A reminder of better days

I saw something on June 30 in Sarnia that reminded me of better days. I almost hesitated in writing that in the headline, because I find it frustrating when older railfans (I suppose I'm edging into that demographic) insist that everything was better before. 

For younger railfans, this is their golden age. They will grow up, become adults, and become nostalgic for these days. In other words, I think we need to be mindful of dealing in absolutes. If you asked me whether trains were more interesting to watch when I was younger, I would say yes. But that is just my reality. I respect that people will have different perspectives.

That being stated, I will share that I miss CSX. I miss the days watching the old Chessie System and B&O pained GP38s rumbling through my hometown with long trains bound for Sarnia or Chatham. The old CSX Sarnia Subdivision is a shadow of what it once was, and that is indeed a shame. I won't get into the recent history. I've covered it all before. 

This summer, when I was in Sarnia visiting family, I spent some time in the Sarnia rail yard just to get my fix of main line railroading action. That was when I saw CSX's interchange (transfer, some call it) making its way into CN's yard. This was at the same time that a CN westbound was making its way through the yard.

CSX's operations are down to a very small crew and stable of power. The geeps working the CSX customers in the Chemical Valley are modified, with boxier cabs and other features. Personally, I think they are a step down aesthetically. In this shot above, the power has just curled its way around the LDS roundhouse. As per usual, the crew was pulling tank cars into the yard. CSX handles tank cars and covered hoppers almost exclusively in Sarnia.

This might be one of my favourite shots of the year. As the CSX interchange slowly made its way into the yard, the westbound freight was moving at quite a clip toward the downward grade to the Paul M. Tellier Tunnel. To be honest, I was afraid I wouldn't get any better shots of the CSX train, as this is more of a rarity than the CN freight. Thankfully, the westbound CN cleared the yard quickly, allowing me to capture both trains in motion beneath the gantry. 

Here's a better look at the train making its way west through the yard. What became clear to me as the consist inched forward was that this was an unusually long train. Since the years when I watched CSX trains passing through my hometown when I was younger, I have rarely seen consists this long. 

This shot doesn't really do the length of the train justice, but it was somewhere near 70-80 cars long, which is something I have not seen from CSX in many years. Granted, these are based on very limited observations when I am home visiting once a year. So take that it for what it's worth. You might be able to see another railfan taking in the scene on a bench on the station platform.

One final shot of the westbound transfer coming up to two CN yard jobs around the Indian Road overpass. You can see both of those trains amid the blur of the summer heat and the morning shadows. Three trains in one shot. 

That was one of the highlights of my time in Sarnia on a morning when I saw multiple trains in short succession. It reminded me of a time when CSX was a going concern and handled long freight trains between Chatham and Sarnia on the Sarnia Subdivision. Of course, those days are long gone, but it was nice to be reminded of busier times for a few minutes.

So long, Stratford

All good things must come to an end!

In the last several years, I have been lucky enough to spend long spells at the Stratford rail yard, but no more. My relatives who are living in the city are moving away, which means my family's summer vacations will be shifting west to the London area next year.

So, I will begin this celebration of the Festival City with a nice parting shot. This might be one of my favourite shots from 2026.

I took this shot quickly with my iPhone as I spent some quiet time at the station on vacation in the city this summer. The tracks in the yard have been realigned in the middle, which meant the GEXR units were parked closer to the platform, compared to years past. This allowed me to get a shot of the orange units with an interesting cloud pattern overhead. The Stratford Masterfeeds grain elevator is visible in the background, along with the ever-present covered hopper cars, which are a permanent fixture in this yard.

But if you look closely, you will see that there is a lone CN unit parked deep in the yard. There was no way to properly capture all the engines in one shot that did them all justice from this spot, even with my camera. If you strain your eyes, you will see a speck of dark red level with the bottom of the elevator. That is the lone CN unit, marooned on a yard track, close to the CN work buildings just east of the Via Rail station.

So here is a clear shot of the lone CN geep, on its own. I'm not sure why it would have been left in the yard. CN operates its local moves on the Guelph Subdivision out of the Kitchener yard, which means all work done in Stratford first has to come from Kitchener. When work is done here and further west in St Marys, the crew returns to Kitchener. Possibly this unit had mechanical issues. I'm not sure why it was left here, but it was gone the following day.

I do like that it allowed me some creativity to frame a shot that is a bit more like a landscape shot. You can see the red track signals, a string of Potash branded hoppers and the CN unit next to the imposing grain elevator.

