Engine 86 and the Railways 1853 - 1958	The Great Western Railway opened its first station in London in 1853.   Life in the city and surrounding counties changed forever.  The pressing need for stage coaches faded; business and industry could ship goods reasonably quickly now by rail, and travellers could venture farther from home.  The future of current villages and towns hinged on this choice: if the tracks pass through, the town had a chance to survive; if the tracks take a different route, the town was apt to fade from prominence.  So much depended on the location of the stations. London was one of the fortune-bound cities - the railroad came.  On a cold December evening in 1853, the first train steamed into London.   Travelling at 25 miles and hour (19 km/hr), the premier trip from Hamilton to London took six hours.  The 1000 spectators cheered approvingly. By 1854, the tracks to Windsor were in place and four trains daily chugged back and forth.  The Sarnia branch open in 1858.  In 1887, the Canadian Pacific Railway came to London, and the local railway industry continued to boom until the 1960s. Engines like Old 86 pictured above, were the mechanical workhorses of the day.   This particular engine was a Mogul 2-6-0 built in Kingston in 1910. It now rests in Queen's Park as a monument to the thousands of Londoners who worked for the railways.
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More Information:    The Forest City An Illustrated History of London, Canada by Frederick H. Armstrong