The Dresden Commercial Railway was formed after CSX started abandoning the southern section of their Sarnia subdivision in the early 2000s. The town of Dresden had a couple of small business that depended on rail shipments (they could have switched to trucking, but the freight charges were considerably higher), and after failing to convince the OSW, which had purchased the segment of the line from Chatham to Blenheim. to purchase the branch, purchased it (and a MLW S-2) themselves and put it into operation.
Soon thereafter, businesses in the town of Wallaceburg (12 miles east of Dresden) bought into the DECO with the purchase of the line segment between the two towns.
This little railway was never horrifically successful – it broke even hauling freight for its owners – and when the plague hit in 2019 the downturn in business put it into the red, and in 2025 the owners approached the (OSW-subsidiary) L&ST to see if they’d be willing to purchase the line. This time around the proposal was accepted, and in 2026 the L&ST took control of the DECO.
Nothing has changed in the day to day operations of the line since the purchase aside from the S-2 being patch-painted into the Parsons Vale roster and the occasional visit of one of the L&ST’s C-424m2’s on days when there was too much freight to be handled by a switcher.