First Welland Canal reason for the error is not known. On July 4, 1818, Merritt organized a meeting in St. Catharines. The outcome was a petition sent to Upper Canada Legislature to provide for construction of a canal between the Twelve Mile Creek and Welland River. Unlike Merritt's original water-canal plan, the petition included plans for allowing boats to cross the Niagara Escarpment. In 1823, Hiram Tibbetts, an engineer, was employed to make a formal survey for the route. He suggested to dig a channel below the surface level of Welland River between present-day Port Robinson and Allanburg, and then follow the Twelve
Welland Canal, Bridge 15 Railway Canal Subdivision through Welland and the new Wainfleet Marshalling Yard at Wainfleet, Ontario. In the late 1980s, service on this line between Welland and Wainfleet ended and the track was removed between Wainfleet and a point a couple of hundred meters west of Bridge 15. The bridge remains in use today exclusively to serve Vesuvius Industries in Welland. It is owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), but is not connected to any other CPR tracks. It is used only sporadically by Trillium Railway, and chain link fence gates have been installed at both ends of the bridge to