Verulam Township - Transportation

Transportation

The lakes were important to early transportation, though lumber interests mostly controlled use of the waterway until the system was completed in 1920. The Trent-Severn Waterway was originally intended as a defensive and commercial route from the upper Great Lakes through to Lake Ontario, however delays to its completion through the railway- and highway-building eras have relegated the canal to purely pleasure-craft use. Today, the Trent-Severn Waterway is a National Historic Site of Canada under the jurisdiction of Parks Canada.

Water and corduroy roads were the entrance to Verulam Township until in 1879, the Victoria Railway (later the Canadian National Railway) was constructed between Lindsay and Haliburton, via Fell's Station in the northwest. In 1904, the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed to Bobcaygeon from Lindsay and Burketon Jct. Improvements to the highway system continued until the need for railways became redundant. The line to Bobcaygeon was abandoned in 1957. The railway through Fell's Station was abandoned in 1987 following the burning of the McLaren Creek bridge near Lindsay.