Last Train On The CASO Line

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• I recall this as double track, later reduced to single, yet there is no trace on either shoulder of there ever having been another track. Odd that a CP and CN engine worked together, or was this near the tunnel, and was it a joint operation? Who owns the tunnel now, and how do the various railways approach it? Is it used much?
  No wonder there are so many freight vehicles on our highways if there is now no Canada-Michigan freight trains. Last visited Wdsr in 1987 so guess I need updating. Toronto & York division of CRHA never mentions southwestern Ontario.

• This was a double track up until the early 1980's. These photos were taken a mile east of Ruscom.

• WoW a soon to be multi-use Rail Trail for Essex County!

• The top photo could serve as fodder for a rumour of a massive merger in the railway industry.

• CP owns the tunnel now, They plan on building a new larger tunnel to handle larger cars.
  The tunnel is busy, lots of freight traffic cross border, main route from Chicago to Toronto, and Montreal.
  CNs main cross border trains use the tunnel in Sarnia. Transfers in Windsor from CN or CP are handled by Essex Terminal.
  Just in time delivery puts to many trucks on the road, and only long distance hauls on the rails, two locomotive pulling 80-100 cars is cheaper and enviromentaly better than 80-100 trucks

• I believe CP now only owns approximately 15% of this tunnel. At one time CN and CP owned equal shares (purchased from Conrail). Subsequently, CN sold its share to Borealis Transportation. A few years ago, CP sold off some of its shares to Borealis. Consequently, Borealis now owns most of the tunnel and are seeking to build a new and larger one.

• Pinstripes
  Where exactly is Ruscom,so I can find it on the map?

• In June 2009, Borealis Transportation Infrastructure Trust (part of Ontario Muncipal Employees Retirement System)increased its stake in the tunnel to 83.5% from 50%. At the same time, Canadian Pacific Railway Company reduced its interest to 16.5% from 50%.

• I remember being at Pelton interlocking way back in the 70's and watched the Amtrak Niagara Rainbow coming into windsorthis was the Detroit /Buffalo passenger trainyears ago just south of the CP?/ETR Tecumseh Rd grade crossing there was a tack that conected the CASO to the CP yard a couple times a week Chessie would send an interchange train from Detroit and it would use this track to get into the CP yard when this track was removed the chessie would com thru the tunnel go as far as howard ave then back into CP'S yard via the Lakeshore yard track my cousin was an engineer for CN and told me about 15years ago that CP/CN were talking about a merger of the two companies maybe

• i guess now that this has happened the only original streach of the original CASO will be between Vandewater yard and the Pelton spur it's a dam shame what CN did to the CASO and the old C&O alot of local rail history on these lines... so sad