Grand slam in Stratford (Part II)

In my first post about this strange lash-up I saw in Stratford, I shared some  photos of the CN crew bringing a short string of cars into Stratford's rail yard. The crew did a little switching, which was perfect for someone like me who never gets to see freight trains. My time in Stratford earlier this summer was quite prolific from a railfanning perspective. Not only did I get shots of a unique triple-header leading a CN freight, I also was able to catch an inbound Goderich Exeter Railway train returning from the Goderich Sub.

So you would think that would have been enough for one trip. And it was. However, I was surprised when I returned to the yard the following day for a quick peak to see this consist coming into the yard, with the same triple header I saw the day before.

CN had clearly kept the trio of geeps together for a return trip to the yard on July 19. This time, it was the BNSF geep in the lead, bring in a mixed load of mainly tank cars and a few covered hoppers. I tried to get a shot of the train emerging from behind the parked cars in the yard, as it made its way toward Romeo Street and the Masterfeeds elevator storage facility.

I also tried to frame the local with the entire elevator in the frame, just to give myself an idea of the scale of the Masterfeeds operations against the small consist. At least this way, I didn't have to fight the heat swivels coming up from the ground, which is always an issue in the summer when you are using the zoom on my camera. You can see the two searchlight signals showing the crew what it was allowed to do. The main line is red over red while the secondary track is red over green.

I don't take a lot of close-up shots of power anymore. I prefer shots where the train shares the frame with some other element of the landscape. In this case, the trio of geeps was too rare for me not to capture it in its own shot.

While I was in the yard, I made sure to try and find some unique rolling stock. I did spot these old Burlington Northern ribbed covered hoppers, which were in pretty decent shape considering how old they are.

That was the last really cool surprise before my family returned home from our trip. It was a really fun time for my kids and it was a very peaceful time for me at the rail yard at a time when I needed it. Great railway therapy.

History and Impressions of Gananoque

My first impression of Gananoque was not good. It might have been 1996 or 1997 when I was on a Via Rail corridor train, when it pulled into Gananoque station. I remember being intrigued by the town's name, as it was unknown to me, a relative newcomer to Eastern Ontario at the time. I remember looking around and wondering, "Where the hell am I?" as the station's immediate surroundings suggested One Horse Town. It wasn't until years later that I learned that Gananoque's train station is actually several kilometres north of the actual town, separated not only by geography but also by Highway 401. Look on any map and it's situated in what is known as Cheeseborough.

Last summer, I learned about much of the the town's railway story, as my family visited the town to see a play at the 1000 Islands Playhouse, nestled on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. Gananoque has a lively theatre scene and bustling downtown all catering to a tourist crowd. The town is situated in an ideal spot, as it is a launch point for people wanting to tour the 1000 Islands along the St. Lawrence Seaway. Geographically, it draws equally from two large cities, Ottawa and Toronto, judging by the license plates I noticed on the day I visited. That's in addition to the many others cities that feed the town's tourist trade, including Kingston, Cornwall, Belleville and other fairly close cities in Eastern and Central Ontario.

Sadly, I was not able to make it out to Cheeseborough to do some railfanning while my family was in town. However, I was happy to see the town's railway history celebrated in the downtown, as a very strange looking switcher is nestled in Sculpture Park, with nearby signage telling visitors about the story of the Thousand Islands Railway. 

The park is easily accessible via King Street, where the road crosses the Gananoque River. In peak tourist season, you would be well advised to find a parking spot on a nearby residential street and leave it there. This town gets awfully busy in the summer.

Known as Engine 500 or the "Susan Push," this 35-tonne locomotive was built by General Motors in Oshawa in 1931 with a gasoline powered engine. The original engine was replaced by a 250-horsepower diesel engine in 1935. This unit replaced steam locomotives on the Thousand Islands Railway, which was simply a small feeder line connecting the riverside town to the CN main line in Cheeseborough. This oddball unit made its last run on local rails in 1960 when it was moved to Cardinal and then Brockville for work as an industrial switcher. The locomotive was retired in 1966 and donated back to Gananoque for use as a historic display. As you can see, local historians have done an excellent job keeping this quirky engine in good shape.

