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.jpg) A crowd gathers on the Central Ontario Railway platform in Bancroft to await the arrival of the first train on 2 November 1900. | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Maynooth |
| Reporting mark | COR |
| Locale | Ontario, Canada |
| Dates of operation | 1879–1984 |
| Predecessor | Prince Edward County Railway |
| Successor | Canadian Northern Railway |
| Technical | |
| Length | 50.9 miles (81.9 km) |
TheCentral Ontario Railway (COR) was arailway that ran north fromTrenton, Ontario to service a number of towns, mines, and sawmills. It was formed as thePrince Edward County Railway in 1879, and ran betweenPicton and Trenton, where it connected with theGrand Trunk Railway that ran betweenMontreal andToronto. After being purchased by a group of investors and receiving a new charter to build northward, the company was renamed the Central Ontario Railway in 1882, and it started building towards the gold fields atEldorado and newly discovered iron fields in Coe Hill.
On reaching Coe Hill in 1884, the mine was found to have low-grade ore, nearly bankrupting the company. Expansion continued to other mining areas aroundBancroft, along with two-wholly owned subsidiary lines, theOntario, Belmont and Northern Railway, later known as theMarmora Railway, and theBessemer and Barry's Bay Railway. The later was supposed to connect to theOttawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway (OA&PS) atBarry's Bay, but those plans were shelved. A new route to the OA&PS was selected toWhitney, just outsideAlgonquin Provincial Park. Construction on the final portion reachedMaynooth in 1907 but was never completed, and the line ended in the now-abandoned town of Wallace, about 25 km south of Whitney.
The COR was taken over byMackenzie andMann in 1910, along with theIrondale, Bancroft and Ottawa Railway which was connected to the COR north of Bancroft in July 1910. Both lines were then merged into theirCanadian Northern Railway (CNoR) in 1911. After CNoR was nationalized 1918, the lines became part of theCanadian National Railway (CN) in 1923. CN operated the COR as theMaynooth Subdivision. Sections of the line north of Maynooth were lifted in 1965, and the entire rest of the line in 1985. All of the side branches had been abandoned much earlier, typically when the ore deposits dried up.
Much of the route of the COR has been repurposed as a multiuse recreationalrail trail, which has a variety of names depending on its location, with theHastings Heritage Trail being a prominent part.
Prince Edward County is a large peninsula on easternLake Ontario. It is roughly triangular in shape with its apex pointed to the east, and its connection to the mainland at the northwestern corner. It was first settled starting in 1784 byLoyalists after theAmerican Revolutionary War, and depended largely on fishing and barley in its early days.
TheGrand Trunk Railway (GTR) reachedBelleville on its way to Toronto in 1855, opening new markets to the county. Local businessmen began considering a railway to collect produce from across the peninsula and connecting with the GTR at Trenton, on the north side of the land bridge with the mainland.[1] The Prince Edward County Railway company (PECR) was formed in 1873[a] and began construction due west out of Picton towards the western shore of the peninsula, then turning northward for Trenton. Due to financial constraints, the line was not completed until 1879, and it opened for service in October.[1] In 1976 a large branch was wyed off west of Picton to serve large quarries north of town, near Elmbrook.
The opening ofCentral Ontario during the 19th Century was driven primarily by the discovery of a number of mineral deposits, notably gold and iron ore. As mines grew, principally in the area ofMarmora andMadoc, a race formed between a series of railways companies who wanted to serve these markets. Among the many claimants were theVictoria Railway (VicR) that ran throughLindsay, a combined rail and water route by theCobourg and Peterborough Railway (C&P), and a potential extension of theToronto and Nipissing Railway. None of these were well placed though, as they ran towards Toronto instead of east to the major markets and shipping routes. The only line that appeared to be well positioned was a proposed branch of theGrand Junction Railway (GJR) out of Belleville. Since the new mining areas were directly north of both Trenton and Belleville, the PERC was also in an ideal location as a starting point.
