CN Trestle in St. Thomas

[dj_paige]

The other day, I viewed a large trestle on a CN line north of downtown St. Thomas, Ontario, which can be viewed from Athletic Park, and as seen on Google Maps. Is this trestle still in use (the aerial photos show tracks on the trestle that appear end a little west of the trestle)? Does it have a name?

[Ken V]

The Kettle Creek Viaduct in St Thomas is no longer in use. CN abandoned most of the Paynes Subdivision about 10 years ago after the Ford assembly plant was closed.
You can view a few photographs of the bridge when it was in active service here: http://railpast.com/paynes/paynesub.htm

[dj_paige]

Awesome. Thank you for the information!

[dj_paige]

There's another high trestle in St. Thomas, over Sunset Drive, part of the St. Thomas Elevated Park. What was it's name, what railroad built that trestle, and when was it taken out of service? Thanks!

I assume you can walk across it now as part of the Elevated Park. Is that correct? I'm sorry I didn't do that, the views must be spectacular.

[Ken V]

The Canada Southern Kettle Creek Bridge was built by the Michigan Central Railroad, part of the New York Central System. Ownership of the bridge passed from NYC to Penn Central and Conrail before the CASO was sold to Canadian National and Canadian Pacific jointly, The tracks were removed in 2006.

For more information see http://www.elevatedpark.ca/about-the-bridge.

[Ken V]

As a side note, there was once another high level rail trestle in St. Thomas across the Kettle Creek valley, south of both of the above, which was built by the Pere Marquette Railway. It was later abandoned and scrapped by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in favour of trackage rights over the Canada Southern Railway.

[dj_paige]

Looking at aerial photos, I do see what looks like an old right-of-way to the west of the intersection of Elm Street and Sunset Drive. Would that be it?

[Ken V]

Yes, that's it.