As I have mentioned in regards to the towns of Petrolia and Oil Springs in Southwestern Ontario, Gananoque was served by a short connection to the main line. The Thousand Islands Railway was opened for business in 1884, and it was eventually used as an 8-km connection to the then-Grand Trunk Railway, to ensure Gananoque was not left behind from the progress that rails brought. The feeder railway, which was taken over by CN in 1958, saw small passenger service in the form of connecting trains, to the station north of town until 1962. 

The images you see were the best I could do, given the outdoor lighting and the shiny plastic covering, which made for terrible glare on the day I visited the outdoor historic display. But you can still see Engine 500 towing a solitary clerestory roof heavyweight passenger car into the town's downtown station. The date is not given, but it appears that the 1950s is a good guess, judging by the cars in the photo. 

After local freight service was ended in 1995, the rails were pulled up and the town lost its connection to the main line north of town. Of course, Via Rail still serves the Gananoque Station with regular service, although newcomers to Eastern Ontario will be well advised not to judge the town by its station's surroundings.

As for what's left of the line, there is a clear line-of-sight from the park where you can see the old right-of-way. I can't say whether it's easy to spot elsewhere, as I did not venture too far from the park. I did like the stonework mimicking tracks, which was a nice touch.

The outdoor historic display gives you other details about the Thousand Islands Railway's importance to the local economy, especially when it was used to haul materials to the town's port on the St. Lawrence River and its connection to the main line, where goods could be shipped anywhere or imported from anywhere. It should also be noted that the Grand Trunk's president Charles Melville Hays promoted the town as a tourists destination. The railways have clearly been good to this town, judging by the obvious vestiges of affluence that you can see in the architecture of old homes, churches, the town's massive clock tower near its downtown.

One other detail to note. The Thousand Islands Railway sported an interesting and somewhat familiar logo. The slanted wafer logo is reminiscent of the Grand Trunk, Canadian National and Newfoundland Railway's wafer logos of yore.

I was quite impressed with Gananoque on my first real visit to the town last summer. Our family greatly enjoyed the 1000 Islands Playhouse's rendition of the Music Man, a play that begins with a scene on a train where the dialogue is written almost to mimic the clickety-clack sound of an old train on jointed rails. That scene, which opens the story, was told with such rhythmic dialogue and subtle physical movement by the actors, you would be hard-pressed to think they weren't swaying on a train. It was extremely well done.

I also was fascinated by the fact that you could bring your boat up to the playhouse's docks and park it there while taking in the show. What a way to go.

Gananoque is blessed with natural beauty but it's clear to me that the town also has a rich trove of civic minded citizens who do a good job ensuring that its history is celebrated properly. I am happy for these efforts, because it allowed me to learn a little bit about a tiny railway I didn't even know existed until last summer.

Cabooses of Ottawa (2003-2022)

Since I began blogging in 2013, I have had a few moments where I was able to take in CN operations at Walkley Yard in the city. This is a tricky task, as the yard is largely inaccessible. At the end of Albion Road, there is a gravel access road where a few businesses retain civic addresses, which makes the road a grey area. I do not go down the gravel access road, as it seems to me to be trespassing. However, I have had occasions in the past to see that CN has made use of several cabooses, which provide for a little bit of interest in an otherwise dull railfanning city. 

The cabooses CN has made use of have varied in quality and origin. Given that CN largely stopped using cabooses by 1990-91, it makes the stories of the cabooses in use in Ottawa over the years that much more interesting. Mostly, the cabooses have been used for backwards movements or shoving movements, where the train's conductor needs a safe platform to observe what's ahead on the tracks as visibility from the engine is restricted at the rear.

CN 9106 (ex OCR 9106, ex Devco 9106)

In 2013, it was hard not to see this caboose from the end of Albion Road. It was parked in plain view, not far from the old maintenance building in the yard. It did not appear to be in active service.

By the time I started taking photos near Walkley, like this shot in 2015, the old caboose was a mess of graffiti and broken windows. You can just make out the marking of CN 9106 below the Devco Railway script above. But, upon closer inspection, the 9106 number was once followed by OCR, which is blacked out in this image. That means this caboose predated CN's operations and was used prior to 2008 by the former Ottawa Central Railway. I found this image online from 2003, which gives you an idea of how long it was used in the area.The Devco part had been painted over long ago, but the car retained its green and yellow Devco colours, if you don't count the abundance of graffiti.

This caboose is an AAR M930 class wide vision cupola caboose, which was a common van used by many Class I and regional railroads right up until the industry discontinued the use of these cars. This common caboose was built by International Car Co. from the early 1960s until the mid-1970s. They were in service until the end of the caboose era. CN also made a number of these cabooses at its shops in Montreal.

This caboose saw service on OCR and CN until it was taken out of service at some point in the early 2010s, at which point it sat in Walkley Yard and was left to the vandals. It's a shame that it was not preserved, as it probably saw a lot of service on the Devco Railway, the Cape Breton coal carrier that served the island's remaining coal mines and Sydney's interantional shipping piers between the late 19060s before that railway ended operations officially in 2001.

CN 79834 (ex Ottawa-L'Orignal 2000, ex OCR)

This caboose was in active service as late as 2013 in the city. It was a curiosity by any stretch, mostly because of its odd paint job and the even more curious inscription "Millennium" that was once stencilled onto the left side of the van. It disappeared from Walkley Yard years ago, but was used for shoving moves on the Vankleek Spur as recently as 2020, as per this webpage. The car was built at the CN Point-St-Charles shops under the same number it bore through its later years of service with CN.

The car was sold to the Ottawa-L'Orignal Railway in 1996. The railway, which operated between Glen Robertson on the Alexandria Sub and Hawkesbury, was then bought out by the Ottawa Central, which continued to use the van until 2008 when CN bought OCR and a host of other assets, which meant this old caboose was back with its original owner.

Here's a 2013 shot of an Ottawa crew assembling a train on a Sunday morning, with the old Millennium caboose behind the engine.

These days, the old warhorse is back where it started, used for shoving moves in the Montreal area. It's interesting to speculate what happened to this van. When was it repainted from its original CN colours to blue? How did that paint scheme disintegrate? To be honest, it looks like the paint on this car was applied with roller brushes. I would love to know the story behind its unique appearance.

The only mystery I managed to solve was that the caboose was numbered OLOR 2000 when it was owned by the Ottawa-L'Orignal Railway, which would explain why it was called the Millennium caboose. Maybe someone on the railway had a sense of humour? 

DAWX 79872 (Ex CN 472000 boxcar)

This caboose, which was a former CN caboose, was in storage in Walkley Yard for years. The company that owns it is D.A. Walmsley and Company. It was attached to an RDC9 unit, also owned by DAWX. Sadly, both of these cars were subjected to arson, the RDC unit just recently. There isn't a lot of information about DAWX online, although a picture from locomotive and railway car rebuilding company IRSI in Moncton, New Brunswick provides a clue. This photo shows an old CP RDC, owned by DAWX, being rebuilt at the facility. The company clearly has railway holdings. I have not been back to Walkley Yard in a number of years, so I'm not sure what is to become of its torched RDC unit here or what happened to its previously torched ex-CN caboose. The only information I could find about this caboose is from the Bytown Railway Society, which lists some of its history in this document. From this document, I learned this old caboose was actually a converted boxcar. That's about all I could find. How these cars came to be stored in Walkley Yard is a mystery. I can imagine there would be better places to store cars where the security was better.

GTW 79047

The most recent caboose to ply the rails here is this relatively fit looking Grand Trunk caboose, which has been used on the Arnprior Turn of late. You don't have to look too hard online to find photos of this van in various CN yards across its system in Michigan (ex-GTW territory), Ontario and Winnipeg. It has seen a lot of yard duty, judging by the photos I have seen in various rail photo forums.

Since crews here have to do a fair bit of backward moves on the Smiths Falls Sub to Federal, not to mention on the Vankleek and former OLOR, it's not surprising that CN would want to have one of these old warhorses around to make things easier for the local crew. It certainly has provided a fair bit of excitement among railfans in the area who are making the weekly run to Arnprior a regular spectator sport of late.

Many of us bemoan the lack of variety on today's modern railways. CN's continued use of cabooses in this region certainly gives local railfans one tiny thing to brag about that those along the mainlines cannot claim.