William Coe of Madoc foundiron ore deposits outside Brinklow and began looking for ways to commercialize the find. He contactedGeorge William McMullen, a railway promoter inChicago who had been born and raised in Picton. McMullen started looking for partners, and foundSamuel Ritchey, a businessman fromOhio who was looking for new ventures. Rickey, McMullen and McMullen's brother J.B. bought the PECR in 1880 to serve as the basis for a rapid expansion. In 1881 the group purchased 70,000 acres of land for the mines, and transferred the deeds to the company.[2] The group then petitioned theOntario Legislature for the rights to rename the company and start construction northward, which was granted on 10 March 1882.[3] The land deeds were transferred to the newly formed Coe Hill Mining Company, and the railway was renamed the Central Ontario Railway.[2]
The route was selected to take the line through several other mining areas, including Marmora, Deloro and Malone, before reaching Eldorado. The line reached Marmora in 1883 and the newly formedCoe Hill in 1884.[b] The first load of ore left the station on 2 June 1884,[3] but when the samples reachedCleveland for analysis the results showed that the ore was too low grade to be useful for mining, leaving the company on the verge of bankruptcy.[2]
From that point the company turned to servicing other mines and sawmills in the area and constructed a number of branch lines. As early as May 1891, theOntario, Belmont & Northern Railway (OB&NR), a wholly owned subsidiary of the COR, received a charter to build a branch line to the iron mines in the Marmora area. Construction did not start for some time, and the 14.5 km line from Marmora Junction near Belmar to the Cordova mines was finally completed in July 1896. Later that year the branch was renamed to become theMarmora Railway & Mining Company.
Starting in 1899 the mainline was extended further north, not from the original terminus in Coe Hill which became a branch line, but by via a wye off the line south of Brinklow and running almost due north from that point, roughly following the route of the modernOntario Highway 62. The 19.55 mile extension to Bancroft opened on 2 November 1900.[3] Another subsidiary line, theBessemer and Barry's Bay Railway, was chartered in 1904 (although apparently formed in the late 1800s) to branch off the COR at L'Amable, just south of Bancroft, and run eastward to connect to Bessemer and the Child's Mine. Later, plans were made to use this branch as the basis for an extension all the way to theOttawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway, at that time the busiest railway in Canada,[4] meeting it atBarry's Bay. However, the extension plans were never taken up and the B&BB remained a spur ending Child's Mine.
A connection with the OA&PS, by this time reorganized to become part of theCanadian Atlantic Railway (CAR), remained desirable. A new route running from the Bancroft terminus was selected, running almost due north to meet the CAR nearWhitney, just outside today'sAlgonquin Provincial Park. Construction on this link reached Maynooth on 7 November 1907, Lake St. Peter in 1909, and Wallace in 1911[5] - so-named for the line's surveyor and chief engineer.[6] By this time the logging era had reached its peak and traffic was dwindling on the COR, and further expansion was abandoned, leaving the end of the line a turnaround-wye next to Joseph Lavalley's farm in Wallace.[6]
In 1910 the entire COR was leased by theIrondale, Bancroft and Ottawa Railway, which was itself purchased by theCanadian Northern Railway (CNoR) in 1911. The Canadian government took control of the CNoR in 1916, and folded its holdings into the formingCanadian National Railway (CNR) in 1918.[5] Under CN ownership, various sections were renamed as subdivisions; the line from Picton to Trenton became thePicton Subdivision,[7] the mainline to Maynooth became theMaynooth Subdivision,[8] while the various spurs became theCoe Hill Subdivision,[9] theMarmora Subdivision,[10] and theBessemer Subdivision.[11]
The line was kept active by a series of small lumber mills that opened in the Lake McKenzie area. McConnell's Mill near the current intersection of McKenzie Lake Road andOntario Highway 127 was the first of these, and later taken over by theRathbun Lumber Company. Judson Gunters opened a mill slightly to the north around 1918, which gives its name to maps to this day. The final mill in the area opened in 1943 when J.S.L. McRae moved his mill from Lake of Two Rivers in Algonquin to the area just north of Wallace. This mill operated until 1952.[6]
With the closing of the McRae mill and several other businesses in the area, traffic on the northern section of the line quickly dwindled. By 1955 all the business in Wallace had closed, and the COR ran a single train to the town every Wednesday to deliver mail. This section was abandoned in 1960, leaving the terminus at Lake St. Peter. On 22 April 1964 CNR applied to abandon the entire line from Wallace to Bird's Creek, just north of Bancroft where the COR met the Irondale (at today's "Y" Road). But only a smaller section, from Maynooth to Lake St. Peter was abandoned in 1965,[6] along with most of the spurs. The remainder of the line was abandoned by CNR in 1984, and the rails lifted either that year or the next. Today only a 1.5 km long section of the line remains, used by CN Rail as a siding to service the grain terminal at Trenton junction.
Most of the COR, including the original PECR route, has been converted to rail-trail use. After its abandonment the line has increasingly been turned to local authorities for maintenance.
