When the CTRC’s St Clair tunnel opened for freight at the end of 2023, the old OSW mainline to the Michigan Central Tunnel reverted to being a branch line, with, sadly, not much traffic at all. The west end of the branch – Comber to the MC tunnel – had no customers at all, so was promptly abandoned, while the rest of it was spun off into a shortline.
The Leamington & Saint Thomas Railway, a wholly owned OSW subsidiary headquartered in Chatham, exists to provide even more responsive locally run railroad service to the dozen or so customers on the line.
4 class DL13m2’s (487-490) have been assigned to the L&ST; #490 was painted in L&ST colours before operations began, but the other were put into service still in a D&H lightning bolt paint scheme.