Irondale, Bancroft and Ottawa Railway

Iron rush

Iron was first discovered at Blairton at the western end of Crowe Lake in 1816, but a mine was not constructed until 1820. An iron smelter was built at nearby Marmora, at the eastern end of the lake, and opened for service in 1823. At the time, the only form of transport was via the waterways to railheads some distance to the west, and this limited shipping to the summer months. The mine changed hands several times before falling into ruin in 1848.

A solution was provided by the Cobourg, Peterborough, and Marmora Rail and Mining Company, a reformed version of the Cobourg and Peterborough Railway which had previously gone bankrupt. In 1866 they constructed 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) of railway from Blairton to the Trent River, using the ever extending Trent–Severn Waterway to move the ore by boat to their previous railhead on Rice Lake. This route required several off and on loadings, but was nevertheless successful, and by 1870 the Blairton mine was the largest in Ontario. The mine operated with decreasing output until 1883, when it filled in with water and the railway trestle was damaged by ice.

Railway rush

By this time several other mines had opened in the area, including the first gold mine at Eldorado in 1866. This led to another wave of prospecting further north, the discovery of new ore, and the need to ship to market. A small railway boom followed and lasted into the early 1870s as a number of companies started projects attempting to service the mines. Among the many attempts were the Central Ontario Railway out of Trenton, the Belleville and North Hastings Railway a short distance to the east of the COR, and the Bay of Quinte Railway further east.

Railways and colonization roads led easier access for prospectors, allowing them to strike out further into central Ontario. New finds were made outside the original Blairton area, areas that the new railways were not well suited to handle. W. Robinson and J.B. Campbell began what was a series of new sources of iron ore on their land near Devil' Creek. It was Campbell who discovered high quality examples on land belonging to Robert Gibson, but the company formed to exploit this discovery was owned by Robinson and two people from Toronto named Shertis and Savigney. The company was named the Snowden Iron Mine Company and in time it was wholly owned to people associated with Toronto when Robinson sold his share to Henry Stark Howland who lived there. By 1874 the town was growing, with a post office and general store. At the time, everything travelled in and out by wagon on Monck Road.

Businessmen in Toronto were becoming interested in capturing some of this traffic for themselves, as well as providing transport for goods they were personally interested in. The first attempt was backed by William Gooderham, Sr., James Gooderham Wortss and Henry Pellatt, who chartered the Toronto and Nipissing Railway (T&N) in 1869 to build a narrow gauge line with the ultimate aim of reaching the Ottawa Valley. After opening as far as Uxbridge in 1871, the contractor walked away from the job, leaving the partially completed line to Coboconk. With the T&N stalled, in 1874, George Laidlaw, who had been instrumental in setting up the T&N, chartered the competing Victoria Railway with roughly the same goals. The Victoria likewise ran out of money after reaching Haliburton late in 1878.

Myles Branch Tramway

William Myles, "an Irish born coal dealer from Toronto", purchased a share of the Snowdon and began plans to build a railway connection to the Victoria, a little over 6 miles (9.7 km) from the smelters that had been built at Furnace Falls on the Irondale River in 1874. Myles started construction in 1876 using squared logs supporting horse drawn sledges.

Myles borrowed the required $60,000 from the Canadian Bank of Commerce, using the mines as security. The wagonway finally opened in 1878 as the Myles Branch Tramway. The interchange with the Victoria, about 2.5 miles (4.0 km) north of Kinmount, became known as Myles Junction. In 1878, Myles shipped 1000 tones of ore, and then abandoned the properties.

In 1879 Charles Pusey and his partner Ivatts purchased both the Snowdon and Howland's mines, only to have Ivatts leave for Europe a short time later. Pusey then formed a partnership with Howland, an influential Toronto businessman who had been a founding director of both the Canadian Bank of Commerce and the Imperial Bank of Canada. Both men were interested in railways, and became friends, and later family when Howland's son married Pusey's daughter.

To improve operations, Pusey and Howland chartered the Snowdon Branch Railway to upgrade the Tramway as a true railway. They eventually abandoned the mines and sold them to Parry and Mills from Chicago. Perry and Mills began construction of a pig iron upgrading furnace and then ran out of money, only to have much of it burn down in 1881. Pusey and Howland were able to purchase the remains and form the Toronto Iron Company.

IB&O

On 5 March 1880, Pusey and Howland chartered the Toronto and Nipissing Eastern Extension Railway, with the plan to complete the original T&L route at least as far as the Snowdon Branch and other local mines, and then extend to connect to the Canada Central Railway near Ottawa. However, a downturn in the iron market that year led to the plans being shelved. In the fall of 1881 the T&N began expansion plans of its own, surveying the rest of the route to Lake Nipissing. However, in December of that year the T&L amalgamated with the Midland Railway of Canada, ending any expansion plans. When the T&LEE shareholders met for the first time on 31 January 1883, nothing much happened.

On 25 March 1884, the two rechartered the line as the IB&O, this time planning to use the Snowdon Branch Railway as the basis for a new line running from Orillia to Ottawa, a distance of about 225 miles (362 km), with options to build branches northeast to Sault Saint Marie and west-southwest to Brockville. This saw more favourable response from the shareholders, and in 1883 Pusey began surveying the route as far as Bancroft. Notices were placed in November 1884 for construction contacts for this 50 miles (80 km) section. A contract was signed with the Hudson Improvement Company on 15 February 1886.

