St. Thomas photos
 

I took all these photos today (June 27, 2010):

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Former railbed of Canada Southern Railway (CASO) looking eastbound under Talbot Street.

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Stone mile marker on former CASO Railway.

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Talbot Street looking east from near CASO overpass.

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Jumbo the Elephant being refurbished!

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Talbot Hill, which connects Highway 4 with Talbot Street in St. Thomas.

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St. Thomas Tourism building, housed in an old rail caboose next to the elephant.

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o218/mlaroch/IMG_7518.jpg
More of the former CASO railway bed, this time in the west end of St. Thomas. The rails were removed on this section relatively recently, as I recall they were still there in July 2008 when I was last there.

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o218/mlaroch/IMG_7520.jpg

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Restored CASO milage marker. The Trans-Canada Trail runs along the former CASO railway through St. Thomas.

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All that is left of the CASO trackage here is on this crossing.

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o218/mlaroch/IMG_7528.jpg
Now for a trip into the 1960s - an abandoned drive-in restaurant just west of St. Thomas!

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o218/mlaroch/IMG_7530.jpg

awesome! keep the pics coming. I see that abandoned drive-in restaurant often, as we drive down to port stanley frequently

So many abandoned railroads... could make good transit corridors in the long term.

St. Thomas is the only sizable community in London's "metro" area, yet there isn't a decent connection between the two cities. Just a bunch of two lane rural roads... there needs to be an expressway/freeway link between the two or at least a four lane road. I also heard there was a plan of getting commuter rail back on track between the two as well.

What's going on with Jumbo? That's a lot of scaffolding for a simple paint job so I'm assuming something big is going on.

There were plans for a freeway from London to St. Thomas back in the 1960s, but it never got built. It was part of the Highway 402 plan shown in another thread. There has been talk of extending VMP to St. Thomas, but as some of that would be outside the City of London, the province would have to get involved.

From what I recall, the Jumbo project was more than a simple paint job - the whole statue needed to be refurbished.