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The Brockville and Ottawa Railway (B&O) was an early railway in Upper Canada, today's Ontario. It ran north from the town of Brockville on the Saint Lawrence River to Sand Point on the Ottawa River. It was built primarily to serve the timber trade on the Ottawa Valley, shortcutting routes that led into the city of Ottawa, further downstream. The first railway tunnel in Canada, the Brockville Tunnel, was dug in order to allow the B&O to reach the port lands on the south side of the city, which sits on a bluff.
A second railway company, the Canada Central Railway (CCR), was chartered to run from the B&O at Carleton Place to the LeBreton Flats on the west side of downtown Ottawa. The two companies were later merged under the Canada Central name, and continued to push northward to Mattawa. The line was leased by the Canadian Pacific Railway and merged in 1881, and was later extended to North Bay and Sudbury. CP used the original CC routing as their primary access to Ottawa, joining it to the Ontario and Quebec Railway (O&Q) at Perth. The O&Q was later abandoned and replaced by a new line running through Belleville.
Much of the original B&O and CCR routes remain in active use. CP maintained ownership of the tracks between Smiths Falls and Brockville (known as the CP Brockville Sub) until November 2015, when Via Rail acquired this section for its Ottawa - Toronto service.
The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996 and simply Canadian Pacific, is a historic Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001.
Brockville, formerly Elizabethtown, is a city in Eastern Ontario, Canada in the Thousand Islands region. Although it is the seat of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, it is politically independent of the county. It is included with Leeds and Grenville for census purposes only.
Smiths Falls is a town in Eastern Ontario, Canada, with a population of 8,780 according to the 2016 census. It is in the Census division for Lanark County, but is separated from the county. The Rideau Canal waterway passes through the town, with four separate locks in three locations and a combined lift of over 15 metres (49.2 ft).
The Grand Trunk Railway was a railway system that operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and in the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The railway was operated from headquarters in Montreal, Quebec, with corporate headquarters in London, England. It cost an estimated $160 million to build. The Grand Trunk, its subsidiaries, and the Canadian Government Railways were precursors of today's Canadian National Railways.
The Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) was a historic Canadian transcontinental railway. At its 1923 merger into the Canadian National Railway, the CNoR owned a main line between Quebec City and Vancouver via Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Edmonton.
The Ontario and Quebec Railway (O&Q) was a historic railway located in southern and eastern Ontario, Canada. It was initially chartered in March 1881 by managers of the Canadian Pacific Railway to run between Toronto and Perth, where it would connect, via a short branch line, to the CPR-controlled Brockville and Ottawa Railway. Construction began in 1882, and the line was completed in August 1884.
The Quebec City–Windsor Corridor is the most densely populated and heavily industrialized region of Canada. As its name suggests, the region extends between Quebec City in the northeast and Windsor, Ontario in the southwest, spanning 1,150 kilometres (710 mi). With more than 18 million people, it contains about half of the country's population, three of Canada's five largest metropolitan areas and eight of Canada's twelve large metropolitan areas, all based on the 2016 census. Its relative importance to Canada's economic and political infrastructure renders it akin to the Northeast megalopolis in the United States. The name was first popularized by Via Rail, which runs frequent passenger rail service in the region in its service area known as "The Corridor".
The Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo Railway was a railway based in Hamilton that ran in Southern Ontario from 1892 to 1987. It never reached the other two cities in its name, although it did have branch lines extending to Dunnville and Port Maitland.
The Bytown and Prescott Railway (B&PR) was a railway joining Ottawa with Prescott on the Saint Lawrence River. The company was incorporated in 1850, and the first train ran from Prescott into Bytown on Christmas Day, 1854. The 84 km railway, Ottawa's first to outside markets, was initially used to ship lumber collected on the Ottawa River for further shipping along the St. Lawrence to markets in the United States and Montreal.
The Brockville Railway Tunnel, also called the Brockville Tunnel, is a former railway tunnel located beneath the downtown of Brockville, Ontario, Canada. It is the first railway tunnel built in Canada, construction began in September 1854 and the first train passed through the tunnel on December 31, 1860. Since 2017 it has been opened to the public as a free seasonal tourist attraction.
