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 was chartered to handle the existing customers on the rest of the line – the OSW mainline from Blind Line Junction west to Leamington, plus the (exx-CSX Sarnia subdivision) branches from Fargo Junction to Chatham and Blenhaim – and try to encourage other local businesses along the line to switch from trucks back to the rails. As a separate line, it interchanges with CPKC (which, in 2026, became part of the Western District of the newly formed United Railways Trust), the Canadian National, and the OSW (which, also in 2026, became part of the Northeastern District of the United Railways Trust.)
The L&ST also operates the ex-CNR Paynes spur – after the St Thomas Ford plant shut down, that line was relegated to car storage, and the CNR didn’t think it was worthwhile maintaining the ex L&PS line from London to St Thomas just to be able to use the disused yards on that spur for car storage, but did think it was worthwhile to sell the whole shebang (L&PS mainline, Paynes Spur, and the trackage left up to the ex-Ford plant) to the OSW, which then railbanked the L&PS and transferred the Paynes spur to the L&ST.
A pair of DL13m2’s (487,490) have been assigned to the L&ST – 490 was painted in L&ST colours before operations began, but 487 went into service still in the (patch-painted) D&H lightning bolt paint scheme – to operate the line out of Chatham, and a single DL10b to shuffled cars into and out of the storage tracks on the Paynes spur.
In 2026, the L&ST purchased the Dresden Commercial Railway, which gave it access to the towns of Dresden & Wallaceburg (on the ex-CSX Sarnia subdivision) and that brought a single MLW S-2 to the roster.