Railway stories: The reporter along the tracks

With the options for railfanning limited these days, I have been searching for some ideas to use for this blog. I have been cycling through photos and thinking of stories not yet told. Then it hit me. I have a number of life stories that somehow connect to the railways. I'm sure lots of people have similar railway stories, whether they know it or not. For me, I tend to remember more details of major life events when there is some sort of railway connection.

So, here's my first story. When I was in my early 20s, I lived for two years in Peterborough, Ontario. I worked for the local newspaper, the Examiner. It's a daily that is famous for once having employed Robertson Davies as its publisher. While Davies is certainly not my favourite author, I can appreciate his work and the cachet his name still carries.

In 2003-04, when I worked there, the Examiner was located in an industrial office building on an industrial road dubbed The Queensway. The building included a printing press in the back and the property backed up onto the Kawartha Lakes Railway line, a CP Rail shortline. This was the same line that once went through to Ottawa. The line now ends in Havelock. It is once again being looked at as a possibility for better, faster train service to Ottawa and Montreal (pipe dream).

This is not a shot from Peterborough. In fact, I have no rail photos from my time there in 2003-04, but I thought I needed to show something. So here's a shot of a yard switcher in London, Ontario. It's a good example of CP's secondary power that was and is the primary power on the Kawartha Lakes Railways through Peterborough.

When I worked in Peterborough, the Kawartha Lakes Railway was a forgettable secondary rail line that saw limited, albeit somewhat regular, action. But it was never terribly busy. I do recall being at my desk in the evening and looking out the back window of our newsroom, which faced west. The setting sun was always a soothing site, but that window also offered a view of the rail line and it would always make me pause when a train came roaring by.

I also remember being held up mid-jog by a train that was hurtling by Lansdowne Street, being led by two old SW1200s that were pulling a surprisingly long load. That was the type of scene you could expect to see on this line at the time. Two yard switchers pulling a long freight train, working as primary road power. 

I remember one night, a call came in on the police scanner, which was asking for officers to try and find two yokels in a pickup truck who had steered their truck onto the rail line in search of a deer they were apparently hunting. This was the type of local flavour that often coloured our police coverage.

To this day, I'm not exactly sure what to make out of this city. It was always an enigma to me.

But I think the clearest memory I have of those railway tracks was when the city was hit by what is known in weather circles as a cold low. It was a torrential rain storm that stalled over the city and dumped more than 100 mm of rain on the city in less than 12 hours. The result was that the city was flooded almost in its entirety. The flood only lasted a day, but its damage was immense. The story made national headlines in the summer of 2003.

The only way I could make it to work was by bike, since the roads were mostly flooded between my house and the newspaper offices.

This was my street. A neighbour was trying to fish something out of the crater that had been created near the hydro box.

The day of the flood turned out to be one of the longest of my career. It was exhilarating and humbling at the same time. I remember biking down one of my local streets with the water over the front tires of my bike. I had no raincoat, so I had to wear a garbage bag over my clothes, just to keep dry.

My railway memory of that day happened when I was in the back parking lot of our newspaper offices and looking down the tracks, much of which were washed out and unpassable. In that quiet moment amid the chaos of that day, a young reporter came walking up to me, a recorder and microphone in hand. She introduced herself as a reporter from CBC Radio and wanted to know if I could comment a bit on what was happening in the city.

The whole time as I am answering her questions, I wondered, how did this reporter, most likely from Toronto, find her way into the city? The main routes into Peterborough were flooded. I also wondered, why was she walking along the railway tracks? I never asked her how she made it into town and I never did figure out why she was walking along the tracks.

It was a surreal moment in my career and one that I will never forget. Much of that has to do with the fact that it happened near railway tracks.

Havelock: The railway town, the subdivision, the history

This post is the fourth in a rail history series I intend to extend through 2017 as we celebrate Canada's 150th birthday. Click the links to read the first and second  and third rail history posts.

Havelock, Ontario is still a railway town, despite it all. The village, which sits on the easten edge of Peterborough County, has always been closely tied to the railways for its entire history. In the last thirty years, the fortunes of the rail line through the village have waxed and waned. Unlike other remote villages that have lost rail service, Havelock’s railway might actually have better days ahead.

Today, the town’s railway operations still reflect the past and present in a relaxed pastoral setting.

I have passed through Havelock countless times, mostly in 2003 and 2004, when I lived and worked in Peterborough. The village’s railyard, which is operated by Canadian Pacific subsidiary the Kawartha Lakes Railway, still serves as a steady railway presence for the area, which is on the edge of both Eastern and Central Ontario.

