to be skeptical of development. High-traffic routes are plastered with fast-food joints, car dealerships, shopping centres and gas stations. The subdivisions seem endless.

Are there any role models we can look to, places that have preserved their small-town charm and local economy in the face of urban sprawl?

If you ask people why they moved here, whether it be to a small village house or a huge recreational farm, most will say it was to escape from that urban environment. Many define Erin by what it is not – in other words, not like Brampton, Milton, Georgetown or even Orangeville.

Some have told me they will move away if Erin village becomes more urbanized, which is sad perhaps, but not as sad as living passively in an uncomfortable environment. Maybe they will only have to move to Hillsburgh.

I've been reading up on highway development and attending community liaison meetings as part of the Town's Settlement and Servicing Master Plan (SSMP) process. Naturally, people have different ideas about how to resist the undesirable aspects of development.

One strategy is to oppose virtually all change. It will be too expensive, too disruptive for some residents and local businesses, too much of a threat to our white, middle-class culture. Are we willing to pay the price of doing nothing: polluted water, traffic congestion, an exodus of seniors, lack of local jobs and valuable land sitting idle? Do we accept, with resentment, only what is forced upon us?

Change will come – just look at the last 50 years. Wouldn't it be better to choose the changes we want, resist the negative trends we see in other towns, and create something special? It may seem idealistic, but if we come up with a vision that reflects the common values of the community, good things are more likely to actually happen.

That is what the Town is trying to do with the SSMP. After a series of consultations, our well-paid consulting firm is now going to write a proposed vision statement. They will be studying an environmental report from Credit Valley Conservation, and coming up with a Problem/Opportunity Statement that will be discussed at a public meeting in March. To find out more, and to add your views to the mix, go to www.erin.ca and click the "Defining Erin" link.

Gone are the days of an unquestioned need for development. In 1864, 200 Erin residents packed the Sportsman's Hotel to demand that the county gravel the road to Guelph – better to pay tolls than be stuck in the mud. Back in the 1870s, did anyone question the value of running a railroad through Erin? Did anyone regret the transformation of our economy, or resent the flood of weekend tourists coming to Stanley Park?

Erin is a desirable destination, but not as a place for huge numbers to live. I do not think a 400-series highway east of Guelph will be justified in the next 30 years, but no matter what is done, traffic will always expand to fill the available capacity. We may need County Road 124 widened to four lanes, plus a four-lane route south on Winston Churchill, east on Olde Baseline and south on Mississauga Road. This would move traffic down to Mayfield Road without a fresh cut through the escarpment, linking it to the proposed "Halton Peel Freeway" that would go to Highways 401 and 407.

Now that Erin is a well-known destination, a bypass for through traffic will be beneficial, helping our tourist trade and industrial growth, while protecting key areas from excessive traffic.

In this century, if we are both smart and fortunate, Erin will become an oasis in the Southern Ontario landscape. Within the protected Greenbelt there will be no "urban sprawl", and our tightly limited urban areas will have the opportunity to become even better living spaces.

We need a small number of new homes (including the affordable variety), better shopping, better social services, better recreation facilities and more light industry to provide jobs and tax revenue. It is not too much to hope for, and certainly worthy of a concerted community effort.

Major highway would harm Erin and escarpment

As published in The Erin Advocate

Would you rather have a major highway cutting through southern Erin, or an expansion of County Road 124 to four lanes from Guelph to Caledon, including a bypass of Erin village?

Those are just two of many options being considered by the Ministry of Transportation (MTO), figuring out how to move people and freight between Guelph and Highway 400 as the population of Southern Ontario grows. It may be 10-20 years before any new highways are built, but preferred routes and strategies will be chosen in the next few months.

Erin is on the northern fringe of the GTA West study area. The third round of public information sessions was held recently, part of an Environmental Assessment looking at improved public transit, rail service and roads. There will be more sessions next year, after the preferred routes are chosen.

The road options fall into two groups. The first involves widening existing routes like County Road 124, Highway 7, Trafalgar Road and Mayfield Road, and building bypasses around urban areas. The second is "New Transportation Corridors" – major highways, complete with separate, dedicated bus lanes.

