Author Rod Clarke, with a copy of his latest book, Narrow Gauge Through the Bush All he wanted to do was build a model of his local railway.

But with little information available, author Rod Clarke's simple hobby of model building turned into a five-year quest for research on two of Ontario's most elusive pioneer railways.

"Narrow Gauge Through The Bush" is the result, an exciting history of the Toronto Grey & Bruce and Toronto & Nipissing railway lines.

The Toronto Grey & Bruce (TG&B) is of particular interest to Dufferin-area readers. Originally built as a "narrow gauge" railway, its tracks and trains were much smaller than current rail lines.

After 1883 it was converted to "standard gauge" and became the CPR line that passed through Orangeville on its way to Teeswater and Owen Sound.

The TG&B reached Orangeville via Woodbridge, Bolton and Caledon Village. Today, all that remains of the original line is the portion between Toronto and Bolton, which now forms a key part of CP Rail's transcontinental line, and the short stretch between the hamlet of Melville and the western outskirts of Orangeville.

The line between Bolton and Melville, which included the infamous Horseshoe Curve where it climbed the Niagara Escarpment, was abandoned in the 1930s, when the CPR opted to run all of its trains along the former Credit Valley Railway trackage between Streetsville and Orangeville.

At one point, the former TG&B was one of the CPR's busiest rail lines, with four passenger trains daily between Toronto and Owen Sound and two daily to Teeswater and along branch lines to Elora and Walkerton.

In addition, the line to Owen Sound was used until about 1910 by express trains that connected with steamers that ran between Owen Sound and Thunder Bay.

The Teeswater, Elora and Walkerton branches were abandoned in the 1980s and the tracks between Orangeville and Owen Sound were ripped up in the 1990s. However, the latter right-of-way is now owned by the counties of Dufferin and Grey, and pressure is building to restore freight service as far north as a proposed gasification plant near Dundalk.

With his research, Mr. Clarke put together a wealth of information on the TG&B's planning and construction, with personal insights into the men who built it.

He describes the history of communities along the route and how the railway served them. For modelers he details of the actual engines, cars and railway buildings.

As a result, the book is a delight not just for Canadian industrial historians, but also local history buffs and Ontario railway researchers.

The book's 392 pages are hardbound in large coffeetable format. It contains more than 300 illustrations, and numerous fine-scale drawings that will make it a must reference for railway modelers.

Says Derek Voles of the Toronto Railway Heritage Group: "This is a stunning achievement for anyone interested in the history of railways. It's an absolutely delightful book that includes much original colour artwork, and the research and the documentation are impressive."

The book is being distributed by the Credit Valley Railway Company hobby shop in Streetsville, is locally available at BookLore in Orangeville, or can be purchased online at www.cvrco.com or by phone toll-free at (800) 464- 1730