So back to my quest to get both the GEXR and CN units in the same shot that does them some justice. After a few attempts up close to the GEXR units, I backed up on the platform and tried a different approach with my camera. I think this more closely captures the idea in my head of having both railways clearly represented in the same image.

I will share more images from Stratford in coming posts, as I had a few more meets with local CN trains in my days in the city. 

In my time chronicling the Goderich Exeter Railway, both in Goderich and in Stratford, I've been lucky enough to document a lot of change along this short line railway. In Stratford, I have been able to capture both the Goderich Exeter Railway as well as CN numerous times. I've seen this yard when it was the sole domain of GEXR and then watched as the transition back to CN control took hold.

I've seen GO Trains come through the city, not to mention Via Rail corridor trains. There has been no shortage of interesting sights to see from this quiet part of the CN network. 

While I will miss it, I also look forward to possibly chronicling rail activity in a new area. I'm not sure there were many new challenges for me in Stratford. As I have written about a fair bit, I am trying to find new ways to capture railway images in new locations and from new perspectives. My focus has very much shifted to rail landscape shots whenever possible. 

Stratford has much to offer a determined railfan. I'm glad for my time there.  

Summer days along the main line

Earlier this summer, my family burst out of the gate for our summer vacation. We were gone after the last day of school to visit Toronto for a few days and then proceeded to the Sarnia area to visit my family. While there, I made good use of some free time to visit the CN yard in the city. The yard, if you know what to look for, has many things a railfan can tick off his and her list. 

1. The yard has an old roundhouse still standing where Lambton Diesel Specialists work on all sorts of motive power, both new and old. You are guaranteed to find something you haven't seen.  

2. The city hosts one eastbound Via Rail corridor train (Train 84) for Toronto in the morning, as well as the returning westbound train in the evening. For those who don't see a lot of passenger trains, this is your chance. 

3. The yard is also located on a main line (Strathroy Subdivision) between Toronto and Chicago, meaning it regularly sees a number of through freights in both directions.

4. The yard is also a place where trains are put together, meaning you can see big-time switching action, if that is your thing.

5. CN also has a number of smaller locals that originate and terminate in the yard, with older motive power, sometimes in older schemes. 

6. Finally, the yard is the point where CN and CSX interchange. This is your best chance to see CSX in the Sarnia area these days, as CSX does not operate very far from its industrial customers in the Chemical Valley these days. 

I saw all of these things during my visit this summer, but I thought I'd start with a quick few observations from the first through freight train I saw on June 29.

I mentioned the locals deliberately, as I was trying to get a picture a local working deep in the yard east of the Indian Road overpass on the morning of June 29. When the westbound freight made its way up the main track, I tried to get a shot of both trains in the harsh morning sun. You can see the exhaust from the westbound freight obscuring the overpass. Once I got these two framed together, I backed up on the platform as quickly as I could.

Despite the harsh light and the washed out sky, I was happy with this shot, as it captured the movement of the train in the morning haze. The exhaust was the element I liked the best. It captured the movement. 

I moved the west side of the platform because I wanted to catch the early morning Via Rail passengers, who were waiting for the Via Rail crew to back up their Venture set, just visible beyond the station to the left, onto the main line. Again, you can feel the early morning heat and haze in this shot. I had to do a bit of touching up to work with the shadows cast by the morning sun. This vantage point in the yard is a tough spot to work with the natural light if the sky is clear. 

The lead unit was a CN centennial unit, which was a cool catch, as I don't see too many of these painted units in my summer wanderings. I like that I was able to capture the sky in this shot, as the light was a little more forgiving from this angle. It's hard to imagine that this image was taken just a few seconds after those other shots. It looks like an entirely different day, judging by the sky. I also got the station in the shot, which was my goal. I often find when railfans are presented with the opportunity to get photographs from a station platform, we often stay too close to the tracks and don't get enough of a profile of the train. These head-on shots have their merits, as evidenced by my first shot in this post, but I much prefer shots that are a bit farther back, with more of the train and rolling stock in the image. 

A long line of lumber cars making its way past the station. It sure beats a long line of grey hoppers or black tank cars. 

An old Government of Canada cylindrical hopper, a bit the worse for wear and smeared with the ever-present graffiti, but still an interesting site. It's hard to imagine a time even 20 years ago when capturing one of these would be a rare catch. 

I was happy to catch these cars as well, filled with pipes. I don't often see these cars.

I also liked this shot, as I captured a few different types of loads, not to mention a special duty flat car, usually used for special cargo. It was empty, but it's still something you don't see as much as other cars.