Ghost in the Yard, Part I

Those who have been with me on this blog from the beginning know that I often do a lot of rail photography in Sarnia, where I grew up. I was finally able to travel with my family this summer and even squeeze in a little time trackside at Sarnia's train station. 

I'm not a picky railfan. I see so little here in Ottawa, I will settle for watching a rail yard being switched. That was what was happening when I visited the yard on a cloudy morning in late July. To be honest, the cloudy conditions were ideal for me, as lighting from the station vantage point is tricky at the best of times, with the trains always being obscured by shadows. That morning, there were no such headaches, thankfully.

The first hint of activity was east of the station, as a consist of coil cars, a few hoppers and a long line of tank cars made its way toward the station. With the exception of the coil cars, this was a pretty typical consist for Sarnia, as much of the railway's local customers are in the Chemical Valley, which usually require tank cars and hoppers. These two types of cars are by far the dominant presence in this yard.

I tried to include some of Sarnia Station in the first photo. At this point, I caught a glimpse of a ghost in the consist, but I wasn't sure. In this photo, you can see an old GP9 long hood forward leading the way.

I had to wait a while for this train to make its way closer to the station. While I waited, I snapped a shot of this hopper car that is lettered NOKL, which you would think would belong to the Northwestern Oklahoma Railroad, but this is another case of a shortline leasing its reporting marks to a leasing company. 

I looked up its history, because I was interested in the plate on the upper right hand side of the car and found that this car once belonged to First Union Rail (FURX) and Iowa Interstate (IAIS). The plate in the upper right corner once sported the Equity logo, which you can still make out in the middle of the car. There's a tiny decal still there. Here's a closer shot of that old logo.

With an assist from Eric Gagnon at Trackside Treasure, I was also able to find out a few more things about this car, which Eric told me was once referred to as the "sash scheme" hoppers, which have a capacity of 4,750 cubit feet. They were made by Thrall. Eric also shared that there are a number of more common yellow hoppers with the Equity plate on them.  

Here was another NOKL lettered hopper with the XTRA lettering down the side. I know I have said this before, but taking photos of any type of rolling stock that is out of the ordinary may seem like a waste of time now, but it could one day prove interesting. I always make sure to find a car or two to capture whenever trackside.

This car once had the reporting marks CFWR, which belong to the Caney Fork and Western Railway, a shortline owned by Ironhorse Resources in Tennessee. 

As the yard job finally approached the station, I was able to confirm my suspicions about the rare piece of motive power in the consist. And there is was. Ex-GT 5849 GP38-2 still in its original GT colours. I know this might not seem all that rare to some more regular rail watchers, but it's the first time I've seen this scheme in person since the early 1990s. So, rare for me. What's even cooler is that this unit was once Pittsburgh and Lake Erie 2156. So it has a lot of history.

Here's a shot of just the GT unit. A nearby railfan at the station told me that the unit has been making the rounds in Sarnia for a few months. In the shot below, you can see that one of the front number plates had to be replaced. Not a great match, but it gets the job done, I guess. I also find it interesting that there is no CN stencil below the side numbers. It's as if the GTW never ceased to be its own operating entity.

 

Here's an overall shot of the yard job. I had to strain the limits of my camera's capabilities to get a clear shot. It was a hazy morning and the rain was just about to fall. You can see three yard signal sets in the background as well as the Indian Road overpass over the rail yard.

Here's a more conventional shot of the yard job, with a bit more clarity.

You can even see a carbon black covered hopper behind the coil cars. That hopper is either coming from or going to Cabot in the Chemical Valley. I got a better shot of that type of car when another yard job approached from the west end of the yard from behind a string of other cars. Stay tuned for that in the second part of this series.

In a way, I was lucky enough to catch a meet between two yard jobs, although they were a few tracks apart. It was quite a challenge trying to capture an image with both trains in the frame. I will leave that for the following post.

Ghost in the Yard, Part II

In the last post, I shared some photos of a Grand Trunk locomotive still sporting its red and blue Grand Trunk scheme in Sarnia Yard. I haven't seen a GT painted unit in person since the 1990s, so I was quite happy to finally see one again in real life.

