Narrow gauge railways in Canada

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Although most railways of central and eastern Canada were initially built to a, 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) (broad gauge), there were several, especially on Canada's Atlantic coast, which were built as individual narrow gauge lines.

The largest systems in the country were the 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) (Cape or Colonial Gauge) lines such as: the Newfoundland Railway and others on the island of Newfoundland (969 miles); Ontario's Toronto and Nipissing Railway and Toronto Grey and Bruce Railway (304 miles); the Prince Edward Island Railway (280 miles); and the New Brunswick Railway (190 miles) in the Saint John River valley of New Brunswick.

Various mining and industrial operations in eastern, central and western Canada have also operated narrow gauge railways.

Contents

[edit] Newfoundland

Construction on the 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) Newfoundland Railway began in 1881 and continued on amid recrimination and lawsuits until the line crossed the island to the ferry port at Port aux Basques in 1898. Since no roads existed, it was an economic life-line for the island to the rest of North America, but it chronically lost money. The Newfoundland government took it over in 1923, and the Canadian government transferred it to Canadian National Railways (CNR) when Newfoundland became part of Canada in 1949.

After the Trans-Canada Highway was completed across Newfoundland in 1965, trucks took most of its freight service in the same year as CN instituted the first railcar ferry service to the island. Standard-gauge cars had their wheelsets switched to narrow gauge for movement on the island. Interchange with the North American system did not improve the traffic levels and even the CNR started to move its own freight increasingly by truck. The death knell came for both the Newfoundland and P.E.I. Railways in 1987 when Canada deregulated its railway industry and allowed railways to abandon money-losing lines.

The Newfoundland Railway was the longest narrow gauge system in North America at the time of its abandonment in September 1988. It was also the last commercial common carrier narrow gauge railway in Canada, since the White Pass & Yukon had closed earlier in the decade.

[edit] Prince Edward Island

When the 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) Prince Edward Island Railway was built starting in 1871, the contractors were promised a fixed price per mile but the colonial government failed to specify how many miles were to be built. As a result, the railway wandered all over the landscape. By 1872, construction debts threatened to bankrupt the colony. When Prince Edward Island joined Canada in 1873, it did so under the condition that the Canadian government take over the railway. It did so, and completed the conversion to 1,435 mm (4 ft 8½ in) during the 1920s and early 1930s after the island's rail system was linked to North America by a standard gauge railcar ferry beginning in 1917. The entire standard gauge system was abandoned by CN in 1989.

[edit] New Brunswick

The New Brunswick Railway was constructed in the 1870s up the Saint John River valley from South Devon (opposite Fredericton) to Edmundston. It was built to Cape Gauge but was standard-gauged several years later. In 1890, the line was absorbed into the Canadian Pacific Railway.

[edit] Ontario

Image:TNFairSCol.jpg

In Ontario, the Toronto Grey and Bruce Railway and the Toronto and Nipissing Railway, were the first public passenger carrying narrow gauge railways on the continent of North America, coming into service in the summer of 1871. The gauge of 3ft 6in was chosen on the recommendation of Carl Abraham Pihl, Chief Engineer of the Norwegian State Railways, who had adopted this gauge in Norway in the early 1860’s. Sir Charles Fox, engineer and constructor of the Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London’s Hyde Park, was largely responsible for adoption of the gauge throughout the former British Empire and Colonies, it becoming commonly known as the ‘Colonial’ gauge. The objective of the Toronto Grey and Bruce Railway and the Toronto and Nipissing Railway was to open up the bush country north of Toronto to settlement and commerce. The lines were first surveyed by John Edward Boyd of St. John, New Brunswick who, as Railway Engineer of that colony in the 1860’s, had advocated the construction of the New Brunswick Railway on the gauge of 3ft 6in. Boyd later became the Chief Engineer of the narrow gauge Prince Edward Island Railway. The chief Engineer of both the Toronto Grey and Bruce Railway and the Toronto and Nipissing Railway was Edmund Wragge, a former pupil and associate of Sir Charles Fox. Wragge returned to Britain between 1895 and 1905 and was honoured by the award of the Telford Gold Medal of the Institution of Civil Engineers for his work on the approach to and construction of the London (Marylebone) terminus of the Great Central Railway. The Ontario lines were of substantial length, over 300 miles in aggregate, and both were built with the objective of connecting with a future Pacific railway, at Lake Nipissing in the case of the T&NR, and via steamers to the Lakehead in the case of the TG&BR. Only the latter was achieved. Although independent of each other financially, they were promoted and engineered by the same men and were in fact connected by a short length of third rail in the Toronto waterfront trackage of the Grand Trunk Railway. These Ontario railways attempted several innovations in addition to the adoption of the narrow gauge: the use of Clark’s six wheel radial axles for longer stock – a complete failure and never used; the use of four wheel boxcars for economy and flexibility – not entirely successful; the use of large Fairlie articulated 0-6-6-0 freight locomotives (see illustration) – found very powerful and useful initially, but heavy on maintenance and not pursued further; and the early use of powerful Avonside Engine Company 4-6-0 and Baldwin Locomotive Works 2-8-0 locomotives for freight haulage – very successful engines which remained in service with the Canadian Pacific Railway after gauge standardization. Initially very successful in stimulating trade, the two railways had difficulty carrying all the traffic offered in the early 1870’s. Then, after they had bought large numbers of additional freight locomotives and boxcars, the traffic fell off due to the economic depression of the mid 1870’s and was insufficient to support the heavy financial burden of the capital invested. A case of ‘too much, too late’. Like all smaller railways in central Canada in the early 1880’s their financial difficulties made them vulnerable in the battle for feeder routes and traffic between the Grand Trunk Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway. The Toronto and Nipissing Railway was amalgamated into the Midland Railway of Canada in 1881 and made standard gauge as part of the Midland's plan to obtain direct access to Toronto; later the whole enterprise was absorbed by the Grand Trunk Railway. The Toronto Grey and Bruce Railway was first acquired by the Grand Trunk Railway which converted it to standard gauge in 1881, but following its own financial embarrassment it was forced to cede control to the Ontario and Quebec Railway a proxy for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Much of the trackage has been abandoned and lifted but some remains in service. Twenty miles of the T&NR from Toronto to Stouffville carries GO Transit commuter trains and a further twelve miles from Stouffville to Uxbridge, Ontario is operated as a tourist line by the York Durham Heritage Railway. Twenty-six miles of the TG&BR from Toronto to Bolton, Ontario carries CPR freight trains, and about three miles from Melville Junction to Orangeville is operated by the Orangeville-Brampton Railway.