One final shot of a steel coil car bringing the end of the train through the gantry before descending downgrade to the St. Clair River Tunnel to the United States. I tried to frame the various engines clustered around the old roundhouse for interest's sake.

As mentioned, there are a number of things you can knock off your list as a rail enthusiast at this yard. I pretty much ticked off the entire list that I mentioned above, but that can wait for another post. 

Quickly

Sometimes I find the most interesting railway photos happen by accident or at least when I have no time to think about them. Sometimes, you just happen upon something and it's moving fast so you have to capture it without any preparation. I think this newfound desire for spontaneity stems from my boredom over modern railway photos and the relative scarcity of diversity in freight train consists these days. After all, if all we're doing is taking shots of the head-end power of freight trains, which are themselves long lines of containers or grey hopper cars, then things will get stale quickly.

That's how I feel anyway. 

Since June, I have had several chances to capture railway photos in Toronto, Sarnia and Stratford, as well as places in between, as my family made its annual pilgrimages to see family and enjoy the Canadian summer. I want to share a few unplanned shots as a way or promoting spontaneity in rail photography.

The first shot I captured as my family made its way to our hotel in the Toronto suburbs for our short weekend in the city. East of the city, CN has this bridge over Highway 401. I have caught trains on this bridge a few times. This time, I caught a string on container cars trundling over the busy road. The sight of these containers isn't all that interesting on its own, but I like the overall image, with the busy highway very much part of the scene. 

Here's a closer shot, with the highway sign very much a part of the image. The angle of the tracks over the highway becomes more noticeable as you pass under the line. I like this shot as well. It's something different, anyway.

On the same trip, I caught the tail end of an eastbound CN freight train around Ajax, with some borrowed power at the end. I was in the passenger seat, shooting across the highway at the time. It would have been cool to pull off a better shot, but the traffic and highway signs conspired against me. Still, it's a shot of something different.

 

 

I had a few other shots in this sequence, which show more of the power, without the highway sign, but those shots were equally imperfect due to the shrubs near the tracks and the traffic heading eastbound on the highway. I like this one since it shows the BNSF logo and the front of the unit. Again, this is far from an ideal shot but it at least captures movement and something atypical. 

 

I have noticed, from my limited observations this summer, CN is making use of a fair bit of leased power. I have more shots from Sarnia that bear this out, but that will wait for another time. 

 

Closer to home in Ottawa, my daughter took this shot of a passing eastbound Via Rail corridor train making its way past Woodroffe Avenue en route to Ottawa Station. Whenever she is in the car and a train passes, she tries to get a shot for me when I'm either not present or driving. I've taught her well. 

 

 

Yes, it's another shot of a Vanture set in Ottawa, which I have in spades, but I like that it has the traffic in the shot and the crossing guards activated. Again, there is a sense of movement and drama in this shot. Whenever I try to capture images in and around Ottawa, I try to take this approach to Via Rail corridor trains. If I cannot find an element that sets the shot apart, I won't take it. I always try to find a bit of the cityscape in my images. I like this element of the image. 

 

Finally, in my trip to Sarnia in July, I was making my way around Sarnia Bay when I stopped for a moment to take a quick shot of the Cargill elevator, which is in the news in the city these days. You can make out a lone crossbuck in the shot, minus crossing signals. This gives you the idea that the line is not terribly busy. This is the end of the Point Edward Spur, which exists the serve the elevator. It once extended into Point Edward itself, but was cut short decades ago. You can just make out a hopper in the shot. 

 

Cargill has been in the news of late as it is trying to block a city plan to build housing a few hundred metres from this operation. The development is slated to be situated on the site of a former harbourfront restaurant. Cargill claims there are regulations preventing residential developments within a set distance from operations like this elevator. The company says the noise and dust from the elevator will become a source of friction in the future. It wants to avoid any future problems and has appealed to the province to block the development. 

 

Some area municipalities near Sarnia, with substantial agricultural economies, support Cargill, as they do not want to see any disruption to this operation's business, which would have an impact on local farmers.

 

The city, and another local restaurant, which is within that restricted area near the elevator, both feel there is no potential issue. The matter will be settled in the coming months.  

Thanks to everyone for their best wishes on the blog hitting 500 posts. This is post 501. Onward we go.