For railfans, the railyard is an easy place to take in some action. Even without any activity in the yard, there is much to see. The village’s former railway station, a designated heritage site, has been preserved since it last served as a passenger station in 1990. The station has housed a restaurant since 2004. Former CP Rail caboose 434700 has sat on the side of Ottawa Street (Highway 7) for years and is fully preserved.

Two GP20ECOs bracket GP38-2 3021 at Havelock Yard near the end of the Havelock Subdivision. Check out the faded golden rodent in the middle!

The yard itself still sees regular activity as Havelock is the junction between the Havelock Subdivision and the Nephton Subdivision. The Nephton Sub is critical to the Kawarwtha Lakes Railway, since it connects the railway’s main customer, Unimin, which mines nepheline at the Blue Mountain mine, about half an hour north of Havelock. Nepheline is a mineral found in igneous rock. The mineral is a key component in plastics, fibreglass, ceramics and glass. So, it's not uncommon to find covered hoppers in this area, obviously.

The Kawartha Lakes Railway regularly uses GP20ECOs and other geeps on both subs and in the yard. In the past, SW1200s were used for local service in Peterborough (due to their ability to handle the tight curves of local spurs) while GP9s were used along the rest of the line.

Havelock Yard in late June. Note the old Boston & Maine covered hopper. Covered hoppers are common in this yard as CP subsidiary Kawartha Lakes Railway serves a nearby nepheline mine and now serves area businesses by delivering carloads of roofing granules that are loaded onto trucks.

I recall many a time working at the Peterborough Examiner in the evening and watching Toronto-bound nepheline trains rushing through town, led by GP9s. Our newspaper's property went right back to the tracks, so passing trains were always a neat break in the evenings.

But back to Havelock.

Havelock has long tied its fortunes to the railway. Rails were originally laid through the area as part of the Ontario and Quebec Railway, which became part of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1884. The line through Havelock originally connected Toronto with Perth and was used as a passenger connection to Ottawa (via the Havelock Sub connected to the Belleville Sub at Glen Tay and that Sub linked up to the Smiths Falls Sub, which stretched through Smiths Falls to Ottawa).

Canadian Pacific passenger train heads west out of Havelock en route to Peterborough and Toronto. This shot was taken six years before rails east of Havelock were torn up. At one point, this sub extended all the way to Perth (Canada Science and Technology Museum archives).

Via Rail discontinued service over the Havelock Sub in January 1990. At that point, through service to Ottawa had long since been discontinued. The section of the sub from Glen Tay (Perth) to Tweed was abandoned in 1971 while the section from Tweed to Havelock was scrapped in 1988.

Havelock's passenger station as seen from Havelock Yard. This station has been preserved and serves as a restaurant (Canada Science and Technology Museum archives).

Since passenger rail was scrapped on the sub, there has been a steady push from some to re-establish passenger rail operations on this line, which is bolted rail. The latest serious push for passenger rail happened in 2008 when Peterborough’s MP Dean Del Mastro led efforts to have Via Rail establish RDC service between Peterborough and Toronto. There was a commitment from Ontario and the federal government to contribute $150 million to upgrade the line for passenger service.

The plan fell apart when Via Rail studied the feasibility of passenger rail operations on the line and found that the service would lose $2 million annually. Local rail proponents had estimates that wildly differed from Via’s assessment and continued to push for Via or Metrolinx service on the sub. Metrolinx estimated it would cost $541 million to equip the line for commuter trains. At one point, local proponents wanted to buy the Havelock and Nephton Subs from CP and contract the railway to continue freight operations. The idea was to get a cut of the freight revenues from KLR to help establish passenger rail on a solid footing.

So, that was the end of it, right? Well, not exactly. For reasons known only to Via, there have been more recent efforts to study the feasibility of passenger rail along the Havelock Subdivision. These efforts have included looking at reacquiring land between milepost 90.8, east of Havelock, and the old junction with the Belleville Subdivision in Glen Tay (Perth). You may recall Trains Magazine explored this idea in a recent story it ran about Via Rail’s uncertain future. This section of the old sub is now part of the TransCanada Trail.

Having passenger rail on the Havelock Sub would at least solve capacity issues for Via Rail between Toronto and Montreal and Ottawa, where it has to contend with the busy freight demands on CN tracks. However, it also raises a question. Which communities are crying out for Via Rail service along this more northerly line? Other than Peteborough, the Havelock Sub mostly passes through small towns such at Norwood and Cavan. I suppose the idea Via is considering is establishing an express route between Toronto and Ottawa, which would supplement current service that serves larger communities along Lake Ontario. That’s just a guess on my part.

Whatever the future holds for this old rail line, it seems at the very least that the days ahead won’t be dull.