Background/General Route Info Part of the CP's London Division, the Hamilton Sub. parallels the western side of Lake Ontario, heading from Toronto to Hamilton, however most trains would continue onto Buffalo on the New York Central, where the trains interchanged with one another. In all, the entire line from Toronto to Buffalo is about 98 miles, while the line from just Toronto to Hamilton is only about 43 miles. The Hamilton Sub also shared trackage rights with the NYC, CN and the Toronto Hamilton & Buffalo Railway (despite the name, the railroad never reached any of those cities). The line served a number of industrial businesses (mostly concrete and oil companies), making the route quite the hotspot for freight traffic. Passenger traffic was also quite abundant on this route, as it played host to several different international trains such as The Ontarian, which was jointly operated by the NYC, TH&B, and CP and ran from New York to Toronto and The Canadian (no, it's not the one you're thinking of), which was run using NYC and TH&B equipment over the Hamilton Sub, but with CPR crews at the controls. In addition to the high end named passenger trains, the route saw a good amount of commuter traffic coming to and from Toronto. Most passenger trains originated out of Toronto Union Station, and made the trip to Hunter Street Station in Hamilton. Here, many trains were serviced in the TH&B's Chatham Street Roundhouse. Trains would then continue on to the NYC's Exchange Street Station, where motive power would be either serviced and turned around for the trip back to Toronto, or replaced by NYC power for the trip into New York City and the rest of the Lower 48. Freight trains originated out of Toronto Yard, and headed south to Aberdeen Yard in Hamilton. Similar to the passenger trains, motive power would be serviced before continuing on to the NYC's Frontier Yard in Buffalo. Because the CP made use of NYC trackage between Hamilton and Buffalo, many of the locomotives assigned to the Hamilton Sub were equipped with Automatic Train Control, which worked very similarly to how modern day alert systems work in most diesel and electric trains. Motive Power For diesel motive power, the CP would often use GP9's, RS18's and ALCO FA's for freight service. In passenger service EMD E and F units were often used along with ALCO PA units. For switching duties, the CP opted to use EMD SW units. By this point in time, steam had been phased out on most switching duties. For steam motive power, the CP would make use of D class 4-6-0 Ten Wheelers, P class 2-8-2 Mikados and T class 2-10-4 Selkirks. The 4-6-0's would often head up local or mixed trains along the route, while the Mikados and Selkirks would head up the high end freight and merchandise trains. For passenger trains, the CP would make use of their G class 4-6-2's on commuter trains, while F class 4-4-4 Jubilees, and H class 4-6-4 Hudsons would be used on the high end trains. The CP would also often make use of their 4-8-4's on both passenger and freight trains. Final Thoughts I believe this route would make for some great vintage North American content and would be a welcome addition to Train Simulator. It also serves as a great way to finally add in Canadian Steam to Train Simulator! What do you guys think? Is this a good idea? Is there anything you guys would like to add to the proposal? Let me know in the repliles!
I like this idea a lot! I had an old train simulator that had a 1950s CP route, and it was my favorite route! I would love to see this in TS.
Great suggestion! I would personally love to see more routes set in the steam-to-diesel transition era, especially ones set in Canada. Such a great era that's sorely lacking from a lot of train simulators, probably due to the amount of historical research necessary to tackle such a project. A few corrections below, in case Dovetail is interested in pursuing this route for TSW2; Toronto Yard opened in April 1964, and as such trains in the '50s were more likely to originate from the combined West Toronto/Lambton Yards which handled a lot of Toronto traffic at the time. Canadian Pacific only owned two 4-8-4 steam locomotives, 3100 and 3101, and these were almost exclusively used on the overnight trains between Toronto and Montreal, so they would not have made appearances on the Hamilton Sub. Pre-1955, The Canadian was actually a Montreal to Chicago train, and it went by way of Windsor and Detroit. As such, it wouldn't have made an appearance on the Hamilton Subdivision. Exchange Street was served by TH&B trains, but it wasn't their final destination. Rather, they'd have gone a little ways further to New York Central's Buffalo Central Terminal which is currently sitting abandoned and in need of some huge TLC last I heard. Trains would have been turned around using a roundhouse at New York Central's nearby Frontier Yard (Now CSX Frontier Yard). Canadian Pacific didn't actually own any Alco PAs. Rather, they had a number of freight-hauling FAs (such as 4090 in your post). The difference between the two was a steam generator which were required for passenger trains pulled by diesels at the time. I'm not too familiar with New York Central's use of Automatic Train Control, but on this side of the border the system in place was timetable and train order operation. This system was made obsolete in the 1960's with the introduction of Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) and two-way radio systems, though existed in places on CP until the 1980's. Ray Kennedy's website Old Time Trains has a great article on Canadian Pacific's Hamilton Subdivision which might be worth a read. This website also has things like timetables which show train numbers and schedules that could give an idea of the scheduled services you might see on a given day. Something important to note would be the way the Hamilton Subdivision was rerouted following the construction of the Welland Canal Bypass between 1967 and 1972. This construction affected the alignment of a number of railway lines in the area, resulting in the abandonment of some, and ultimately involved three different railroads sharing a single tunnel beneath the bypass (only used by CP today). Needless to say, to represent the Hamilton Subdivision in the 50's would require taking this major change into account. Good news is, in Google Earth you can currently look at all of Niagara Region in 1934 using aerial photographs supplied to Google by McMaster University. These show the old rail alignments prior to the canal bypass going in, along with the locations of stations, interlocking towers, roundhouses and more. Some Hamilton Sub regulars you missed were TH&B 501 and 502. These were former New York Central 4-6-4 Hudson locomotives which were given to the TH&B in 1948, and used on regular Toronto - Buffalo passenger trains until 1954. Furthermore, there were 2-8-4 Berkshires TH&B 201 and 202 which were the only examples of that wheel arrangement ever built for a Canadian railroad. These were more commonly used on an overnight freight train called the Kinnear, after Kinnear Yard in Hamilton.
Wow. Thanks for the corrections/additional info! When I first made this I only had some scattered articles/blog posts on the Hamilton Sub to go off of and I had tried to piece together what I could, so I'm not at all surprised that I got a few things wrong.
I never saw this. But I posted an idea for Toronto a while back. Connecting part of this idea to Toronto would be brilliant. My excuse for Toronto is to introduce the SD75I in CN and Ontario Northern liveries to the official collection instead of just as a BNSF SD75 reskin that the international community cannot get, and therefore an important addition.
Well done idea and at this time Maple Leaf would have been a CP Lehigh Valley RR joint operation from NY Penn Station to Toronto Union Station via Newark,NJ Easton, PA Scranton Bingamton Syracuse Buffalo Niagara Falls, NY-Hamilton, ON via Niagara Falls, ON the Border Station. If modeled in Game it must do Hamilton, ON to Buffalo, NY or Toronto-Hamilton-Niagara Falls-Buffalo,NY Route. the Ontarian Southern Section can be covered by a 1950s Grand Central to Croton Harmon Hudson Line DLC.