As I mentioned in that last post, I am not a picky railfan. I will take what I can get, especially considering how little there is to see here in Ottawa. So when I saw two crews switching cars in the Sarnia rail yard back in late July, I was quite happy to stand on the Via Rail station platform and try and get some images. The problem with each consist was that they were quite a way east of the station, so I had either hope they would get close or use my camera's zoom to get something worthwhile. Luckily, both came fairly close, which allowed me to capture a few rare sights (at least for me).

The second yard job I saw was being led by two old warhorse GP9s, one with the strange CN 15 logo that was applied to celebrate the railway's 15th anniversary as a public company. Up until that morning, I had no idea the railway applied this logo to one of these locomotives. Most of the recent photos of this unit show it with the ordinary black long hood with the CN lettering. However, it appears the special scheme was added in the  2010s, judging by this 2013 image taken in Winnipeg. (Update: Steve Boyko at Traingeek.ca caught up with the CN 15 GP9 in Winnipeg and blogged about it. You can see his post here.)

Sadly, given where I was on the station platform and the angle and distance, I couldn't get a clear shot of 7258, which soon pulled away from a string of carbon black hoppers toward the east end of the yard. Here's my attempt at a closer shot.

I don't know what to think of that special paint scheme. It really doesn't do anything for me and I would imagine it would confuse a lot of people who aren't familiar with the corporate history of CN. Imagine if someone was really observant, but ignorant of railway history. They might see the CN 15 logo one day and the CN 100 logo another day. Which one would make more sense? Thankfully, this scheme was not terribly prominent and isn't all that widespread anymore, from what I can tell. 

While I was watching these two crews do their work in the yard, I met another local railfan, who is the man behind Shortt Rail videos on YouTube. I take it that he's a constant presence here. I spoke with him for a bit and he assured me that both the GT unit and the CN 15 unit had been around Sarnia for a while. I believe him, given that he has close to 800 videos on his YouTube channel. He also had a Shortt Rail logo on back window of his car.

Anyway, before the rain began to fall, I tried to see if there was anything else to capture. I always had a fondness for these carbon black hoppers. When I was a boy, these cars, which were loaded at the Cabot plant in the Chemical Valley, were ribbed and had the Cabot Corp. logo in the upper right hand corner of the cars. You can see an example of that ribbed hopper design on the left. Now, all you get is the CABX reporting mark as a clue as to what these cars are for and where they are heading to or coming from. Still, I'd love to have a few of these on my layout at home.

I did manage a meet photo of the two yard jobs in action. Trying to get them both in one frame in a way that did them both justice was difficult. 

For a train-starved Ottawan, even this short time in the rail yard was a lot of fun. Shortly after this photo, it began to rain. There was a father on the station platform with his two sons, who were enjoying the rail yard with some donuts from Tim Hortons. We were all chatting about trains before the heavens opened and we all dashed for our cars. 

In retrospect, my timing couldn't have been any better. Two rare sightings at the same time in the span of less than half an hour. Talk about great train karma.

CPR's forgotten "Union" Station

When I was researching the fate and legacy of the Canadian Pacific Railway’s station in Westboro, there was an associated bit of Ottawa railway history that I stumbled across for the umpteenth time. This week, I decided to take a deep dive and unearth a little more of Ottawa’s railway history. This week, let’s look at CPR’s original Ottawa train station, the Broad Street Station.

The station hosted passenger trains for the CP for four decades, not to mention freight activity in its six-track yard.

Try looking for any trace of this station now and you’ll get nowhere. That’s because Broad Street no longer officially exists. Some crumbling asphalt is still there near Albert Street if you look closely enough, but the road itself is largely covered over by decades of neglect, unchecked weeds and planning incompetence. The street itself saw all its remaining structures emptied and razed as the LeBreton Flats were emptied in the 1960s. For those interested, Broad Street, or what’s left of it, is on the western half of the LeBreton Flats, just west of Booth Street and the Pimisi O-Train station.

But the station itself was long gone by the time the Flats were cleared in the sixties. In fact, by the time the National Capital Commission decided to clear the entire area, the Canadian Pacific had already moved its passenger operations twice. The second Broad Street station closed in 1920, which meant some of Canadian Pacific’s passenger operations were shifted to Ottawa’s Union Station. I say some, because it’s not that simple, of course. I’ve spoken to more than one rail historian and they have different takes on how much passenger traffic was shifted to the downtown station after Broad Street closed.