The planning at this stage is based solely on the forecast demand for transportation by 2031, without regard for impact on people and the land. Details about how to minimize the damage will be determined later, as will the exact routes.

One issue for planners is the volume of traffic that will flow from Kitchener-Waterloo to Guelph on an expanded Highway 7. Do they channel most of it south on the Hanlon Expressway, or build a major new highway through a Northern Corridor, between Acton and Erin village? The project would cut a new path through the Niagara Escarpment, allowing the highway to run east near Mayfield Road to join Highway 410.

Three other major highway corridor paths are being studied, all running south of Georgetown. They would link the 410-Mayfield route either with Highway 407 at Winston Churchill, with Milton, or with Highway 6 by running parallel to Highway 401 through Puslinch (see map).

I asked MTO Senior Transportation Planner Jin Wang what the impact would be on County Road 124 if the Northern Corridor is chosen for a major highway. He said there would be no need to upgrade 124 to four lanes. "We would do one or the other," he said.

My property lies within the fuzzy-edged potential Northern Corridor, but I can still say objectively that any benefits from a major highway through Erin would not justify the cost – in dollars, environment damage or social disruption.

As the MTO documents note, it would affect the rural character of communities, disrupt escarpment and Greenbelt lands, break up farms, destroy prime farmland, generate more noise and light in the countryside and have the "potential to impact cultural features near Ballinafad and Cheltenham."

If the Northern Corridor is chosen, the uprising of public opposition will make the multi-million dollar battle over the Rockfort Quarry seem like a minor skirmish. (Will the government be inclined to allow construction of a quarry, knowing that it could provide the material needed to build its web of highways?)

The loss of farmland south of Georgetown would be regrettable, but it would make more sense to forge a major highway link with the 407 or with Milton, and simply widen County Road 124 in the north. That would avoid a new cut through the escarpment, although it could mean expanding Highway 401 to 14 lanes near Milton. Lanes could be also added to other existing roads if more capacity was needed to move traffic between Erin and the Mayfield Road corridor.

As for a bypass around Erin village, it may not be a local decision if the government decides it is needed to serve the needs of the provincial economy. The MTO is well aware that bypasses "may reduce exposure for businesses in existing built-up areas", but eventually there could be so much truck traffic between Guelph and Alliston that a bypass will be a necessity.

If you want to stay informed or submit your comments to the MTO planners, go to www.gta-west.com.

Deer Pit storm water headed for Credit

As published in The Erin Advocate

Work has started on a project to drain storm water from Erin's Deer Pit into the Credit River at the Tenth Line, solving a drainage problem that dates back to construction of the railroad.

Located north of Centre 2000 near the Elora-Cataract Trail, the Deer Pit is a low-lying area of Town-owned land. Surface water from a 451-acre zone, including Main Street storm sewers, the industrial subdivision and farmland well north of County Road 124, drains to the Deer Pit, but has nowhere to go.

The ability of the pit to absorb the water is declining, so a plan to flow it east to join the Credit River system was made ten years ago, with a price tag of $800,000. The expenditure was never approved, and now the cost will be $1.21 million.

The Town is proceeding with the help of infrastructure funding announced this year. The federal and provincial governments will each pay one-third of the cost, and Erin will use money held in reserves to pay its share, said Town Manager Lisa Hass.

Long-known for its dirt bike trails, the Deer Pit is actually an old quarry. A spur line of the Credit Valley Railroad (later Canadian Pacific) was completed in 1879, linking Cataract, Erin, Hillsburgh and Elora. A short siding had been built into the Deer Pit to haul out ballast – stone and gravel needed to build the rail bed further down the line.

Local historian Steve Revell said a second siding was built on the other side of the rail line, through what is now Centre 2000, for a small quarry near the current baseball diamond. (The area beyond the outfield is another prime candidate for improved drainage – it is now a stagnant pond, covered in algae and strewn with garbage.)

The federal government website on this project (Google: Deer Pit) says it will "help mitigate flooding in neighbouring residential developments and recreational areas".

