INDUSTRIAL HAMILTON: A TRAIL TO THE FUTURE
Hamilton and Northwestern Railway

Location: North and south through Ontario; 1874-1880, headquartered on Ferguson Avenue and Cannon Street, Hamilton, Ontario

The Hamilton and Northwestern Railway's ancestor, the Hamilton and Port Dover Railway (H.P.D.) was chartered by Sir Allan MacNab in 1835. The railway was to run through Ontario from Hamilton, south through Caledonia and Jarvis, to terminate at the city of Port Dover on the shore of Lake Erie. The charter was paper only, however; no construction was ever actually done. Even when the charter was revived in 1853 (by MacNab and other businessmen), it would be a few years before track was ever laid.

In 1856, H.P.D. acquired the Hamilton and Southwestern Railway company, which had been incorporated the previous year, and which planned a route almost identical to that of H.P.D. The contract to build was granted to Moore, Pierson, and Company in May of 1856, and the portion from Hamilton to Caledonia began to take shape. The most difficult part of the construction was that which ran up the Hamilton Moutain; the gradient would be one of the steepest railway routes outside of the Rocky Mountains. The capital for the project came from three of the cities through which the track would run: Hamilton contributed £50,000; Caledonia £10,000; and Walpole £15,000.

The following year, however, with the Hamilton-Caledonia portion far from complete, the H.P.D. directors voted to void the contract with Moore, Pierson, and Company (which the directors claim was won under fraudulent circumstances) and suspend operations due to dwindling funds. The City of Hamilton was unable to contribute any more capital; in fact, Hamilton itself went bankrupt in 1862.

For more than a decade, the Hamilton and Port Dover Railway lay dormant until the project was revived once again in 1869 by a group of men - including Edward Gurney, co-founder of the Gurney and Ware Scale Company - who sponsored a new company, The Hamilton and Lake Erie Railway Company (H.L.E.). The H.L.E. purchased the assets of the H.P.D., and made plans to renew the project.

In 1872, the same group of businessmen chartered the Hamilton and Northwestern Railway (H.N.W.). This new railway was to run from Hamilton, north through Georgetown, and eventually to Collingwood on the Georgian Bay, and Barrie on Lake Simcoe. Meanwhile, construction was revived on the H.L.E. route to Port Dover, and the first train ran along Ferguson Avenue in Hamilton in September, 1872.

Unfortunately, less than 30% of the people who subscribed to the H.L.E. actually paid up, so the common directors of both the H.L.E. and the H.N.W. decided to merge the two railways, to be known as the Hamilton and Northwestern Railway (H.N.W.), in 1873. Construction on the portion north of Hamilton began immediately, and the City of Hamilton - which had recovered from its previous financial difficulty due in large part to the success of the Great Western Railway - bought more stock in the project. In September of the same year, the portion from Hamilton to Jarvis (south) was opened for business. Two years later the southern line was extended to Port Dover, and by 1879, the northern lines to Collingwood and Barrie were complete.

In June, 1879, shareholders voted to merge the H.N.W. with the Northern Railway of Canada, which ran from Toronto, north to Barrie and Collingwood, and further north to Gravenhurst and Penetang. The new company, called the North and Northwestern Railway (N.N.W.) had a total of 483 miles of trackage.

The N.N.W. passenger station in Hamilton was located on the corner of King Street and Ferguson Avenue. The company had a roundhouse and a shop north of the station at Barton Street and Ferguson Avenue. Freight yards were situated west of the station, between Cannon and Barton Streets, and grain elevator stood at the top of Victoria Avenue North, on the Burlington Bay.

The trains heading northbound from the King Street station would make a left just past Cannon Street and along the Hamilton Harbour, north to Burlington and then to Beeton. At Beeton, the train could either continue northwest to Collingwood, or northeast to Barrie.

To get to Port Dover via the former H.L.E. route, the train would run south on Ferguson Avenue, then east up the Hamilton Mountain, then south again towards Rymal and Caledonia, until it reached Port Dover. Along both the north and south portions, the N.N.W. tracks would cross the tracks of several other railways, including the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Grand Trunk main line and divisions, and the Canada Southern Railway.

In 1880, the N.N.W. headquarters moved from Ferguson Avenue in Hamilton to Toronto. Eight years later, the railway was acquired by the Grand Trunk Railway (G.T.R.). The G.T.R. was interested in the N.N.W.'s valuable property in Toronto and its connection with the Canadian Pacific Railway at Penetang. The roundhouse and shop on Ferguson Avenue were closed, and the King Street Station was relegated to a status secondary to that of the G.T.R.'s Stuart Street station.

The G.T.R. was acquired itself by the Canadian National Railways (C.N.R.) in 1923. Currently (August, 2000) the former N.N.W. rails north of Hamilton have largely been abandoned, since the C.N.R. had almost identical lines of its own. The rail south of Hamilton still exists, but instead of running straight from Jarvis to Port Dover, the train makes a pitstop at the city of Simcoe. Within Hamilton, the tracks that remain are used as a C.N.R. industrial switching spur serving industries such as Stelco and Dofasco, except for the rail heading up the Mountain, which was recently bought by the Region of Hamilton-Wentworth for $1, to be used as a cycling-hiking trail. The old N.N.W. passenger station at King Street and Ferguson Avenue was demolished in 1931, and most of the tracks removed in 1991, but Ferguson Avenue between King and King William Streets has been renovated to serve as a pedestrian-friendly gathering place for festivals. As an homage to the Hamilton and Lake Erie and Hamilton and Northwestern railways, permanently open railway crossing gates have been erected at the intersections of Ferguson, King, and King William.

References:

• Clipping File - Hamilton - Railways - Hamilton and Lake Erie Railway. Special Collections, HPL.
• Clipping File - Hamilton - Railways - Hamilton and Northwestern Railway. Special Collections, HPL.
• Clipping File - Hamilton - Railways - Hamilton and Port Dover Railway. Special Collections, HPL.
• Clipping File - Hamilton - Streets - Ferguson Avenue. Special Collections, HPL.
• Cooper, Charles. Rails to the Lakes: The Story of the Hamilton and Northwestern Railway. Cheltenham, Ont.: The Boston Mills Press, 1980.
• Merrilees, Andrew. The Railways of Hamilton. An address to the Head of the Lake Historical Society. March & April, 1974.
• Picture Collection - Hamilton - Railways - Hamilton & North-Western Railway. Special Collections, HPL.
• Statutes Relating to the Hamilton and North-Western and Hamilton and Lake Erie Railways together with the General Railway Acts, &c. Hamilton: The Times Printing Company, 1877.