secondary class grades on the main line that did not require pusher services:
Primarily between Paris and Princeton, with a rise to the west of sixty-five feet in 3,012 yards (average of one foot in 139 feet or 0.72 percent)
East of Hamilton, rising one foot in 151 feet (0.66 percent) for three quarters of a mile.
The aggregate length of inclines on the main line requiring pusher services was twenty-three miles. However, pusher locomotives actually worked over forty to fifty miles in three separate sections. These would include eleven and a quarter miles for eastbound
Joint Great Western/Buffalo and Lake Huron (GTR) station in Paris. The presence of three rails on the Great Western line date this photograph to the period of 1866 to 1871.
Paris Museum and Historical Society, Paris, Ontario.
trains, thirty-three and a quarter miles (or forty miles for express passenger trains) for westbound trains. Pushers would return light so mileage would actually double, thus becoming an average of forty-five miles each way or nearly 20 percent of engine mileage of all main-line through trains! Table 2-2 provides elevation profile data for the Great Western main line and its affiliated railways.
The building of the railway had cost a great deal more than was expected. The first two hundred thirty-nine miles (Suspension Bridge to Windsor) had cost £2,705,264 ($13.175 million U.S.) up to April 30, 1854, and, by 1857, the cost of three hundred fifty miles, including the fifty miles of the Sarnia branch under construction and the seventeen miles of the Galt and Guelph branch, had cost an astounding £5,267,944 ($25.655 million U.S.).
The considerable costs of construction and maintenance of the Great Western can be explained by a number of factors. All rails, fasteners, and other materials had to be imported from Great Britain, being sent over in sailing ships to Montreal, where they were transferred to schooners and other small vessels capable of reaching ports on Lakes Ontario, Erie, and St. Clair and the Thames River. From these ports, they were hauled by oxen or horses over execrably bad roads to their final destination.
Grading and laying of tracks comprised the most laborious work, being performed with primitive equipment such as picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows. Most labourers and supervisory personnel originated from the British Isles.
Ties were of white oak, measured six inches by nine inches by nine inches, and were spaced thirty inches centre-to-centre. In the era before creosote and other wood preservatives, ties had a lifespan of approximately eight years. Buildings, bridges, and viaducts were virtually entirely of wooden construction when first built and constantly required renewal and were subject to damage by fire. In many cases, these fires originated from sparks emitted by locomotives fired with wood. Wooden bridges were gradually replaced by iron truss spans with stone abutments or were filled in as embankments, both methods being expensive improvements. In some cases, embankments were widened from fifteen feet to eighteen feet at the top due to the collapse of some of the earlier narrow embankments.
Iron rails used on the main line were of three types:
Flange or T rail with fish joints (weighing sixty-five pounds/yard)
U or bridge rail, fastened at the joints with wrought iron plates on which the ends of the rails rested, which were spiked down to the ties and bolted together with bolts and nuts (weighing sixty-six pounds/yard)
Light and heavy compound rail (weighing sixty-six and eighty pounds/yard, respectively). The two halves of these compound rails were riveted together and spiked directly to the ties.
On the main line, at the time of the railway opening for business, there were thirty-four miles of fished T rail, 156 miles of U rail, twenty-three and a half miles of light compound rail, and fifteen miles of heavy compound rail. The sidings (approximately eighteen miles) were laid with common T rail with cast-iron chairs at the joints (weighing sixty-two and a half pounds/yard). Like other railways of the era, the Great Western suffered severely from poor-quality rails. By the end of July 1860 the track composition had changed substantially so as to consist of 116 and 115 miles of fished T rails (weighing sixty-five pounds/yard) and U rails (sixty-six pounds/yard), respectively. Thus, over a span of six and a half years, all of the compound rails and forty-three miles of U rails had been replaced by fished T rails. The Hamilton-to-Toronto branch was laid with fished T rails throughout. Obviously, the Great Western had spent a great deal of money for rails while serving under quasi-experimental conditions as a pioneer Canadian railway.
Maintenance costs for locomotives and rolling stock were enormous, especially during the first winter of 1853–54. Owing to intense frosts, uneven track was the cause of many locomotive and rolling-stock breakdowns. The rough use of locomotives and rolling stock by contractors in building the road and in hurriedly ballasting it after it had opened for business led to frequent breakdowns as well. In the future, railways would demand that contractors provide their own locomotives and rolling stock during construction. As a result, motive power shortages were commonplace in the early days. For example, in July 1854, out of a total of thirty-four locomotives only twenty-six (not counting the eight locomotives assigned to ballast trains) were in working order.
At this time, locomotive cost per mile was one shilling and 3.5 pence, mileage was thirty-seven and a half miles per cord of wood (which increased by 1858 to forty-three and a half miles per cord), and locomotives averaged only a modest fifteen thousand miles annually. Rolling stock at this time comprised fifty passenger and 736 freight cars. Rough track and light construction of early rolling stock not only led to the need for heavy repairs but also rebuilding and strengthening of the original designs.
Weather contributed to high maintenance costs. The following extract from the directors’ report of June 30, 1857, provided a synopsis of the severe preceding winter and its consequences:
The locomotive expenses at a rate of one shilling and 7.5 pence per mile have been rendered heavy by the very severe winter weather during December and January. The breaking of wheels, tyres [tires], axles and various parts of the machinery, nearly all caused by the extreme cold have been of daily occurrence and far greater than during previous winters, the intense frost and quantity of snow on the ground prevented the engines from hauling their usual loads and caused extra consumption of fuel, viz–26,893 cords of wood against 20,969 of the last half year, the price also was 8 pence per cord more.
Compounding the difficulties of the Great Western in the late 1850s was the rise of unexpectedly severe competition. In the mid-1850s, the Grand Trunk Railway was rapidly pushing its way from Montreal into Ontario, reaching St. Marys by November 1856. Construction continued on segments from St. Marys to Sarnia and Port Huron to Detroit (the latter as the affiliated Chicago, Detroit and Canada Grand Trunk Junction Railway), both segments being completed and opened by 1859.
The Great Western had to recognize the Grand Trunk for what it was: a vigorous competitor for the trade of southwestern Ontario and through traffic between Chicago/Detroit and the eastern seaboard of the U.S. The only aspect of this rivalry that could not be clearly seen in 1856–57 was how completely ruinous it would be, especially for the Great Western.
It was with a view to becoming part of the Canadian trunk line — while remaining a link in the American one — that the Great Western undertook the construction of a branch line between Hamilton and Toronto. Although the line was technically built by a separate company, the directors of this Hamilton and Toronto Railway Company were virtually all Great Western directors as well. Its acts of incorporation made it eligible for benefits under the Guarantee Act because, even though it was less than seventy-five miles long, it was considered fundamentally to be
