The Guelph Junction Railway is a unique piece of railroading in Canada, with the City of Guelph being the sole owner of about 16 miles of former CP-operated trackage. Dating back to 1884, the city sought a connection with the Canadian Pacific at Campbellville, ON (with Guelph Junction itself residing slightly to the west of the town) in order to provide competition to the Grand Trunk Western and help support commercial and industrial activity in the town. The line to the junction was completed in 1888 and through a 99 year lease to Canadian Pacific, became part of that company's Goderich Subdivision which ran from Desjardins, near Hamilton, to its' namesake port 112 miles to the northwest on the east shore of Lake Huron. CP operated trains over this line until declining traffic resulted in the abandonment of the line north of Guelph (about mile 35) in December 1988; following another 10-year lease renewal the previous year, the portion of the line between Guelph Junction and Desjardins was renamed the Hamilton sub and combined with the TH&B line from Desjardins to Welland.

A service agreement for CP operation of the GJR between Guelph and the junction ended in 1997 when CP did not renew the contract, after which the Ontario Southland Railway was contracted to provide switching and railroad services for the city. The OSR, with it's interesting fleet of MLW's, worked hard to promote the benefits of shipping by rail and carloads steadily increased on the 16 mile line, with numerous industries located on several spurs on the railway. Notably, most traffic on the line is concentrated on two parallel spurs each slightly more than a mile long in the north end of Guelph which is presently shared with CN (previously GEXR while they leased CN's Guelph Subdivision until November 2018). Over the years, the OSR invested heavily in track and equipment to ensure safe and reliable service for the customers and the community, however the relationship between the contractor and the city deteriorated, primarily as a result of ineffective city management.

It became clear to railfans in early 2020 that this was indeed the last summer for the OSR in Guelph, with the existing contract set to expired at the end of August. Later, it was revealed that Genesee & Wyoming had been awarded the contract to continue service over the GJR, under the banner of their Goderich-Exeter Railway. Interestingly, this line is geographically separate from GEXR's other operation based out of Stratford, ON, 39 miles to the west, however the GEXR was familiar with the joint switching zone prior to the expiration of the GEXR's lease of the CN/Metrolinx-owned Guelph Sub. With this being the last window of opportunity to catch these interesting old MLW's in operation, I made as many trips up to the GJR as I could. This video features part 1 of the summer operations that I filmed, with Part 2 currently in the works (should be up soon). The end came on August 28, 2020, with GEXR starting operation on September 2nd. In addition to Part 2 of the summertime operations, I was also fortunate enough to be able to film the OSR's last day of operations, along with the ferry move of the remaining OSR equipment via the CN to London, ON in September. The equipment now currently resides on their operation out of Salford, ON with some locomotives from the GJR in service and some stored out of service.

As always, thank you for watching.

*OK, technically April and May are not part of the summer, but I initially planned parts 1 and 2 to be in one video, and at the time it sounded better in my mind.... :)

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