Old friend and a new twist

In late June, I was told by a friend that CN was using two Iowa Northern-painted geeps as power for local operations. Naturally, with so little to see in Ottawa from a freight train perspective, I was excited. Even better, CN's weekly freight west, Train 589, was operating on Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, which is a holiday for Quebec workers like me. My first plan was to camp out trackside along the Beachburg Subdivision, which is not too far from my house. But then I heard the train was making its way up the Smiths Falls Subdivision to Kott Lumber and on to Richmond, where it would do a runaround move on a switch, as the train was not going to Arnprior that day.

So, change of plans. I got in my car and went to Fallowfield Station, which is also not all that far from where I live. I missed the train as it made its way west to Kott, but I knew I was going to catch it on the way back, as there was a large group of railfans awaiting its return.

The double header dropped off two centrebeam lumber cars at Kott Lumber, on Moodie Drive, before heading further up the Smiths Falls Sub to Richmond, where the power ran around the two empty lumber cars it picked up, so the crew wouldn't have to shove its way back to Walkley.

It didn't hit me until later that these types of geeps, clad in the classic Canadian Pacific maroon, grey and gold, were likely similar to the diesels my grandfather saw when he worked as a rolling stock mechanic for the CPR in Chapleau and Windsor. 

Iowa Northern mystery

I will admit that I knew next to nothing about the Iowa Northern Railway before seeing these two units. It was formed in 1981, when a group of grain elevator owners took over local lines from the bankrupt Rock Island Railroad. Over the years, the short line railway expanded and brought its tracks back up to speed. After a few ownership changes, the line was purchased by the Canadian National in 2025, which explains the appearance of these units up here in Ottawa. The Iowa Northern operates 163 miles (262 kilometres) of track in Iowa, from Cedar Rapids into northern areas of the state. It handles around 40,000 carloads of freight, according to stats listed on Wikipedia. It has connections with CN, CPKC and the Union Pacific.

You will notice below that the small eastbound 589 is taking the siding at Fallowfield Station, since it has to wait for the arrival of Via westbound Train 45 for Toronto.

Next up, I backed up into the parking lot to see if I could get a shot with the train's reflection in the rain puddles. The other railfans remained on the platform, getting very tight wedge shots, which is not my thing at all. I needed to see the sides of the train and that beautiful livery!

Not quite what I wanted, as I didn't get a terribly clear reflection in the puddle. I also didn't get enough of the car behind the power. But it's always worth a try to get an image that is not a standard shot. Next up, Via's Train 45 was due. A meet!

I had to get onto the platform and accept that this shot was going to be a tight wedge. I am reasonably happy with this image, given the harsh glare of the morning sun and the railfans I had to shoot around (everyone was quite accommodating to each other). The Venture had barely come to a stop before 589 geared up and headed back east to Federal Junction. Before it departed, I tried to get another two-for-one shot with both trains in the same frame. The CN freight train was a little too far east on the siding to get a side-by-side shot, but I tried my best to get something. 

Finally, it was time for a few going away shots.

I think this was the best of the bunch as the train pulled away, as I switched to my iPhone and was surprised that it captured the blue sky better than my regular camera, although that could be a function of me not having the camera on the best setting. I'll figure it out, one of these days. 

I am grateful for the tips I received from friends that allowed me to capture this unique train. I noticed the following week that the power in Ottawa had changed again, meaning this rare site is all the more precious. 

I don't know how quickly CN will be able to recover from the Canada Day flooding that slammed the west end of the city. The Beachburg Sub and Renfrew Spur both suffered washouts. CN will have to deal with the Beachburg damage while Nylene Canada and the city will have to fix the Renfrew tracks, as those rails are owned by the company while the right-of-way is owned by the city. I'm not sure how that responsibility breaks down.

All in all, it was a fun morning to capture a rare sight. It was also my first experience with local railfans. I know they're out there, but I so rarely run across them.  

From Main Street to the Back Forty: The Renfrew Subdivision (Part II)

In part I of this topic, I covered off the history of the Renfrew Subdivision trackage, which once extended from Ottawa all the way to Depot Harbour (Parry Sound) on Georgian Bay. The line, built by John Rudolphus Booth in the late 1800s, was a resource line at the beginning, carrying western grain from Georgian Bay and timber from Algonquin Park all the way to Montreal or Vermont, where Booth's railway lines (Canadian Atlantic) gave way to others. 

Over the years, the western grain shifted to Great Lakes freighters via the most recent Welland Canal and the timber in the park was exhausted. The line ceased to be a busy link in the transcontinental  network. The original Ottawa, Arnprior & Parry Sound Railway gave way to the Grand Trunk and finally the Canadian National. In more recent years, the line was cut back all the way to Arnprior and is now owned by Nylene Canada.