Hass said that while moving the surface water could reduce the risk of basement flooding in the May Street area, there is no guarantee it will help. Flooding has been due to underground water, not directly from water in the Deer Pit, she said.

The new Deer Pit will still have a natural appearance. The western half will have an improved ditch, but large storms could still soak the whole area. The eastern half will be carved into a more formal "pool" area, with a layer of clay trucked in to reduce infiltration of water into the ground. Water will flow into a forebay next to the school's sewage treatment plant, then through a wetland and into a deep pool (five feet deep). There will be no fencing.

This will "treat" the water, by allowing dirt from the industrial area to settle out before it flows to the river. If the industrial park were being built now, it would be required to have its own storm water treatment facility, said Hass. The sewage plant does not discharge into the Deer Pit; the effluent goes to a tile field back on the south side of the trailway.

From the Deer Pit, a controlled flow of water will go into a pipe buried 3-10 feet directly under the trailway, over to the Tenth Line. It will go south a short distance under the road and discharge into a tributary of the West Credit River. The outlet will disperse the water flow, reducing impact on the stream, which joins the main branch of the river near the Woollen Mills Conservation Area.

An access road has been built from Erin Park Drive to bring in equipment and clay. Roads Superintendent Larry Van Wyck plans to start the pipe work late this winter, before the spring thaw, with most of the project done by early summer and final landscaping / cleanup by September.

Forks of the Credit Park combines hiking & history

As published in The Erin Advocate

Just a few minutes east of Erin is one of the most interesting places to learn about the Credit River, and how its power was harnessed to build up the local economy more than 100 years ago.

Forks of the Credit Provincial Park is a protected oasis in a section of Caledon along Charleston Sideroad that has been virtually stripped bare by aggregate mining.

Quarries are part of the local history, since they were key to the settlements at Credit Forks and Brimstone, east of Belfountain. The maroon sandstone used to build the Ontario parliament buildings and Old City Hall in Toronto was extracted in this area.

A drive along Forks of the Credit Road will take you past the south end of the provincial park, where the West Credit, flowing from Erin, meets the main Credit River, flowing south from Alton, then on to Inglewood, Cheltenham and Terra Cotta. The main entrance to the park is at the north-west corner – along Charleston, just past Cataract Road (Coulterville), turn south on McLaren Road.

Forks of the Credit is a "natural environment" provincial park, open all year, covering 282 hectares. There are no staff at the gate, but parking will cost you $3 for two hours, $5 for four hours, or $11 for the whole day. There is no camping or intensive recreation – just picnicking, fishing, cycling, hiking, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing.

The network of trails takes you through rolling hills, past Kettle Lake (created by glaciation), and into wooded areas near the river. It can take an hour to hike to Cataract village, including some steep grades.

The most direct route to the park from Erin is the Elora-Cataract Trailway, part of the Trans-Canada Trail, the remains of a branch rail line of the Credit Valley Railway from 1879. It was later bought by Canadian Pacific, and the main track still runs up the valley to Orangeville.

You can also enter the park from the south along the Bruce Trail. It winds from Belfountain, past the Forks, up Dominion Road through Brimstone, then along the river to Church's Falls – one of the region's scenic highlights, where the Credit tumbles 45 feet down from a rocky shelf.

Originally developed in 1820 as a salt mine and saw mill, the nearby village was originally called Gleniffer. It lay abandoned for 20 years before Richard Church re-established it as Church's Falls in 1858. The name was changed to Cataract when the railway arrived. The village is just outside the park, to the west of the river.

In the late 1800s, Cataract had a saw mill, grist mill, a woollen factory, barrel-head manufacturing, a large general store and two hotels. In 1885, John Deagle bought the mill at the top of the falls, and converted it into an electrical generating station that powered Cataract.

Eventually, he approached Erin (eight kilometres away) with a business plan, and in November 1899, the village enjoyed the glow of streetlights for the first time.

A Boston Mills Press book called Cataract and the Forks of the Credit, by Ralph Beaumont, tells of Deagle's pioneering electrical design work. He was also building a huge tunnel from Cataract Lake (his mill pond), to a point downstream, in hopes of doubling his energy output.