The route of the original PECR was purchased by Prince Edward County in 1997 and is now known as theMillennium Trail, running for 49 km out of Picton and ending just outside Trenton.[12]
The 17 km section betweenOntario Highway 401 at Trenton and Glen Ross had been re-used for roadways and other uses, as well as being in a built-up area. The unused sections in this area only started conversion to trail use in the 2000s, and several of these sections opened in 2011. Just north of Trenton this is known as the Jack Lange Memorial Trail, and from there, from just south of Glen Miller to Glen Ross, it becomes the Lower Trent Trail.[13]
The largest section of the trail network is the 156-kilometre (97 mi) long four-seasonHastings Heritage Trail, stretching from Glen Ross all the way toLake St. Peter Provincial Park outside Maynooth.[14] This is the official end of the line, where it hits the border betweenHastings County andSouth Algonquin. The trail remains in good repair, signed and used, north of this border to its current ending point nearMcKenzie Lake, at the intersection of McKenzie Lake Road and McKenzie North Road, marked on many maps as the village of Gunters.[15]
The short remaining section from Gunters to Wallace is used for a variety of purposes, including section of McKenzie Lake Road,Hydro One lines providing local service, and in some areas simply abandoned and heavily overgrown. The ultimate terminus can be seen a few meters to the west of McKenzie Lake Road at theghost town of Wallace.
The original Prince Edward County Railway ran almost due west out of Picton towards the western shore of the Prince Edward County peninsula. It turned northwest atWellington and then due north atHillier before turning northwest again at Consecon to loop around the western end of theBay of Quinte and then northeast for the short remaining distance to Trenton. There were ten stations on the line, Picton, Bloomfield at 4.22 miles, Hallowell 7.59 miles, Wellington 10.97 miles, Niles' Corner 14.90 miles, Hillier 16.55 miles, Consecon 21.32 miles,Weller's Bay 25.64 miles, Canal 27.02 miles and Trenton 30.60 miles.[16] This section of the line was abandoned in 1984 and the rails removed, but now the majority is used for a recreational trail. The original Picton Station is located on Main Street, and is occupied by C.F. Evans Lumber Company.
From Trenton the line ran almost due north through Frankford, Glen Ross, Anson, Bonariaw, Marmora Station (just northeast of Marmora) and Deloror. Here it turned northeast toward Malone, and then east through Madoc to Eldorado. The line then turned north to run through Bannockburn, Millbridge Station and Gilmour, before turning west just south of Brinklow and running through Ormsby to its end just southwest of Coe Hill.
The Bancroft extension wyed off near Brinklow at Ormsby Junction, running north through Brinklow and detouring to the east en route to serve Detlor before reaching Bancroft. The next extension took it north from Bancroft to Maynooth Station (east of Maynooth). The original plans would have had it run roughly northeast along the route ofOntario Highway 62 toBarry's Bay, but instead took it northward along the route ofOntario Highway 127 throughLake St. Peter Provincial Park before ultimately ending in the bush near McKenzie Lake.
There were two main spur lines. One split just south of Marmora at Belmar Station to run northwest to Cordova Mines, and the other split at Bessemer Junction near Detlor running east-northeast to Childs Mine.
The COR was joined by several other railways in the area. TheGrand Junction Railway (GJR) ran betweenPeterborough and Belleville and met the COR in a wye junction just outside the town of Anson, nearStirling. A branch of the GJR, the Belleville and North Hastings Railway (B&NH), later met the COR about 1 km west of Eldorado. TheBay of Quinte Railway was extended to meet the COR just north of Eldorado at Bannockburn, reaching this point in 1902.[17][18] The final connection was to theIrondale, Bancroft and Ottawa which met the COR just north of Bancroft in 1910, meeting it at what it today known as "Y" Road, named for the wye intersection.
Main stations on the line included Picton, Bloomfield, Wellington, Trenton, Frankford, Marmora, Coe Hill, Bancroft and Maynooth. Several stations have survived; the original Picton station was moved and became a private home, while the second station remains in use as a lumberyard (C.F. Evans). Hallowell was moved to Stanley Street in Bloomfield as a children's playhouse, Bloomfield moved to West Lake as a summer residence, Consecon is abandoned in place, Frankford moved to Stockdale as a restaurant, Marmora and Coe Hill both moved to a park to become information centres (Marmora Memorial Park and Coe Hill Fairgrounds), Bancroft's station remains in place and is now municipal offices, Maynooth was abandoned in place (see image at top) and Lake St. Peter was moved to an unknown location.
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