Undated photo of a freight train passing by South March (Kanata) along the Renfrew Subdivision. Photo from the Canada Science and Technology Museum online archives

But in 1959, CN still operated local service all the way to Whitney. West of Whitney, the line was severed in Algonquin Park. The western portion was then operated as a stub before it was shut down. As we outlined in the last post, you could still take a CN Dayliner all the way to Barrys Bay on the Renfrew Subdivision, although this service would not last much longer. It was discontinued in 1961.

We began our evening passenger ride from Union Station in downtown Ottawa, where CN's evening train left at 4:30 p.m. Here is what you could expect from this train.

Union Station - 4:30 p.m.

Bells Corners (flag stop) - 4:50 p.m.

South March (flag stop) - 4:58 p.m.

Carp Station - 5:08 p.m.

Kinburn Station - 5:19 p.m.

Galetta Station - 5:27 p.m.

At this point, we are leaving what was then known as Carleton County, later the Ottawa-Carleton Region, and what is now the City of Ottawa.

Once the train crosses over into Renfrew County, it will pass by the former flag stop of Marshalls Bay, which was listed on the CN schedule but without any service. At this point, the railway had already eliminated what it considered more marginal flag stops. The first stop after Carleton County would be Arnprior Station, one of the biggest towns on the line.

Arnprior Station - 5:35 p.m. 

This is a shot, also from the Canada Science and Technology Museum archives of the last CN Dayliner calling at Arnprior Station in 1961. You can see from the image that the Budd car is split in half with one part being for baggage and cargo and the other for passengers. There clearly was not much left in terms of demand. Still, from downtown Ottawa to Arnprior in an hour isn't all that bad. Try doing that by car on the Queensway-417 these days. According to the passenger schedule, the train has travelled 42 miles or about 68 kilometres. That means the train was averaging more than 70 km/h on the line, with station stops considered.

That brings us further west into Renfrew County, into the Upper Ottawa Valley, which once saw multiple train lines running through it (CN Beachburg, Renfrew subs and CP K&P, Chalk River subs). 

Glasgow Station - 5:48 p.m. 

What fascinates me about stops like Glasgow is how close they are to towns. Glasgow was less than six track miles from Arnpior, yet it still warranted a regular stop on the line. This tiny hut trackside is very much in the style of the South March Station, which we saw in the first post. Despite its rural locale, there are two tracks at Glasgow, suggesting there was a passing siding that was perhaps used for local freight delivery. You can see a large barn beyond the station. What I don't see is any road or parking lot next to the station. There looks to be a ramp from the building for a speeder to be eased onto the tracks.

Goshen (flag stop) - 5:55 p.m.

Just a few miles down the line, Goshen is listed as a flag stop station. There is no photographic record of what was trackside at milepost 53.4. but at this point, you would have been quite close to the actual town of Renfrew, so I'm thinking this was a minimal priority at best by 1959. 

Renfrew Station - 6:03 p.m.  

Next up is the town of Renfrew, one of the larger towns on the line. 

Renfrew was one of a few towns in the Upper Ottawa Valley that was served by two railways at one point. The town boasted not just a CN station, but a CP station as well. The CPR took over the former Kingston & Pembroke Railway, which terminated in Renfrew. Its Chalk River Subdivision once passed through town as well. This image above shows you what the Renfrew CN Station looked like 1972, 11 years after the last passenger train called at the depot. Unlike other stations on the line, Renfrew's seemed to have a more decorative turret on the roof instead of a squared off gable. 

It's interesting to note, as well, that CN also had facilities at what was known as Renfrew Junction. This image below showed its facilities at that junction. This building was demolished in 1957, so you wouldn't have seen it if you were taking the Dayliner in 1959.

Admaston Station - 6:15 p.m.

A few miles past Renfrew, you will reach Admaston, although no photos in the archive I check exist for this station. 

Douglas Station - 6:23 p.m.

A few miles past Admaston and you will hit Douglas Station. Here is an example of a station with different architecture compared to what we've seen so far. The platform is covered from beginning to end by a station-length eave. You can see a pallet at the end of the platform and a luggage cart. There's a piece of the community visible in the background to the right as well.

Caldwell Station - 6:28 p.m.

Three miles beyond Douglas brings you to Caldwell Station. There were no shortage of stops on this route for the Dayliner. There is no photographic evidence of what was trackside at this stop.

