The original (CPR subsidiary) Grand River Railway was absorbed into the CPR in the 1960s, then gradually broken up (with the southern end going to the ORRC as it was abandoned), leaving nothing but the Waterloo subdivision running from a junction with the CNR south through Kitchener to a junction with the ORRC’s LE&N just south of the Speed River (and trackage rights further south to the CPR’s Galt Division.)
When the United Railways Trust merger happened, this branch was transferred to the ORRC, but to keep some CPR control over the line the corporate shell of the Grand River was dusted off and assigned ownership of this line, with both the ORRC & CPR as corporate parents.
It was promptly electrified after the transfer, and now uses H&B & TSR motors to service industry along the line (one of which was painted – to the delight of the few remaining elderly railfans who saw the first Grand River Railway under wire – in the old GRNR colour scheme.)
The northern end of the Waterloo subdivision had descended into disrepair by the mid-1990s, and when the Municipality of Waterloo started assembling their ION rapid transit project the CPR sold the very end of the line to them, and wanted to abandone the next half mile south, but was approached by the ORRC and OSW to ask if they could leave the line intact for future interchange with the OSW’s ex-CNR Waterloo Spur (the OSW bid on and won freight rights after the CNR sold this line to the municipality for the ION project.)
It was an unusual request, but the CPR and ION were okay with it and allowed trackage rights on 3 blocks of the rapid transit line to tie the two segments together.
And there it sat for 28 years, only used for the occasional stock transfer, until the United Railways Trust merger and the transfer of the Waterloo subdivision to ORRC control. The OSW almost immediately transfered the Waterloo Spur freight rights to the (newly reformed) GRNR, which immediately petitioned ION for permission to run motors under the rails, then electrified the spur from end of ION rails up to Saint Jacobs.
ION uses pantographs, not trolley poles, so the ORRC put pans onto three of their ancient Baldwin-Westinghouse steeplecabs for service on the Grand River.