That’s because there’s the matter of the Ottawa West station to consider. The original Ottawa West station was built at the same time as the Broad Street Station was closed in 1920. CP also operated the Bayview Avenue Ottawa West station as an additional passenger station up until the 1960s. So, the operations at the Broad Street Station were shifted in two directions. The CP did indeed use the Union Station downtown for some of its operations, but photos of the Dominion calling at Ottawa West station back up what one rail historian told me a few years ago. That was that the Ottawa West station was used for transcontinentals at one point, while the Union Station was used to support corridor passenger operations. Also, early schedules for Ottawa West in the 1920s showed that it hosted the Trans-Canada Limited as well.

 Broad Street Station in 1908, with Ottawa streetcar out front

Look at a timetable from the 1950s, as I did, and you will see designations in the schedule on some trains that read “Ottawa (Union),” especially on corridor trains. This makes me think that there was a shifting division of the passenger operations, although it’s not clear to me exactly what trains departed from Ottawa West and Union over the years and why. The reason I get confused is, despite pictures of the Dominion calling at Ottawa West, the schedule I consulted from 1956 listed only two trains as using the Ottawa West station, one from Ottawa to Brockville and the other from Ottawa to Chalk River.

It wasn’t always this confusing, of course. Although Ottawa’s Union Station was meant to be a passenger station for the Grand Trunk (later Canadian Northern and finally Canadian National), Canadian Pacific and New York Central, CP used its own station on Broad Street from the 1880s until 1920. And CP wasn’t alone. The New York Central also had its own terminal on Mann Avenue, near the edge of what is now the University of Ottawa campus.

What’s interesting about the Broad Street Station is that it is was once considered to be Ottawa’s Union Station, a designation that clearly predated the construction of the downtown station that was also known as the Union Station. The original CPR station opened in 1896, to replace the Canada Central depot that burned down in 1895. The CPR, of course, took over what became the Carleton Place Subdivision from the Canada Central years earlier. But a railway presence on Broad Street goes back to 1871, when a station opened its doors there to connect two major railways at one point. In 1879, construction wrapped up on the Prince of Wales Railway bridge to connect Quebec rails to this original union station.

The original CPR Broad Street Station (see above behind another streetcar) was destroyed by the great Ottawa-Hull fire of April 1900. The second CPR station on the site was opened in January 1901 (top two photos). If it looks familiar, it should. The moment I saw the images of the station, it reminded me of the CPR Windsor Station in Montreal. The architect who designed the Broad Street Station was from Montreal and was responsible for a number of other CPR stations. The station also bears some striking similarities to the Chateau Laurier.

The fact that it opened in 1901, eleven years before the opening of the downtown Union Station, might account for the CPR’s decision to stick with the station even after the magnificent downtown GTR station opened its doors. I would imagine it would be a tough pill to swallow to bail out of a station that wasn’t even 20 years old.

However, that is just what CPR did in 1920 when it moved its operations to Union Station downtown and to the Ottawa West station. A few articles I read pointed to the opening of the Interprovincial Bridge in 1901 (Alexandra Bridge) between downtown Ottawa and Hull as the turning point for railways. Over the years, more activity began to focus on that bridge, which once carried trains over the river. That might have been the reason for CP to transfer much of its trains to the downtown station.

It's hard to find accurate information about when the Broad Street Station was officially torn down, but it seems as though it was around until the 1930s before it was demolished. A real shame too, given what a beautiful structure it was.

Sources: 
All links will take you to information specific to this station. The Branchline Magazine link takes you to the most comprehensive selection of photos of the old Broad Street Station

Colin Churcher’s Railways in Canada

Traingeek.ca

Old Time Trains

Wikipedia

Branchline Magazine

Ottawa's railway gift that keeps on giving: the Chateau

This post is the second in a rail history series I intend to extend through 2017 as we celebrate Canada's 150th birthday.

I was thinking about my attempt to chronicle the history of railways in the Ottawa Valley this year as part of my Canada 150 project when it occurred to me that I was missing perhaps the most obvious piece of railway history in Ottawa: The Chateau Laurier Hotel.

