Rail Photos – 1984

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• Fantastic photos Andrew, Tim and Bob, thanks for posting. Speaking of the Ferry Seed building - I worked in that building for 6 years and have images to show you sometime. Just have to dig them up.

• The riverfront pictures depict a high volume of freight traffic. Passenger service terminus was (is) in Walkerville. Today's news headlines feature complaints from Tecumseh and Lakeshore over the resumption (without notice) of freight over the VIA lines. I can't imagine that the volume of freight even comes close to that when the riverfront was a major transfer point and I don't recall floods of complaints inthe old days. Do people nowadays just like to complain?

• That's the original roof in that shot - it was pulled off in the 90's by some jerk. They replaced it, but not with the original materials ($). Glad they replaced it though with anything so it survives to this day, great restoration. One of Albert Kahn's best. Mettewas Station Restaurant now operates out of it, does a great job using the building's atmosphere and history. Equally as good food!

• Carl: what building are you referring to that's now the restaurant?
  The Ferry Seed building looks rather handsome; shame to have had it demolished.

• Kingsville Train Station
  Albert Kahn design for Hiram Walker's end of the line at the time stop. Kingsville was Walkerville / Windsor's luxury sun parlour playground, this was the noble beuty that awaited everyone at the end of the line, then down Lansdowne to Mettewas Hotel and beaches. The restaurant is named Mettewas in tribute to the link to the long gone palace of a hotel that the station was the stop for.

• The station today - restaurant website - http://www.mettawasstation.com/

• YAY! Awesome photos, thanks for sharing!
  JBM - I heard from a CN engineer on the 7th of last month, that CN was supposed to run its last train on the CASO at the end of April. If this new traffic on the VIA line is any indication, I would say he was right. :(
  Hopefully the ROW isn't sold off, because this is the corridor we'll need for high speed rail
  when it eventually comes.
  And yeah......people just like to complain.

• It's hard to tell by the pictures, but this is the Pere Marquette/Wabash/Norfolk & Western slip, not the CN/GTW slip, right?

  I've always felt a bit sorry for the CN ferry operation, it never gets much attention. The Lansdowne was the oldest commercial sidewheel ship on the Great Lakes before the port side piston head blew off in late 1970 when she was turned into a railroad barge. Her running mate, The Huron....which is sunk in a slip (the one the Edmund Fitzgerald was launched into) in Ecorse was THE oldest operating commercial vessel on the lakes. That's the top of her stack in this picture.

  http://www.boatnerd.com/news/newpictures01/huron-heron7-31-01mn.jpg

  And here's the Huron at Brush Street.

  http://www.detroityes.com/mb/attachment.php?attachmentid=6921&d=1280079369

• Glad folks enjoy the photos.

  Aaron - last run on the CASO was this past Saturday, May 7, 2011. Video of it passing through Essex and Maidstone is on YouTube here:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txjLmLfeFKE

  CN now re-routes its Windsor freight up the old C&O at Pelton, hooks onto the CP at Walkerville / Chryslers, goes up the old Jefferson Ave bush track and then hooks onto the old Great Western / VIA line all the way to Chatham and all points east. It is really funny hearing people losing their head about how great a mystery this all suddenly is! :D
  CASO would've made a perfect high speed rail line in it's day - it was as high speed as you could get, the Wolverine and other New York Central passenger trains raced through there at top speeds on the double track speedway that was the CASO linking Detroit and Buffalo. Unfortunately, it was all pulled up east of Fargo and only Windsor - Fargo remains... soon to be, if CN gets it's wish and prevents anyone from buying it, just the int'l crossings at Buffalo and Detroit as CN would like to get rid of the Windsor - Pelton stretch and just hop on the CP after getting out of the tunnel. As is the plan that has been in place for more than 20 years since CP and CN jointly purchased the line to aquire the crossings and dismantle the highly valued line to eliminate competition. The sagging economy in the area has helped CN justify their decisions to successive hapless Canadian politicians who are easily duped into thinking "railroads = ancient history".

  Anyways, there are more photos from this trip that will eventually be presented in a future Action Hobbies Historic Train Slide Show. This excursion train made a brief cameo appearance in the first one, specifically the tail end of it making the turn south off the CASO onto the C&O at Pelton.

• nice to see the old photos of the riverfront railroad and even nicer to see the chessie gp7's and the old passenger cars