 | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Locale | Ontario, Canada |
| Dates of operation | 1854 (as Port Hope, Lindsay & Beaverton Railway) 1869 (as Midland Railway) –1893 |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
The Midland Railway of Canada was a historical Canadian railway which ran from Port Hope, Ontario to Midland on Georgian Bay. The line was originally intended to run to Peterborough, but the competing Cobourg and Peterborough Railway was completed in 1854 and the owner's plans changed. Redirecting the line northward, it opened as the Port Hope, Lindsay & Beaverton Railway, a much longer line than originally planned. A further expansion launched in 1869 pushed the line westward towards Georgian Bay, and prompted renaming as the Midland Railway.
By the 1880s the area east of Toronto was over-served by a number of short and generally unprofitable lines. Merger plans between the various lines began in 1881, which resulted in the Midland adding a third rail to the Toronto and Nipissing Railway's (T&N) narrow-gauge line to allow Midland trains to follow the T&N lines into Scarborough. The merger was officially completed in 1881. On 10 March 1882 the company arranged an enormous merger of many of the smaller railways in the area, including the Whitby, Port Perry and Lindsay Railway, Victoria Railway, Toronto and Ottawa Railway and Grand Junction Railway to become a greatly expanded Midland Railway with 474 miles (763 km) of track. Only two years later the Grand Trunk Railway leased most of the lines in the area as part of a major expansion plan, and purchased them outright in 1893.
The Midland was one of the earliest examples of a rail trail conversion in Ontario, started as a Canadian Centennial project. Today, the Midland Railway mainline forms a major portion of the Ganaraska Hiking Trail, the majority of which was opened in 1969.