Anyone who has visited Ottawa knows about this iconic hotel. It was built by the Grand Trunk Railway across Rideau Street from Ottawa's Union Station. The Chateau was meant to rival the hotels built by GTR rival Canadian Pacific. It was also meant to be the official hotel of government leaders and visiting dignitaries. Today, it remains the city's most prestigious hotel and continues to host tourists from all over the world and any number of world leaders.

To read about Ottawa's Union Station click here.
To read about my first Canada 150 post, click here.

I thought I'd share a few interesting tidbits about this hotel, which truly does epitomize the golden age of passenger rail in Canada. Let's begin with this shot, which is one of the photographs that is posted in the main lobby of the hotel.

Note the passenger train passing beneath Rideau Street and the boats on the Rideau Canal in this photo

The Chateau, seen here shortly after opening, was meant to serve that railway axiom "If we can't export the scenery, we'll import the tourists." That was a quote from William Van Horne of the Canadian Pacific, but you get the idea. The hotel wasn't nearly as big as it is now but it was an impressive structure in rough-and-tumble Ottawa in the early 1900s. It was the first hotel of this quality in the capital.

The hotel is still connected beneath Rideau Street by a tunnel. The tunnel is now off limits, although I would imagine it may still be used by delegates attending conferences at the Government Conference Centre, as Union Station has been known for years.

You can see the triple tracks on the edge of the hotel in this shot. The rails are long gone, but a service road is still in place, which uses part of the old right-of-way

Here's another fun fact. The hotel is one of the few that has been owned by all three of Canada's transcontinental railways. The hotel was originally built by the Grand Trunk, but was then brought under the control of the Canadian National when the CNR absorbed the Grand Trunk in 1923. The railway at one point had the CN wet noodle logo on its entrance lettering. In 1988, the hotel was sold to the Canadian Pacific hotel subsidiary. When CP began to divest itself of everything but its railway operations, the hotel became part of the Fairmont chain.

The construction of the hotel wasn't immune to politics, as is the case with just about everything in Ottawa. There was some serious opposition to a hotel being built on a piece of Majors Hill Park, but the hotel was nonetheless built, thanks to the help of Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier. It likely didn't hurt that the government had already subsidized the Grand Trunk's Pacific extension, so a little further help in getting this hotel build doesn't seem like much of a stretch.

Even before the hotel was opened, there was a question about what it would be called. Charles Melville Hays, the head of the Grand Trunk, wanted to call the hotel the Chateau Laurier, after the Prime Minister, although Mr. Laurier was reluctant to have the hotel bear his name. There was a suggestion that the hotel be called Majors Hill Hotel, after the park that it backs onto, but the Chateau Laurier name was eventually picked. You can read the letter that Hays wrote to Prime Minister Laurier in the lobby of the hotel. I'm not sure how comfortable Mr. Laurier would have been to have received such an honour, especially since he was still alive. It seems like an honour one would bestow on the deceased.

This is a shot of the beginning of construction from 1909

When the hotel and railway station were officially opened in June 1912, there was very little fanfare. The reason for the subdued affair was because Mr. Hays, who had led efforts to build the hotel, died on his way back to Ottawa aboard RMS Titanic.

The tragedy of his death still resonates in the city, since it is widely known that Mr. Hays still roams the halls of the hotel. Numerous guests and hotel employees have reported meeting the spirit of Mr. Hays, who is often described as a friendly spirit.

The chateau-style construction is similar to the style that was employed for many other railway hotels, including the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City and the Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, to name but a few.

This Canadian style of construction has become Canada's calling card throughout the world in many respects. For example, visit the Canada pavilion at Disney World's Epcot theme park in Florida and you will see a scaled down recreation of the Chateau Laurier.

Please excuse the reflection of my hands in some of the shots. I snapped a few quick shots of the historic photos on the walls of the hotel earlier this week. The lighting was not terribly easy to work with, considering I was armed only with an iPhone.

I like this last photo more than any other in the hotel. It looks like those ladies are having a great time at the end of that train!

Gone but not forgotten: The Forest Subdivision

Some cities bury old rail lines and their rail history. I won't write about how this came back to haunt Ottawa. Instead, I want to focus on a historic rail line, long gone, which is celebrated in southwestern Ontario.