Eganville Station - 6:40 p.m.

Eight miles further west and you will come to another larger community on this line, Eganville, home to a well-known community newspaper, the Leader. Eganville has struggled in recent years, but the community was featured on the CBC Show Still Standing, where they profiled the community's efforts to keep going amid challenges. The photo below, also from the Canada Science and Technology Museum archives, shows you what the station looked like in the early 1970s, long after the last passenger train stopped at its platform.

 

Like other towns in the Ottawa Valley, Eganville once boasted a CPR station as well, when railways were building lines throughout the area in a competition to exploit the resources of the area. One reference to the CPR station stated that it was on the Eganville Subdivision, which terminated in the town. I had never heard of that old trackage before.

 

Golden Lake Station - 6:52 p.m.

 

We are beginning to near the end of our journey on the Dayliner. The next stop is the community with the picturesque name, Golden Lake. This shot, from the 1950s, shows you another example of somewhat unique architecture on the line. The station is a two-level structure without the angled roof and dormers that many of the stations on this line boasted. It looks more like a commercial building you'd find on a main street. There is a bay window jutting out onto the platform, where the station agent would have worked. The platform has two baggage carts. Off in the distance, you can see a boxcar set off on a siding.

 

Ruby (flag stop) - 7:00 p.m.

 

There is no photographic evidence of what was at this flag stop. But, again, it sounds quite nice, given its picturesque name.

 

Killaloe Station - 7:08 p.m.

 

Killaloe (pronounced Kill-a-LOO) is a name many people in Ottawa are familiar with, as this is a spot where many from the region escape to, as it is commonly known as cottage country in this part of the province. The community's station was very much consistent with other stations on the line closer to Ottawa. I would imagine that this area's status as a getaway was a source of passenger revenue for years for the Canadian National.

 

Simpson (former flag stop) 

 

At this point in the line's history, the Simpson flag stop is still listed on the schedule but there appears to be no service offered at this point, as the timetable does not even list a time.

 

Wilno Station - 7:20 p.m.

 

The second-last stop is Wilno, which is 105.7 track miles from Ottawa, or 170 kilometres. The station has a bit more of a rustic cottage-country look to it, which is in keeping with its location and surroundings. At this point, you've been on the train for nearly three hours and travelled nearly 200 kilometres. Not exactly a speedy ride.

 

Barrys Bay - 7:30 p.m.

 

Finally, you have reached the end of the line for this passenger run, 112 track miles or 180 kilometres from downtown Ottawa. Barrys Bay, unlike other communities on the line, has preserved its station and railway heritage. This is what the station looked like when you would have been taking the Dayliner. This photo was actually taken in the 1970s, after service ended. The station looked a bit rough, but the rail yard it still in place and the station looks like it is still ready to receive passengers or express cargo.

 

Now compare that to what the station looks like today, thanks to friend of the blog, Kevin, our eyes and ears in Windsor. Kevin was recently in Barrys Bay and shared these photos of the station and the adjacent water tower, which once served the railway.

 

The station looks great and has found new life as a restaurant in the community. 

 

 

 

I also like that the community preserved the CN sign on the water tower. It's the little things that make a difference.

 

There is more to the story of the old Renfrew Subdivision than this one train, which made its run between Ottawa and Barrys Bay six days a week (Sunday being the exception) as Train 689 and 690. I'll leave the additional service details for a third post, as the history of this line just keeps offering more for me to share and for us to discuss. I'll finish this post with another image from the Canada Science and Technology Museum archives of a CN special that made its way up the line into the Ottawa Valley in 1972. I would imagine that some of the 1970s photos in this post were captured by Aubrey Mattingly, who might have been aboard this special. It's incredible to me that so much history of this line was chronicled.

 

At one point, it seemed like every community in our vast country was either served by a train or was near a train line. Although much of the Renfrew Sub is a memory, we have lots of chronicled history to relive its glory days. One final post to come, which will chronicle another surprise.

 

Again, thanks to Steve Boyko of traingeek.ca and Kevin O'Neil for their help with this post. All photographs, except for the two modern Barrys Bay images, are taken from the Canada Museum of Science and Technology Archives.   

From Main Street to the Back Forty: The Renfrew Subdivision (Part I)

To most railway enthusiasts in Ottawa and Eastern Ontario, what was once the CN Renfrew Subdivision is now technically Nylene Canada's Renfrew Spur. The track hosts one train a week, delivering tank cars of caprolactum to Nylene Canada's plant in Arnprior.

