The line originally served to carry timber and freight to Gananoque's docks, where it could be loaded onto ships.

While available timber stocks soon diminished, passenger traffic increased as the Grand Trunk under Charles Melville Hays promoted the tiny town as a vacation destination.

A 1947 map of the Gananoque terminal shows a nine-switch track arrangement, a coal/wood yard, a coal dealer, a number company, a mill, the Cow and Gate dairy, a two-stall engine house, passenger station and freight/express building.

The unique locomotive #500 is preserved at Sculpture Park, where King Street crosses the Gananoque River.

The waterfront station became a restaurant after passenger service ended, but was destroyed by fire in 1990; the 1000 Islands History Museum was built on the site.