2 Railway Bridges in Coldwater

One abandoned, one repurposed. Abandoned one is on the former Canadian Pacific line, it is a steel through plate girder bridge. Located a couple hundred feet north of the Home Hardware store, easy to spot in the winter, well hidden by foliage in summer.

Repurposed one is a half mile or so north, also easy to spot (located near the road). It is a wood pile trestle on the old Canadian National line, now serving as access for a few homes on the west side of Coldwater River. One of those homes is the former railway station.

There is a connection between these bridges and a number of other places such as Midland, Port McNicoll and even Lindsay: At one time the route between Midland and Lindsay was known as the "grain route", grain was transferred from boats to the elevators located in Midland and Lindsay, then to rail cars to continue the journey. Lindsay was the eastern end of the grain route.

CN had their facilities at Midland, CP at Port McNicoll. Both lines ran roughly paralell through the Coldwater area, just outside Port McNicoll the CP line crossed over CN on a bridge and then across the Hogs Bay trestle to reach their grain elevator. Piers for the bridge can still be seen beside Highway 12, along with the old concrete "hole in the wall" that used to be the Highway 12 underpass through the CP line(a)s embankment.

Sources:

Last Trains from Lindsay, Keith Hansen, 1997.
Steam Memories of Lindsay, Ian Wilson, 2010