CN 589 crosses March Road in 2021 en route to Arnprior. The weekly train is the last vestige of a long history of operations on the former Renfrew Subdivision. Just to the right of the track is Station Street, where the old South March railway station once stood.

But what many people often forget is this lonely right-of-way was once one of the busiest railways in Canada. Yes, that's right. In all of Canada. 

Today, you'd hardly even be able to imagine it. Let's start briefly at the beginning. John Rudolphus Booth built a rail line from Depot Harbour*, on Georgian Bay, all the way to Ottawa, where it connected to Booth's other railway, the Canadian Atlantic. The two railways were soon joined under the CAR banner. The Ottawa, Arnprior & Parry Sound Railway began operations in 1897. 

(*- if Depot Harbour sounds unfamiliar, it's because Booth made the decision to establish his own port, away from Parry Sound, to foil the schemes of railway speculators in the town) 

Why was it the busiest rail line in Canada? Two reasons. Booth gained timber rights in Algonquin Park, which provided a great deal of traffic to his saw mill in Ottawa, not to mention to eastern U.S. markets via the CAR's terminus in Vermont. 

Secondly, Booth's OA&PS also shipped as much as 40 percent of the grain from the Canadian west to the St. Lawrence, as the fourth Welland Canal had yet to be completed. This meant that shipping grain via modern freighters on the Great Lakes was not yet possible due to the limitations of the smaller canals in the Welland area. The final Welland Canal was completed in 1932, which essentially replaced the Renfrew Subdivision's source of through grain from the Prairies.  

Booth's line was incredibly busy before this development, which is why it isn't surprising that the operations were acquired by the Grand Trunk in 1905. Of course, the boom years inevitably came to an end.

A Canadian National passenger train makes its way along the Renfrew Subdivision in the 1940s at an unknown location. Photo from the Canada Science and Technology collection.

The sharp downfall of the old Booth line happened mainly because of the grain movements shifting south to Welland, not to mention the fact that Booth had exhausted the useful timber in Algonquin Park, meaning the two main sources of through freight were gone. That meant that, by the 1930s, the Booth line had very much shifted to a secondary railway line under what was then the Canadian National Railways company, which bought the Grand Trunk in 1923.

It was a swift decline for a line that opened up vast stretches of Algonquin Park to tourists, considering it led to the creation of the Highland Inn and Cache Lake Station in the park. Many people forget that the Renfrew Subdivision was one of two major rail lines that crossed through the park, the other being the CN Northern Transcontinental Line. That line, the Beachburg Subdivision, went through what is now northwest Ottawa into the Pontiac Region in Quebec before crossing back into Renfrew County and all the way up to Pembroke, Petawawa and beyond.

The writing was on the wall for the Renfrew line as far back as 1933, when a trestle over Cache Lake/Lake of Two Rivers in Algonquin Park was closed due to safety concerns. That meant the line was cut in two and never reconnected. The western section between Depot Harbour/Parry Sound and Cache Lake was operated until 1952, when it was closed for good. The eastern section, terminating at Whitney, on the eastern edge of Algonquin Park, soldiered on as a local branch line for some time.

Fast forward to more recent times when most of the car load business dried up. For many years, CN tried to rid itself of the trackage, even when it was severed west of Arnprior. The line's final customer,  Nylene Canada (formerly BASF), still requires train service, as it cannot easily receive its needed product, caprolactum, by truck.

In the 1990s, there was talk of BASF being serviced by CP Rail's Chalk River Sub, which also reached up through Arnprior at one point. That connection was never made and the Chalk River Sub is history. In the end, a compromise was reached, which meant that the former Region of Ottawa-Carleton bought the land on which the tracks sit, while Nylene Canada bought the rails. That relieved CN of the obligation to maintain the line. 

When the Ottawa Central Railway took over CN's local operations in 1998, there was no longer any real threat to the Renfrew Sub. But when OCR sold back to CN in 2008, the same threat that has faced this line for decades resurfaced.

CN now serves Nylene on contract each week, essentially with running rights on an otherwise dormant line. This system seems to work, although CN has tried in recent years to remove itself entirely from Ottawa once again. Right now, its focus is mainly on customers east of the city. 

I'm skipping over decades of freight train history on this line, but it's not altogether that different from what you see on other marginal train lines. Without major freight customers, a branch line is not going to survive in today's highly centralized world of transcontinental railways. 

I figured we could relive some history and go on a trip from Ottawa to Whitney on the Renfrew Subdivision. 

