Summary

The Canadian Northern Railway opened its line through the area just north of the intersection of Taunton and Brock Road in October of 1911, but a station was not immediately built there. Between 1913 and 1917, an unmanned flag stop called Brock Road was opened to serve the sparse population of the surrounding area. It included a wooden platform, a small shelter for passengers, and little else in the way of amenities. The shelter was located about 4.5 kilometres north of the Township of Pickering, itself still a relatively small community at the time. Flag stops like this one required passengers to flag down the train to get it to stop, which allowed the train to avoid unnecessary stops at stations with low ridership. A total of four trains were scheduled to stop on request at Brock Road each day by 1918.

Passenger service to Brock Road would not continue for much longer due to the railway’s poor financial situation at the time. The Canadian Northern Railway was nationalized in 1918 and informally managed by the newly-formed Canadian National from 1919 onward. After it was formally merged into Canadian National in 1923, the Grand Trunk Railway was also nationalized and merged into it as a result of similar financial circumstances. While the two had nearly duplicate routes between Toronto and Napanee, the Grand Trunk route was considered the more desirable of the two. Through passenger service almost immediately ceased, and a local service from Toronto to Cobourg persisted until about 1926. That year, the Canadian Northern line from Todmorden to Greenburn, which included the Brock Road shelter, was abandoned. The shelter would have been dismantled a short time later. There is now little trace of the railway through this site as the area has mostly been reclaimed by nature.

Condensed Station Info:

Location:	Served By:	Current State:	Date Built:	Date Demolished:
Brock Road and Taunton Road	Canadian Northern (~1915 – 1919) Canadian National (1919 – 1926)	Demolished	~1915	1926