The old Canadian National Forest Subdivision has an interesting history. At one point, it was the Grand Trunk Railway's main line between Point Edward (Sarnia) and Toronto. The line was opened for business in 1859 before standard gauge was adopted among North American railways. The rails were 5 feet, 6 inches apart (1.67 metres), before being changed to the standard 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches (1.435 metres) in 1872.

The rail line initially ran down what is now Cathcart Boulevard in the city and crossed through the lakefront park, Canatara Park, before ending at a terminal in Point Edward where the Bluewater Bridge now stands. The right-of-way between Blackwell, via Cathcart Boulevard, and Point Edward, saw scheduled service until 1967. That stretch is now unrecognizable. However, the old right-of-way that branched off south at Blackwell that connected to the Strathroy Subdivision has been maintained as a multi-use trail.

The image below is a small monument to Sarnia's railway heritage. A small railway platform sits near what was once the Blackwell flag stop. This flag stop served passengers until passenger service was discontinued by CNR in 1952. This area is located in north Sarnia. You will notice that the platform has some actual rails incorporated into it. Nice touch.

Also, a bench made with old railway iron. Again, a clever nod to the area's railway past. I'd love to know how they bent those old rails for this use.

The old line has more recently been known as the Howard Watson Nature Trail. It seems to be an incredibly popular trail for people to use. The trail itself runs between Sarnia and Camlachie, a small village north of the city. The photo below (all shots in this post are courtesy of my brother Marc) shows the old right of way, which parallels Lakeshore Road in Bright's Grove. You can make out an old railway bridge straight ahead.

Here's another shot. The bridge crosses Perch Creek, also a flag stop on the old Grand Trunk line in earlier times. As you can see, the trail is well maintained.

Another shot from the woods.

And another shot from below. I'm not sure what the "Pig Roasters" graffiti is about, but I have an idea that it's likely a shot at local police. Not terribly clever. Given the tricky lighting beneath this bridge, I did a fair bit of touching up to make sure all elements of were visible. That explains the sepia tones you might notice.

As I was reading about this line, I discovered a number of interesting tidbits.

1. The Grand Trunk built a connection between its line and what is now the Strathroy Subdivision at Blackwell in 1882 (top photo). This was done when the Grand Trunk absorbed the Great Western Railway, which originally operated what is now the Strathroy Sub.

2. The connection also cleared the way for the GTR to divert its traffic to the St. Clair River Tunnel, in south Sarnia, in 1891. Before the tunnel was built, the Grand Trunk ferried 1,000 cars a day across the St. Clair River, by two ferries.

3. The line once served as a major transportation route for sugar beets, which were loaded onto freight cars in the north end of the city.

4. The GTR's old terminal in Point Edward once served as a the second busiest immigration hub for people wanting to settle in the American West. This hub was second only to Ellis Island for the number of people it processed.

CN took control of this old GTR line in 1923 when the Grand Trunk was folded into the Canadian National Railways crown corporation. As mentioned, passenger service on this line was scrapped in 1952. The CN Forest Subdivision in the Sarnia area was abandoned in 1981, with other segments following in the late 1980s.

When it was last fully operational, the subdivision began at Sarnia Yard and ventured east where it served the following towns:

Forest (47.5)

This shot, from the Lambton County Archives, shows the former Forest train station, now the town's library.

Thedford (38.7)
Parkhill (30.0)
Ailsa Craig (22.3)
Lucan (15.2)
Granton (9.3)
St. Mary's (Junction with former CN Thorndale Subdivision)

This was the makeup of this subdivision until 1981, when the section between Sarnia and Forest was abandoned. In 1985, the section between Forest and Parkhill was abandoned. In 1988, the line was completely abandoned.

As mentioned, a part of the line in Sarnia has served as an official trail since 1986. There is a portion that crosses under Highway 402, which is being eyed as a right-of-way for a road. Those who love this trail are opposed to the idea, but suggestions have been made where the road would be built with a dedicated right-of-way for the trail. I'm sure this is not a great option for those who love this trail, but it seems inevitable that a strategic right-of-way will surely give way to development.