That project was abandoned after heavy rain and melting ice burst the Alton dam on April 6-7, 1912, sending a surge of water and debris down the Credit that destroyed the dam for Bell's Flour Mill (near Charleston Sideroad), and not only wiped out Deagle's Dam, but a section of Dominion Road that has never been replaced. The Erin Advocate reported that another dam and a bridge were destroyed near Credit Forks.

Deagle rebuilt his dam, and sold the operation in the 1920s for $50,000. Ontario Hydro eventually bought the plant, power lines and rights-of-way in 1944, then closed the plant as uneconomical in 1947. There were plans to make Cataract Lake a tourist area, but the CPR feared the water might undermine its rail bed, so the dam was dynamited in 1953 and the lake disappeared.

The ruins of the mill were heavily fenced off after a number of hikers lost their lives in the falls. It is just as well, for while the ruins may be interesting, they are not attractive. The grafitti-decorated plant walls and the reinforced riverbank below the rail line are concrete scars on an otherwise spectacular landscape.

A good time to revive shuttle to GO Station

As published in The Erin Advocate

A reliable shuttle bus to the Georgetown GO Station would be a valuable service for people in Erin. It would improve access to employment for those without a vehicle, and provide a commuting alternative that is easier on the environment.

GO Transit is planning major improvements in the next few years, with more frequent service, and trains to Acton, Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo and Pearson International Airport.

A shuttle was operated for many years by Denny Bus Lines, but it was discontinued about ten years ago when regular ridership dwindled to just two or three people, said Operations Manager Joyce Marshall. There was one run in the morning and one in the evening, serving both Hillsburgh and Erin village, timed to match the GO train schedule.

"We would revive it – we would need at least ten people who would use it every day," she said. If you have a possible interest in such a service, give her a call at 519-833-9117, so she can get an idea of how many are interested, and which train departure is most popular.

Denny's currently runs a Thursday-only service, linking Orangeville, Erin village, Hillsburgh and the Stone Road Mall in Guelph. The company recently lost a few of its traditional school bus routes in a bidding process, so the timing might be right for a new venture.

Mayor Rod Finnie floated the idea of a GO link last September when Town Council was considering how to spend its infrastructure funding. Nothing has come of it, but he likes the idea of partnering with a private company.

"If we take advantage of existing resources, it may be possible," he said.

It is too early to say what the fare might be, but it would be a lot less than the $30-$35 it now costs for a taxi ride from Erin village to the GO Station.

If the Ontario government wanted to boost GO ridership, reduce the pressure on GO parking lots and get more cars off the roads, it could actually subsidize shuttle services for communities close to the train routes.

No one expects a town the size of Erin to set up a municipal transit system, or to provide major subsidies to a private enterprise. But there may be an opportunity for the Town to help in the start-up, coordination and promotion of a shuttle service, which would clearly be in the public interest. The Town could add some prestige to the project, without incurring major costs.

Wellington-Halton Hills MPP Ted Arnott has been lobbying hard for extension of GO train service from Georgetown to Acton, Guelph and Kitchener-Waterloo. Guelph-Eramosa is also pushing for a Rockwood station. (There were trains to Acton and Guelph starting in 1990, but they were discontinued in 1993 as a cost-cutting measure.)

In February, the federal and provincial governments announced shared funding of $500 million for GO Transit improvements. In March, $30 million was allocated to widening the rail bridge over the Credit River east of Georgetown, to enable addition of a new second track on that route and provide capacity for a third line in the future.

This will eliminate a major bottleneck in the system. Environmental assessments and design work have been done, and construction should be completed late in 2010, but extended train service will still not be in place until at least a year after that.

In other developments, GO Transit has spent $160 million to buy the CN rail line in north-west Toronto that carries the Georgetown GO trains, VIA passenger trains and CN freight service. The Ontario government also has a long-range plan to build a new, 5-kilometre spur line to Pearson Airport, to enable a link with Union Station.

