ShonTron
Moderator
There are three railway swing bridges in Peterborough. Only one is used.
The most northerly of the three is the ex-CN Lakefield Sub bridge, permanently swung open, tracks removed. The rail trail that follows it takes a new high-level bridge, from where I took this photo:
Abandoned CN Lakefield Sub Swing Bridge
The middle one is the CP Bridge, still in active use for traffic to/from Preneveau and Blue Mountain. The southern one, fixed in the open position, was for the ex-CN Campbellford Sub. The track was used after CN abandoned the Peterborough-Belleville route, but serviced by CP. The customers are now entirely gone, the City of Peterborough bought the corridor, and built an extension of the Lang-Hastings Rail Trail to Lansdowne Street, allowing hikers and cyclists to pass under Highways 7/115.
The Campbellford Sub was built at the Grand Junction Railway, later part of the Midland Railway of Canada and then Grand Trunk.
Apart from the CP line, and spurs to General Electric and Quaker Oats, all track in Peterborough (mostly built by CN and its predecessors) has pretty much been removed or abandoned and awaiting removal now. The Port Hope, Pontypool and Lindsay (it became the Midland) built the track that entered Peterborough from the southwest. CP took that over in 1990, and it, too, is abandoned and mostly removed.
Peterborough is great because it kept almost all the abandoned railways intact and used as trails within the city. You can bike all the way to Uxbridge and Haliburton (via Lindsay), Lakefield, and Campbellford (and even Belleville), or even just to Trent University, almost entirely on rail trails.
The most northerly of the three is the ex-CN Lakefield Sub bridge, permanently swung open, tracks removed. The rail trail that follows it takes a new high-level bridge, from where I took this photo:
Abandoned CN Lakefield Sub Swing Bridge
The middle one is the CP Bridge, still in active use for traffic to/from Preneveau and Blue Mountain. The southern one, fixed in the open position, was for the ex-CN Campbellford Sub. The track was used after CN abandoned the Peterborough-Belleville route, but serviced by CP. The customers are now entirely gone, the City of Peterborough bought the corridor, and built an extension of the Lang-Hastings Rail Trail to Lansdowne Street, allowing hikers and cyclists to pass under Highways 7/115.
The Campbellford Sub was built at the Grand Junction Railway, later part of the Midland Railway of Canada and then Grand Trunk.
Apart from the CP line, and spurs to General Electric and Quaker Oats, all track in Peterborough (mostly built by CN and its predecessors) has pretty much been removed or abandoned and awaiting removal now. The Port Hope, Pontypool and Lindsay (it became the Midland) built the track that entered Peterborough from the southwest. CP took that over in 1990, and it, too, is abandoned and mostly removed.
Peterborough is great because it kept almost all the abandoned railways intact and used as trails within the city. You can bike all the way to Uxbridge and Haliburton (via Lindsay), Lakefield, and Campbellford (and even Belleville), or even just to Trent University, almost entirely on rail trails.
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