Location History

During the mid 1800’s, the City of Hamilton supported the development of two railway lines to meet the city’s growing transportation needs; the Great Western (east/west) and the Hamilton & Lake Erie (north/south). The Escarpment Rail Trail was developed on a portion of the Hamilton & Lake Erie.

During 1835, a charter was granted to the Hamilton & Port Dover Railway (H&PD) to construct a line between the two communities. Funding was not available and the project remained inactive. In 1853, the charter was revived and the H&PD was officially incorporated. The H&PD succeeded in making the cut in the escarpment face but incurred enormous costs in scaling the Hamilton mountain. Construction of the remaining lines was postponed and the company later succumbed to financial difficulty.

In 1869, the Hamilton & Lake Erie Railway (H&LE) was established, which extended the line to Jarvis by 1873. In 1875, the H&LE amalgamated with the Hamilton & Northwestern Railway (H&NW) and extended the line to Port Dover by 1878.

The H&NW merged with the Northern Railway of Canada in 1879, and became known as the Northern and Northwestern Railway (N&NW). In 1888 the N&NW was acquired by the Grant Trunk Railway System. The Grant Trunk had previously acquired the Great Western Railway and numerous other small rail lines. The Grant Trunk went bankrupt in 1919; the Canadian Government placed it under the management of the Canadian National Railway (CN). In 1923, CN assumed control and became the largest railway in Canada. CN maintained active operations on this line for years, and after a period of abandonment, sold the right-of-way to the Region of Hamilton-Wentworth for a dollar. The Region developed the right-of-way into a pedestrian/bicycle trail in 1993.