page_title: Canada Southern Railway
section_title: Corporate Headquarters
hierarchical_section_title: Canada Southern Railway / History / Corporate Headquarters
caption_attribution_description: English: Postcard showing the MCRR/CASO yard behind the station in St. Thomas, ON.
context_page_description: The Canada Southern Railway, also known as CSR, was a railway in southwestern Ontario, Canada, founded on February 28, 1868 as the Erie and Niagara Extension Railway. Its name was changed to Canada Southern Railway on December 24, 1869. The 1868 Act specified that it was to be constructed at a broad gauge of 5 ft 6 in, but that requirement was repealed in the 1869 Act, thus allowing construction at the standard gauge of 4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in.
  The railway was leased to the Michigan Central Railroad for 99 years; in 1929 it was subleased to the New York Central Railroad. Its successors Penn Central and Conrail later exercised control before being sold to CN/CP in 1985.
context_section_description: CSR's headquarters were located in St. Thomas, Ontario. The site was chosen because St Thomas was roughly equal-distance between Windsor and Fort Erie, Ontario and the city offered a $25,000 bonus to the railroad company as an incentive to build within city limits. CSR's main building, the Canada Southern Railway Station, included a passenger station and dining room on the ground floor with the railway's head offices on the upper floor. The extremely long, narrow building was based on Italianate architecture and is the only known train station in Canada to embody this style. The station was the design of Canadian architect Edgar Berryman (1839-1905).
caption: Postcard showing the St. Thomas Railway Station and the yard as it existed behind the station, circa 1915.
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