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, a wholly owned OSW subsidiary headquartered in Chatham, exists to provide even more responsive locally run railroad service to the dozen or so customers on the line. Initially it ran from St Thomas west, but in 2024 it stopped service east of Blenheim in favour of interchanging with the Canadian Pacific & Canadian National in Chatham.
4 class DL13m2’s (487-490) have been assigned to the L&ST; #490 was painted in L&ST colours before operations began, but the other were put into service still in a D&H lightning bolt paint scheme.