"Basically, everywhere we've been removing pavement, we've been finding it," said Avril Fisken, spokesperson for GrandLinq.

A path of about 300 metres of rotten wooden ties down the middle of King marks the old railway route, where the rails were removed in the 1950s.

So far, workers have found the ties between Wellington Street and the front of Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate Institute.

A mound of dug up concrete and a pile of large, split wooden ties sat on the construction site as workers continued to dig up pavement.

Lead area hand, Isabel Fernandez, said from GrandLinq's office on Friday that the discovery was made when LRT construction began Monday.

"It was pretty apparent right off the bat," she said.

The old ties were found a few metres apart from each other. Fernandez said the pavement dug out from on top of the ties was quite thick — about a foot — probably from repaving King Street a few times.

"It is always a bit exciting uncovering a bit of history," Fisken added.

By late Friday afternoon, a pile of about 30 wooden ties sat on the construction site as workers dug out more.

Workers expect to find more evidence of the old streetcar line along King, where light rail transit will travel between Victoria Street and Allen Street starting in late 2017.

The new tracks will be set in concrete. They look like they'll follow pretty much the same path as the old tracks in that area, Fisken said.

Longtime residents told officials about the old rail line at public meetings before construction started.

"It was something we had heard rumours about, but until you start stripping asphalt, you don't know what's there," Fisken said.

"Everything comes around again."

The old wood won't be kept for posterity. It's being checked for creosote, and may have to be disposed of in a special waste dump.

"The materials used were so old," Fiskin said. "They may have used other chemicals to make them last this long."

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Electric railways came to what was then Waterloo County in 1894, when trains started running between Preston and Galt. In 1895, the line was extended to Hespeler.

It soon linked with the Berlin Street Railway and the Berlin and Waterloo Street Railway. But electric passenger train service ended by 1955.

Fernandez said workers plan to continue excavating the wooden ties into next week. The process won't set back LRT construction because this phase of construction is to remove pavement, and the wooden ties just come up with that.