| Grand River Railway | |
|---|---|
| Reporting mark | GRNR |
| Locale | Ontario |
| Dates of operation | 1914–1931 |
| Predecessor | Galt, Preston and Hespeler Street Railway Berlin, Waterloo, Wellesley and Lake Huron Railway |
| Successor | Canadian Pacific Electric Lines |
| Electrification | Yes |
| Headquarters | Berlin |
The Grand River Railway (reporting mark GRNR) was an electric railway in what is now the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, in Southwestern Ontario. It was an example of a radial railway.
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The Galt and Preston Street Railway, which was incorporated in 1890, established an electric railway service on July 26, 1894 between Galt and Preston. The company was reincorporated in 1895 as the Galt, Preston and Hespeler Street Railway to extend service to nearby Hespeler. A bridge was built across the Grand River at Freeport to the north of Preston in 1903. Later that year, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) acquired the company.
The separately owned CPR subsidiary Berlin, Waterloo, Wellesley and Lake Huron Railway was incorporated in 1908.
In 1914, the CPR incorporated the Grand River Railway to consolidate all of these CPR electric railway subsidiaries in Kitchener, Waterloo, Galt, Preston and Hespeler. GRR operations consisted originally of streetcars, but street tracks were gradually replaced by exclusive rights-of-way, which formed the majority of the railway's network by the 1920s.
Most of the GRR rolling stock was built by the Preston Car Company.
In 1931, the Lake Erie and Northern Railway, another CPR subsidiary, was consolidated with the GRR to form the Canadian Pacific Electric Lines. CPEL ended operations on October 1, 1961 when freight service was dieselized and assumed by parent CPR.
The CPEL ended passenger services on April 23, 1955, and most passenger service was replaced with buses.
A remnant of the GRR/CPEL line remains an active rail corridor in the 21st century as CPR operates an industrial spur to reach a Toyota automobile factory in north Cambridge.
In 2000, the Grand River Railway's name was echoed in the creation of Grand River Transit to unify bus services in the Region of Waterloo.