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AT THE FORKS OF THE GRAND loans from municipal governments along the right-of-way. On March 3, i854, the Railway Committee of the County Council of Brant, in presenting its recommendations concerning a loan, stated that: . . .75 miles of the Railway extending from Brantford to Fort Erie are now opened and during the past month a fair amount of business has been done -more than sufficient to pay the running expenses of the road and keep it in repair. No accident whatever has occurred, and the trains continue to run with remarkable regu- larity. The Road will be opened to the Governor's Road, one mile and a half from the point of Junction with the Great Western, Paris, on the 6th inst. The committee went on to recommend that the Council should make a loan to help in the completion of the line to Goderich. The Paris Council, which favored this recommendation, asked the rate-payers of the village to vote on a by-law: ... to raise by loan on the credit of Brant County of Upper Canada the sum of One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Pounds to aid in the completing of the Buffalo, Brantford and Goderich Railway . . . upon receiving a mortgage upon that portion of the Road between the Paris Depot of the Great Western Railway and Fort Erie. While the loan was being negotiated, the contractors continued to push their rails towards Paris. On March 4, 1854, according to the Paris Star: The section of the railway from Brantford to Paris was opened for public travel. The trains arrive with great regularity at the town. The Road will be finished to the Great Western Station by the end of the month. There is a heavy embankment at the east end of the Grand River Bridge to complete requiring some 40,000 yards of earth. The contractors, Messrs. Mellish, Morell, and. Russel are, however, driving ahead in great style. They have 300 men and 70 horses, and are working night and day, throwing about 2500 yards of earth into the gap during the 24 hours. Finally on November i, I856, after the completion of this em- bankment and of the bridge itself, the first train from Fort Erie reached Paris Junction. (Its time from Brantford to Paris was half an hour.) But not until June 28, i858, was the laying of tracks completed from Goderich to Paris. In 1857, the company went bankrupt. For two or three years no trains ran along the line and the rails lay covered with rust. Travellers from Brantford had to come to Paris by stage coach if they wanted to go east or west by train. In i86o, after another company had bought the line, the trains ran again. Meanwhile Brant County and Paris had found that their mortgage was worth- less; and so had Hiram Capron and many farmers who had exchanged a right-of-way through their lands for a handful of beautifully engraved bonds. 224