When the Cornwall Street Railway, Light & Power Company’s owners decided to get out of the street railway business in 1970, the LT&L purchased those assets to operate as the Cornwall Terminal Railway.
At the time of the takeover, the CTRY still used a lot of street trackage, but over the next 15 years all of this was slowly abandoned. The trackage on Water Street went first; it was only being used to access the old carbarn, and after the CTRY built a new carbarn east of the city (near Marleau & Carlton streets) it was lifted. The second section of street running track (along Montreal Rd) was abandoned when the factory it served at the foot of Marlboro St shut down, and the line down Cumberland was piecewise abandoned as factories west of it closed down. The last section of street trackage – the freight line along 7th & Cumberland – was finally lifted when the CNR sold their branch into downtown Cornwall and the CTRY could electrify it and move completely off the streets.
There have been a couple of line extensions since 1972; In 1992, the CTRY extended their line along the CNR’s Kingston sub to reach a new industrial park just west of Boundary Road, and when the CPR abandoned their Cornwall subdivision, the CTRY purchased the line segment from the CNR crossing at 10th & Grand to Boundary Road & Highway 401 (it’s only operated as far as the lumberyard just north of 10th St, and the rails north of there have been lifted to reduce taxes, though the CTRY has let the logistics warehouses closer to highway 401 know that they will happily restore rail service if there is any interest in receiving shipments by rail.)
The CTRY kept their 600vdc trolley pole overhead intact until they ordered a pair of class O motors to replace the the last 4 B-W steeplecabs, then upgraded the tension to 1500vdc and changed to pantographs (the overhead was modified to accomodate pantographs before the class O motors arrived, and long-retired steeplecab #7 was fitted with a pantograph and pushed around as a clearance and snag test vehicle as this work was underway; when the changeover was complete, #7 went back into storage with the pantograph still installed.)
Roster
Cornwall used to have a lot of online industry, but it was running down in the 1970s, and the existing motive power – a mess of Baldwin steeplecabs – were slowly taken out of service, with the last two – B-W class D #15 & class S #17 – being replaced with a pair of class O motors in 2005. None of these old Baldwins were scrapped, though; four of them were sold or donated before the CSRL&P transferred the street railway to the CTRY, #16 went to the Halton County Radial Railway when it was retired in 1995, #17 was put on display in Cornwall after it was retired in 2005, and the remainder are stored in the new carbarn in varying states of repair.
| number | class | builder | built | retired | notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | O | Portland | 2005 | ||
| 2 | O | Portland | 2005 | ||
| 6 | B | B-W | 1919 | 1980 | ex-Kansas City, Kaw Valley & Western #502, parts donor (on shop trucks) |
| 7 | B-1 | B-W | 1923 | 1972 | ex-Springfield Terminal #15, fitted with a pantograph, no traction motors |
| 8 | D | B-W | 1924 | 2002 | ex-Aroostook Valley #54, operational |
| 9 | D | B-W | 1913 | 2002 | ex-Niagara Junction #4, operational |
| 11 | B | B-W | 1920 | 1972 | originally Youngstown & Ohio River #7, to the Ohio Railway Museum 1972. |
| 12 | B | B-W | 1917 | 1972 | ex-Utah-Idaho Central #904, to the Shore Line Trolley Museum 1972. |
| 14 | B-1 | B-W | 1929 | 1972 | ex-Springfield Terminal #20, to the Illinois Railroad Museum 1972 |
| 15 | D | B-W | 1915 | 2005 | ex-Lake Erie & Northern #333 |
| 16 | D | B-W | 1915 | 1995 | ex-LE&N #335, to Halton County Radial Railway 1995 |
| 17 | S | B-W | 1930 | 2005 | ex-Grand River #230, to the city of Cornwall 2005 |