The New York and Ottawa Railway was a railway connecting Tupper Lake in northeastern New York to Ottawa, Ontario, via Ramsayville Russell, Embrun, Finch and Cornwall. It became part of the New York Central Railroad system in 1913 although it was under the larger company's possession since the end of 1904. It had started out as the Northern Adirondack Railroad and evolved into the Northern New York Railroad, the New York and Ottawa Railroad and was last known as the New York and Ottawa Railway before being merged into the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. Other lines that were a part of this route are described below.
The Michigan Central Railway Tunnel is a railroad tunnel under the Detroit River connecting Detroit, Michigan, in the United States with Windsor, Ontario, in Canada. The U.S. entrance is south of Porter and Vermont streets near Rosa Parks Boulevard. The Canadian entrance is south of Wyandotte Street West between Cameron and Wellington Avenues. It was built by the Detroit River Tunnel Company for the Canada Southern Railway, leased by the Michigan Central Railroad and owned by the New York Central Railroad. The tunnel opened in 1910 and is still in use today by the Canadian Pacific Railway. On the Detroit side, the area around the tunnel is off limits to the general public and is routinely patrolled by officers and agents of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Canadian Pacific Police Service, CN Police, Detroit Police Department, and the security elements of the bridge company.
The Canada Southern Railway, also known as CSR, was a railway in southwestern Ontario, Canada, founded on February 28, 1868 as the Erie and Niagara Extension Railway. Its name was changed to Canada Southern Railway on December 24, 1869. The 1868 Act specified that it was to be constructed at a broad gauge of 5 ft 6 in, but that requirement was repealed in the 1869 Act, thus allowing construction at the standard gauge of 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in.
The Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway, or OA&PS, is a historic railway that operated in central and eastern Ontario, Canada from 1897 until 1959. It was, for a time, the busiest railway route in Canada, carrying both timber and wood products from today's Algonquin Provincial Park areas, as well as up to 40% of the grain traffic from the Canadian west from Depot Harbour at Parry Sound through to the St. Lawrence River valley.
The Corridor is a Via Rail passenger train service area in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario.
The London and Lake Erie Railway and Transportation Company is a defunct Interurban railway that operated in Ontario, Canada from 1902 to 1918. Originally chartered as the South Western Traction Company, the line was renamed the London and Lake Erie Railway in 1909. Throughout its short life, the line was always referred to locally as "The Traction Line".
The Georgian Bay and Seaboard Railway (GB&S) was a former short-line railway in Ontario, Canada, owned and operated by Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). The first sections opened in 1908, and the entire 140 kilometres (87 mi) route was fully completed in 1912.
The Irondale, Bancroft and Ottawa Railway (IB&O) was a short line railway in Central Ontario, Canada. The line was originally opened in 1878 as the Myles Branch Tramway, a horse-drawn wagonway connecting the Snowdon Iron Mine to the Victoria Railway a few miles away. The line was taken over by a group looking to build a northern extension of the Toronto and Nipissing Railway (T&N) as the Toronto and Nipissing Eastern Extension Railway. This extension was never built; instead, the company rechartered as the IB&O and used the Tramway as the basis for a new line with the ultimate aim to connect Orillia to the Ottawa area.
The Carillon and Grenville Railway (CAGR) was a 5 ft 6 in broad gauge portage railway in Quebec, running approximately 12 miles (19 km) between the towns of Carillon and Grenville on the north bank of the Ottawa River. It provided a through-route from Ottawa to Montreal via steamships on either side of the Long Sault Rapids. It was one of Canada's earliest railways, opened in 1854, and was the last operational broad gauge railway in Canada when it closed in 1910.
The Glengarry and Stormont Railway (G&SR) was a short line railway running from the town of Cornwall in eastern Ontario to connect to the Canadian Pacific Railway's (CP) Ontario and Quebec Railway (O&Q) mainline just inside the Quebec border, a total distance of about 45 kilometres (28 mi). The name refers to the counties it passed through, today amalgamated as Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry.