Lake Simcoe Junction Railway

Lake Simcoe Junction Railway
Overview
HeadquartersToronto, Ontario
LocaleOntario, Canada
Dates of operation1877–1981
Technical
Track gauge4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge from 1881
Previous gauge3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) narrow gauge before 1881
The first train arrives in Sutton in 1877.
Steamer Enterprise loads cargo onto a Grand Trunk train on the wharf at Jackson's Point.
The passenger station at Jackson's Point was a simple affair.
Workers and their families pose for a photo while ice cutting at Jackson's Point in 1895. A Grand Trunk train waits in the background.

The Lake Simcoe Junction Railway (LSJR) was a short-line narrow gauge railway in Ontario just north of Toronto. It branched off the Toronto and Nipissing Railway at Stouffville and ran 42 kilometres (26 miles) north to the town of Sutton and then beyond to the shore of Lake Simcoe where a large wharf was built. The presence of the railway helped the town of Jackson's Point form on the lakeside. The line serviced timber and agricultural shipping, but was more widely used for shipping ice cut from the lake in the winter, and allowing weekend day trips to the lake in the summer.

The arrival of the Toronto and York Radial Railway at Sutton in 1908 took most of the summertime passenger business away, and the introduction of refrigeration did the same for the wintertime ice business. Service ended to the Point in September 1927 and the rails were lifted. Service below Sutton continued through a connection to the standard gauge Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR), 4 km (2.5 mi) west of the town of Zephyr. It saw some use during the construction of Maple Leaf Gardens three years later, when a spur line was built to a gravel pit a short distance south of Sutton. The entire line closed in 1979 and the rails were lifted in 1981.

A portion of the original route was converted, circa 2000, into the Sutton-Zephyr Rail Trail.