Bytown and Prescott Railway

The Bytown and Prescott Railway (B&PR) was a railway joining Ottawa (then called Bytown) with Prescott on the Saint Lawrence River, in the Province of Canada. 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.[1]

Bytown became Ottawa in 1855, and the railway changed its name to match, becoming the Ottawa and Prescott Railway (O&PR). The operating company went bankrupt and re-formed in 1866 as the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Railway. The line was eventually taken over in 1884 by Canadian Pacific Railway who used it as a link between Ottawa and their mainlines along the St. Lawrence. Other routes, notably the Canada Central Railway running only 20 km to the west, provided shorter runs to the Toronto area, and several direct routes to Montreal were already available. The Ottawa and Prescott saw decreasing use, and rails were eventually pulled up starting in 1966.

The railway's right of way parallels Highway 416 for much of its length, and is easily visible from the ground and air. It is particularly prominent where it passes under Highway 401 just west of the 416 terminus outside Prescott. Short portions in the Ottawa area remain in use for a variety of services, most notably O-Train Line 2.

History

Origins

Bytowners had been promoting their town as the capital of Canada since the 1840s. At the time the town's only connections with the world were via dirt road, the Ottawa River to Montreal and the Rideau Waterway to Kingston. The Ottawa River was a major route for the shipping of logs from the interior of Upper Canada, especially the areas now part of Algonquin Park, to Quebec City where they were loaded on ships for sales in Europe.

The first mention of a rail link to the St. Lawrence River dates to 1848,[2] Railways were developing in the United States at this point, and there were plans for a line to Ogdensburg, New York, directly opposite Prescott. There were also talks about a railway connecting Montréal to Toronto, which would form as the Grand Trunk Railway in 1852. It was expected these lines would pass along the north shore of the St. Lawrence, through Prescott.

Former Bytown mayor and cabinet minister Richard William Scott recalled that in early 1850, he and Edward McGillivray (Ottawa's second mayor) discussed the need for a rail connection of Bytown with the "contemplated trunk which was to unite Montreal and Toronto".

Officers And Directors

Officers And Directors Of The Bytown And Prescott Railway Company, 1851:[10]

Office: Aumond's building, Bytown.

President: John McKinnon
Vice-president: Alfred Hooker
Secretary: Robert Bell
Treasurer at Bytown: Edward Masse
Treasurer at Prescott: C. H. Peck
Directors:
Joseph Aumond
John Egan
Charles Sparrow
N. Sparks
Wm. Patrick
John Moran
D. McLachlin

External links

References

Bytown and Prescott Railway Company Historical Plaque Ontarioplaques.com, retrieved 2011-08-25^
Colin J. Churcher. The First Railway in Ottawa Branchline, Bytown Railway Society, February 2005^
R. W. Scott. Recollections of Bytown Mortimer Press, 1911^

Construction

In 1852, the company acquired land, ordered rails and other materials, and started to clear and grade the route. But it was slow work, and it was not until early 1854 that the route was prepared and various rivers and streams fully bridged by wooden trestles. The first half of the rail shipment had arrived in the fall of 1853 and the second in the spring of 1854.[2]

At this point an odd dispute broke out between the railway and the Grand Trunk Telegraph Company, which had laid poles along the route. The railway sent out men to cut down the poles, claiming that the Telegraph did not obtain permission to use the lines. The outcome of this dispute is not recorded, but the telegraph was in operation when the railway opened.[2]

Laying the rails began on 24 April 1854, starting in the Prescott yards.[6] By May the main lines were being run. On 9 May the first steam locomotive for the line reached Ogdensburg. This was an 0-4-0 switcher, named "Oxford", that shipped across the river on the 19th, along with a number of gravel and lumber cars. On 21 June the railway carried its first official passengers between Prescott and Spencerville, at a price of three York Shillings each way. On 8 July two additional locomotives, freight 4-4-0's "St. Lawrence" and "Ottawa", together with several gravel cars, were brought over the river.[2]