[edit] Yukon

Train on the White Pass and Yukon Route
Train on the White Pass and Yukon Route

There were numerous narrow gauge lines in the North--these include the Northern Light and Power coal line near Dawson; the line in mining line Dawson city and the Taku tram. Several of the steam engines survive from these ventures: the Duchess at Taku, a Porter in Dawson and another in Tenana.

The only narrow gauge system still in operation in the country is the 3 ft (914 mm) gauge White Pass and Yukon Route. The WPYR was built as a common carrier but closed in 1982 only to reopen in 1988 to haul tourists from cruise ships docking at Skagway, Alaska through White Pass on the International Boundary to Bennett, British Columbia.

[edit] British Columbia

BC has had a long history with narrow gauge railways starting with the Seton Lake tramway in 1858, and then to the 3 foot gauge coal mine railways at Nanaimo. Coal was moved to the pier at Departure Bay. Other railways sprang up including the Kaslo and Slocan Railway, the Columbia and Western tramway near Trail, and the Leonora and Mt. Sicker Railway on Vancouver Island. Narrow gauge lines were used extensively in mining and logging. However, by 1910 narrow gauge logging lines were phased out as it was found that they were unsafe for the large BC timber. Other small industrial lines used narrow gauge for a few years--the Kitsault Mine, and the Western Peat operation. Narrow gauge worked in the Kootenays too at the coke overs at Fernie and logging sites of Cranbrook. The White Pass and Yukon Railway in the far north west corner of the province, connects Alaska, BC and the Yukon. It is still in operation and seasonally steam hauled. See List of historic BC Narrow Gauge railways.

[edit] Alberta

There were several mining systems in the Drumheller area. An extensive narrow gauge line was built in the foothills to haul coal about 1890 but was soon re-gauged to standard and the equipment moved to the Kaslo and Slocan in BC.

[edit] References

  • "Narrow Gauge Through the Bush - Ontario's Toronto Grey & Bruce and Toronto & Nipissing Railways"; Rod Clarke; pub. Beaumont and Clarke, with the Credit Valley Railway Company, Streetsville, Ontario, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9784406-0-2
  • "The Narrow Gauge For Us - The Story of the Toronto and Nipissing Railway"; Charles Cooper; pub. The Boston Mills Press; Erin, Ontario, 1982. ISBN 0-919822-72-X
  • "Narrow Gauge Railways of Canada"; Omer Lavallee; pub. Railfair, Montreal, 1972. ISBN 0-919130-21-6
  • "Narrow Gauge Railways of Canada"; Omer Lavallee, expanded and revised by Ronald S Ritchie; pub. Fitzhenry and Whiteside, Markham, Ontario, 2005. ISBN 1-55041-830-0
  • "The Toronto Grey and Bruce Railway 1863-1884; Thomas F McIlwraith; pub. Upper Canada Railway Society, Toronto, 1963.
  • "Steam Trains to the Bruce"; Ralph Beaumont; pub. The Boston Mills Press; Cheltenham, Ontario, 1977. ISBN 0-919822-21-5
  • "Running Late on the Bruce"; Ralph Beaumont & James Filby; pub The Boston Mills Press, Cheltenham, Ontario, 1980. ISBN 0-919822-32-0

[edit] External links

General

[edit] See also