In November 1886 the IB&O officially purchased the Myles Branch Tramway for $500 and a note for $22,000 due in 12 months. The Bank of Commerce mortgaged the property to the IB&O to provide funding to lay the rails. A $17,710 contract was placed with Cooper, Fairman & Co in Montreal to supply 56 pound rails, with $8,800 of that to be paid when they received their government subsidies after laying the first 10 miles (16 km) of rail. The line was opened in February 1887, including the original 6.75 miles of the Tramway, and an extension to Devil's Creek, which they rechristened Irondale, bringing it to a total of 10 miles. They began operations with two 4-4-0 locomotives purchased from the Grand Trunk Railway.

According to one story, the railway was required to reach the town of Gooderham by a certain date in 1886. However, they ran out of rails short of the goal. To solve the problem they loaded a train with ties and rails and started building off the existing endpoint, and then moving the train forward onto the new rails. The rails were then lifted behind the train and placed in front, allowing it to move forward again. In this leapfrog fashion they reached Gooderham and claimed the bonus, but left the train abandoned until further supplies arrived.

In April 1887 the company began raising the $9,000,000 that would be required to complete the line from Orillia to Ottawa. Most of this was funded by a $3,750,000 bond issue, although no one outside the existing shareholders purchased any of them. The line joking became known as the "IOU Railway". $450,000 of the bonds were used as collateral for loans obtained from J.H. Plummer and Zebulon Aiton Lash, business associates of Howland. Further expansion was funded by Pusey himself, with the line reaching another 20 miles (32 km) to Wilberforce on 23 November 1893, and another 10 miles to Baptiste in January 1897. By late 1898 the line was at Mud Creek, only a few miles from Bancroft.

CNoR takeover

The railway reached new mining areas just as it was being discovered that the ore had a high sulphur content, which made it difficult to refine. Combined with lower prices in the market, the railway found little profit in the iron business. By this time, woodcutting was reaching a peak in Ontario and the railway found considerable business servicing various sawmills that were springing up in the area.

Pusey's death on 18 July 1899 left Lash as the executor of his estate. Lash was the General Manager of Bank of Commerce, who held most of the debt for the line, and was also a lawyer for Mackenzie and Mann's CNoR. He officially took over the IB&O in 1905. In April 1906 CNoR leased the COR, and soon made a bid for the IB&O as well. Lash urged all shareholders to accept, and CNoR took over operations of the IB&O on 16 October 1906.

By this time, the COR had opened its line to Bancroft in December 1900, and was continuing north with its own plans to connect to Ottawa via the Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway. This made the original plans for the IB&O superfluous. CNoR provided the funding needed for the remaining 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from Mud Creek to York River, where the IB&O connected with the COR just north of Bancroft on 1 July 1910. The first through train ran the complete route on 12 September.

Mackenzie and Mann purchased the IB&O outright, and then used it to lease the COR in 1910. In 1911, CNoR officially purchased the IB&O, putting both lines under the CNoR name. The IB&O had been cheaply built and was subject to constant derailments, so the CNoR began upgrading the line while limiting speeds along considerable lengths to only 15 miles per hour (24 km/h). In spite of this, the route was so much more direct that the passenger trip from Bancroft to Toronto was cut to a single day. In 1919, Myles Junction was renamed Howland Junction.

CN years

Canadian Northern completed its transcontinental line to the Pacific on 23 January 1915, producing a network reaching across the country. Unfortunately the cost of completing the line was enormous, as was the cost of the Mount Royal Tunnel, leaving the company straddled with debts. It also had to compete with two other transcontinental railways, Canadian Pacific and the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, the later of which reached the Pacific in 1914 and had already discovered there was not enough traffic to share with the CP, let alone a third entrant.

The CNoR was unable to pay its debts, and approached the government looking for a bailout. Instead, the government took over the company in 1916, merged it with the Canadian Government Railways, and then renamed it all Canadian National Railways in 1918. Service continued as the Irondale Subdivision.

Abandonment

The route was little used for much of its history, and the entire line was abandoned on 31 March 1960. A short section west of the wye connection with the COR was used as a spur line to the local Domtar flakeboard plant. The remainder had its rails lifted starting in July 1960.

Route

The IB&O ran roughly eastward out of Myles Junction to Furnace Falls, where it turned almost north to a point just short of Irondale. At Irondale it crosses the Irondale River to the north bank. It then runs roughly northeast all the way to Harcourt. At Harcourt the line turns more east-northeast to Hughes, and then east to the final connection with the COR north of Bancroft. A siding split off the line at Furnace Falls to serve the mine, but this was lifted around 1900 when the mine closed, and became a road to White Lake.

The line spent most of its history ending at Mud Creek, with Baptiste as the major yard site. Here was a station with engine shed, turntable, shops, water tower and coaling yard. There were manually pushed turntables at Myles Junction, Mud Creek and Irondate. After its linking to the COR, the maintenance area was moved to Bancroft.

Stations and stops

The line was originally counted from its western end at the Victoria Railway. This was initially known as Myles Junction, but was renamed Kinmount Junction and finally Howland Junction in 1919. A two-story building at this location acted as a house and waiting room, but burned down in 1917. A replacement single-story building remains at the site.

Some of the stations along the line were flag stops, but there were many complete stations as well. Irondale station was also a two-story building like the one at Kinmount, and it burned down in 1931 or 32, to be replaced by three converted boxcars. Similar stations were built at Gooderham, Wilberforce and Highland Grove.

After 1919, the service on both the IB&O and the Grand Trunk became tri-weekly Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and in 1934 to Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. In 1931, divisional control of the IB&O at Belleville was transferred to Lindsay, and from 1955 trains ran from Bancroft to Lindsay on Tuesdays and Fridays, and returned on Wednesdays and Saturdays.