On a typical weekday, GO runs 183 train trips (180,000 passengers) and more than 2,000 bus trips (35,000 passengers) – taking more than 90,000 cars off the roads.

By 2020, GO ridership outside the Toronto core is expected to triple, according to GO's strategic plan. Their goal is to provide two-way, all-day service in their core service area by 2020, with a train or bus departure every 15 minutes during peak periods, and every 30 minutes in off-peak times (on primary corridors).

Erin could become an exit on a major new highway

As published in The Erin Advocate

Within 30 years, Erin could be ensnared in Southern Ontario's ever-widening web of major highways.

Erin is in the middle of a huge C-shaped district called the Greater Golden Horseshoe, curving from the Niagara River up through Kitchener and east to Peterborough. Erin is also in the Greenbelt area, and while the Town is not flagged as a growth centre in Ontario's Places to Grow plan, it is located between places that may need to be connected.

Starting with the QEW, the highway grid wraps around Lake Ontario. For routes like Hwys 403 and 407, the land corridors were reserved decades in advance. Now, Ontario's transportation planners are hard at work on the next strands of the web.

The Ministry of Transportation has conceptual plans for an outer band of limited-access highways. They would not necessarily be 400-series, at least not at first. For the district between Kitchener and Brampton, how will Ontario maintain an efficient east-west flow of goods once no more lanes can be added to Hwy 401? What is the best solution for all those trucks rumbling along Main Street in Erin village?

I attended an information session in Georgetown recently, hosted by a Ministry of Transportation study team for the "GTA West Corridor". They are looking ahead 20 to 30 years, as the area experiences a huge increase in population and economic activity.

By 2031, the population of Erin is only expected to grow by about 3,500 people. But Guelph will gain more than 30,000, and there will be at least 200,000 more in Waterloo Region and 320,000 more in Peel. If new highways are needed, the MTO wants to reserve the land soon.

A formal Environmental Assessment has been launched for the area from Hwy 401 up to the south part of Erin and Caledon, and from Guelph to Highway 400. It will "examine long-term transportation problems and opportunities and consider alternative solutions to provide better linkages between Urban Growth Centres".

They are identifying issues at this stage, and want your views – go to www.gta-west.com. For a taste of the opposition, try www.shiftontario.org, an alliance of groups working to "pry provincial transportation planners away from their road-building bias".

Of course, there is plenty of talk about rail transport and public transit, but inevitably the focus is on highways. The MTO approach is incremental: make the best use of current roads, look for non-road solutions, widen roads in existing corridors, and as a last resort, build new roads.

Apart from urban zones, the major obstacle to an East-West highway is the highly-protected Niagara Escarpment, which runs North-South. To minimize environmental impact, a major highway would likely use an existing corridor through the Escarpment.

Ministry staff would not speculate about a route, but you and I are free to do so. If a new highway is needed, here is my scenario, set in the late 2030's, based on the broad "conceptual" transportation corridor in the 2006 Places to Grow plan.

From Kitchener, the new highway could come to Guelph along Hwy. 7, bypass the city to the north, then cut east, crossing Wellington 124. It could bypass Rockwood and Acton, run parallel to Hwy 7, then join Trafalgar Road near Silver Creek to descend the Escarpment. To avoid Georgetown, it would have to cut east between Glen Williams and the Escarpment, then run parallel to Mayfield Road over to Hwy 10, where it would be in perfect alignment with the latest section of Hwy 410.

If this route was unacceptable, the MTO could look north, perhaps punch through the escarpment between Glen Williams and Terra Cotta, or push the route more into Erin and use Mississauga Road to descend the Escarpment.

If they prefer to go further north, outside the current study area, they could run the highway along Wellington 124, bypass Erin village to the north, carry on to Caledon village, cut south to descend the Escarpment on Hwy 10, and join Hwy 410 at Snelgrove. The Caledon route would also extend the web towards the Hwy 9 corridor, providing a link with Alliston, Newmarket and Hwy 404.

If the possibility of a major highway through Erin seems unthinkable, we should look around the Greater Golden Horseshoe, and think again.