Luckily for us, rail photographer Aubrey Mattingly was busy taking photographs of railways in the Ottawa area for decades. His collection passed into the hands of the Canada Science and Technology Museum. Many of his photos include everyday, somewhat mundane scenes that are now invaluable to us as we piece together the past. 

Let's start at the obvious place: Union Station in downtown Ottawa. This is what the old station looks like today, as the home of the Senate of Canada, which has been displaced from Parliament Hill due to construction of the Centre Block.

Thanks to some information supplied by Steve Boyko of traingeek.ca and Eric Gagnon of Trackside Treasure, I can pinpoint the final days of passenger rail service on the Renfrew Subdivision. CN ran its final trains on the line in 1961, but let's take the train in 1959, which is a significant year. It was the last year that many of the vestiges of the line's heyday remained.

UNION STATION: 4:30 p.m. departure 

Taking a Railiner (RDC or Budd Car in other words), you will leave Ottawa at 4:30 p.m.

This leads you to the first stop, which is the Bells Corners flag stop. It's important to note that, prior to the building of the Queensway, much of the land where the highway sits was the Renfrew Subdivision. After the National Capital Commission began lifting rail lines in the city under an expansive beautification effort in the 19502, the Renfrew Subdivision was largely scrapped from where it began all the way to Nepean Junction, where it branched off the Beachburg Subdivision.  

Sadly, there are no existing photographs of the Bells Corners station, but I imagine it would have been near Bells Junction, where the CN line met the CP Carleton Place Subdivision, which is also where there was once a flyover crossing. There is also a chance that the station was located west of here, near where Highway 416 is now. It's important to note that the 416 cut was obviously level ground in earlier days. 

Twenty minutes to get from downtown to Bells Corners? That seems slow by rail. There must have been serious speed restrictions. 

BELLS CORNERS flag stop: 4:50 p.m. 

SOUTH MARCH flag stop: 4:58 p.m.

This is the station that got me on the case of looking up the story of this rail line again. You might recall that I took a first crack at the history of this line in this post from 2019. I have often wondered what became of the Kanata train station, which was located on Station Street, just off of March Road, in the eastern part of the former city. My mistake was looking up Kanata Station in online searches. Needless to say, Kanata did not exist as a city until 1978, which I should have known.

Before Kanata was developed in earnest from farm land in the 1960s, it was mainly a rural township called March Township, hence the station's name, South March. The photo below is from the Canada Science and Technology Museum collection, as are all the remaining black and white images in this post.

 

This image was taken in 1958, shortly before CN demolished this building in 1959. That is why our 1959 trip west is so significant. It would have been the last time you could see all of these historic relics of the Renfrew Subdivision's past.

CARP STATION: 5:08 p.m.

This image, from 1944, is evidence of how important the railway was to small towns on this line. The Carp station seems quite large for a community so small. It's important to remember that, in the 1950s, the road network in this part of Ottawa was not nearly as developed as it is now. Same goes for many parts of Canada. Post-WWII, cars took over and the road network largely replaced short-distance passenger rail. Even in 1959, taking the train on this line would likely not have been a popular choice, as the operation was just a few years away from being discontinued.

This is where the history becomes fascinating to me. Many place names that are familiar to Ottawa residents but show no sign of their rail history, come alive, thanks to these images. Which brings us to our next stop.

KINBURN STATION: 5:19 p.m.

Note the similarity of the architecture of the stations on this line. It seems to me they were designed to provide accommodation to station agents and their families. It's hard for us now to understand the need for so many stations so close together.

 

This photo above was taken in 1959, again right before the station was demolished by CN. It's amazing that someone would think to capture images of so many stations in the 1950s. That brings us to our next stop, still in the western reaches of what is now Ottawa.

GALETTA STATION: 5:27 p.m.

You must be thinking that you're seeing double. The stations along this line were very much carbon copies of each other in many places, particularly in the smaller communities. You can see an old luggage cart on the platform of this station and the freight shed, for people who shipped goods via the railway express service.

At this point in the trip, you will be leaving what was then known as Carleton County, later the Region of Ottawa-Carleton (now Ottawa), so we will pick up our trip further east in the next post. You are by now an hour into your trip and you're not even out of Carleton County. This train is the definition of milk run!

This is an image from my map of the CN Rail system, back when the Renfrew Subdivision was still in place to the town of Renfrew in Renfrew County. After the train leaves what is now Ottawa, there are a few more surprise in store on the line. That will wait for the next post.