In 1995, the CNR abandoned their branchline from Gananoque Junction to Gananoque (formerly the Thousand Islands Railway), which put a logjam in the way of a local developer who was trying to build out an industrial park just north of Gananoque. After some frantic casting around trying to find a shortline to buy the line and put it back into service, they bit the bullet, purchased the line (in 1997, after the CNR threatened to lift it), and contracted with the LT&L to operate it.
The industrial park was not terribly successful, but by the mid 2010s there were about 800 cars a year being delivered to or picked up from it and a few other businesses along the line, so the developers could look at it as a business success.
Part of the reason it was a business success is that after the LT&L bought it, they electrified it and brought in one of the Toronto Suburban Railway’s old Baldwin-Westinghouse steeplecabs as motive power. This motor (originally Hamilton & Brantford #4) was painted, at the request of the industrial park, in CPR candy apple red, and lettered as an billboard for the park.
In 2017, the LT&L renewed their operating agreement for another 50 years, so the line is likely to remain in service for the forseeable future.
Almost the entire Thousand Islands Railway route is intact – the current end of the line is at Victoria Street in Gananoque, with the track from there down to the harbour lifted and the line leased to Gananoque for a pedestrian path (the path continues north in a rails-with-trails configuration to just south of Highway 401.)
The town of Gananoque has inquired into operating trams from Gananoque Junction into town, but when the LT&L said they’d be happy to if and only if the town paid wages & insurance and provided a tram, those inquires stopped.