The railway owned and operated a north–south mainline which ran from Galt in the north (now a part of Cambridge) to Port Dover on the shore of Lake Erie in the south.

While these railways stimulated the local economy and created export opportunities both for farmers (mostly situated along the Grand River and its tributaries and floodplain) and small but rapidly industrializing cities like Galt and Brantford, the primary intent behind the construction of many of these rail lines was to connect large urban centres in Ontario like Toronto and Hamilton with the American border, or to create a shorter route for American fast freight and passenger express trains to travel around Lake Erie, as opposed to the longer route through Ohio.

[1] Merchants and exporters, primarily in Brantford, felt that they were poorly-served by these east–west lines, which allowed certain railways to monopolize access to different towns and cities and charge high freight fees.

These ambitions were tempered by a lack of capital, however, and the company was sold off and renamed the Grand Valley Railway (GVR) in 1902, with a plan to initially connect Brantford and Galt.

[3] Galt's merchants and town boosters, meanwhile, focused mainly on constructing a link to Berlin (now known as Kitchener), an initiative that would eventually result in the Grand River Railway, which began operation in 1914.

The northern section from Paris to Galt was promptly sold in 1915 to the Lake Erie and Northern Railway, which promptly closed the line to eliminate competition; the southern section from Brantford to Paris was operated as a part of Brantford's municipal public transit system until it was shut down in 1929 and replaced by buses.

[1] A Dominion charter application was noted in the trade journal Railway and Marine World in February 1911,[4] and over the course of 1911 and 1912, the details of the plan were developed further.

The result was a high track quality and significant number of grade separations along the route, made necessary by the amount of traffic on the main lines the LE&N crossed.

This allowed for the LE&N to run the kind of high-frequency service which began to be expected of electric interurban railways in the early 20th century, without potential interruption by cross-traffic on the mainlines.

[12] Four days earlier, on February 3, spring floods had damaged the Grand Valley Railway track north of Paris, leading to the end of passenger services on that line.

[12] In a false start, service to Port Dover began on July 1, but this ended after only a few hours due to power supply issues.

Almost a year later and after signing a joint operations agreement, the Lake Erie and Northern shifted its terminus to the existing Grand Trunk Railway station near the waterfront.

This would only last until 1923, when the LE&N built its own station in downtown Port Dover, permanently abandoning its hopes of easy connections via Lake Erie.

By this time it had become popular with summer excursion tourists from the industrial cities of Kitchener, Preston, Galt, and Brantford, who wanted to visit Port Dover to access Lake Erie's recreation opportunities.

Large railway companies increasingly saw passenger service, which had rarely turned a significant profit, as a liability, and were unwilling to maintain and upgrade their existing fleets of decades-old rolling stock.

The geopolitical realities of the postwar period resulted in decreased petroleum prices, eliminating one of the main financial advantages of interurbans over buses.

In 1946, all of the cars which had been purchased in 1921 were sent to the CPR Angus Shops in Montreal for extensive upgrading, including mechanical improvements and refurbished interiors.

As well, with rising automobile traffic in the urban areas the railway passed through, trains began to suffer from collisions, such as one in June 1951 with a police truck in Port Dover.

In response, the CPR had the cars totally repainted to its signature maroon colour (further erasing the LE&N image and replacing it with the CPEL brand) with black and yellow warning markings for motorists and pedestrians.

[19] The LE&N line, with its ample scenery and connection to Port Dover, had been popular with railway excursion groups well before the announcement of closure, and ridership increased significantly near the end of revenue service.

Veteran employees, local officials, and members of the communities served by the line rode it in large groups, and even larger crowds turned out to watch.

Even after the official end of revenue service on 23 April 1955, groups such as the National Railway Historical Society scheduled a number of popular excursion runs which featured multiple rail cars coupled together into single large convoys.

The Lake Erie and Northern line proved popular with seasonal tourists, as it connected densely-populated industrial cities with the beach at Port Dover[16] while also following what Mills calls "possibly the most continuously beautiful interurban section in Eastern Canada" alongside the Grand River.

An old stone house used as a station in Glen Morris stands in its original location alongside an information kiosk about the history of the railway.

[30] While much of the LE&N rolling stock was scrapped after the end of service, a few pieces of its fleet remain and are stored at the Halton County Railway Museum: A number of rail trails were created along the former right of way after abandonment of the line.

Waterloo Region's Ion rapid transit system, which began service in 2019, is planned to be extended from Kitchener's Fairway station to the Ainslie St.

Transit Terminal in Galt, a route which is evocative of the Grand River Railway and the interurban era, though it uses modern Bombardier Flexity Freedom light rail vehicles.