On 10 August the line reached Kemptville. Passenger service from Bytown opened at the end of the month, starting with a steamer ride down the Rideau Canal to Beckett's Landing, then a short distance by stage coach to the station in Kemptville. Regular service opened on 9 September. By 4 November the line had reached (South) Gloucester and the passenger route now started with a stage coach to what became Manotick Station. The line reached Billings Bridge on 2 December, and Montreal Road on the 16th. However, the bridge over the Rideau south of Green Island, from the eastern New Edinburgh side of the river to the downtown area, was not completed at this time.[2]

The original (Bytown) Sussex Street Station, was located at what is today External Affairs' Lester B. Pearson Building. The station had opened in late December 1854 or early January 1855, although the trains did not yet reach this point. There were numerous spurs in the area, as well as across the river on the New Edinburgh side.[7]

The actual date of arrival of the first train is in doubt. There is considerable oral history stating that the St. Lawrence arrived at Sussex on Christmas Day 1854, with Robert Graham as engineer and Mike Mahar as fireman. However, there are also published accounts stating that the trains still stopped at Montreal Road on that same day, and passengers were carried to Sussex on horse drawn cabs.[2] According to Scott, it wasn't until April 1855 that "the first train crossed the bridge over the Rideau River to the station at Sussex Street".[3]

Part of the CPR

The Canadian Pacific Railway began to examine the St. Lawrence and Ottawa as early 1881 and a formal 999-year lease was signed on 26 September 1884.[7] The majority of the line became the Prescott Subdivision, with the original alignment between Chaudière Junction and the Sussex Street Station becoming the Sussex Street Subdivision. In January 1882, CP officials, including Van Horne, inspected the line and decided to switch away from the Sussex Street station to Broad Street, where CP was consolidating lines of the Canada Central Railway to Carleton Place and the Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa and Occidental Railway lines to Montreal and Aylmer.[7] The station became Ottawa West Station, and a large freight switching yard opened to the north along Nepean Bay on the LeBreton Flats.[9]

These plans were put astray when the bridge over the canal near Billings was itself rendered unsafe and traffic on the Chaudière branch was closed on 5 September 1882. All traffic was handled through Sussex Street until October 1883. On 24 August 1885, passenger service was transferred to Broad Street, leaving Sussex providing freight services only. This led to a series of back and forth measures while the city tried to keep the Sussex station in use. The Rideau bridge was once again re-built and opened on 10 June 1889, this time having been raised in an attempt to fix problems with ice, although these proved to be futile. The station was given a new lease on life due to it being a convenient location for inbound coal shipments, as well as the newly opened sawmills which provided cut lumber downstream from Chaudière.[7]

In 1898 the Ottawa and New York Railway was about to open service when their original plans to lease lines into Ottawa along the Canada Atlantic Railway to Union Station in the downtown fell through. A new agreement was quickly arranged with CP, and passenger service returned to Sussex on 29 July 1898. The O&NYR used the station until 1 October 1901, although the bridge continued to be a problem and yet another was built in 1900, this time of steel. This finally solved the problems. CP's original plans to close Sussex Street fell by the wayside, and it continued to be used right through World War II.

In the post-war era, the National Capital Commission wanted to abandon many of the lines in the downtown area as part of their efforts to beautify the city. These plans included the removal of most of the industrial areas around the Byward Market area, and the closure of many of the existing rail lines throughout the city. The section of the Sussex Sub from Beechwood Avenue to Sussex was last used on 15 June 1964, and the section from Beechwood to Hurdman Junction on 15 June 1966. These sections were later used to form the Vanier Parkway between Highway 417 and Beechwood, with the short section north of Beechwood having run through what is today the New Edinburgh Park. The piers that carried the bridge across the river are still visible, although some of them are under the Park grounds after backfilling. King Edward Ave. uses the alignment for a short distance before turning north to cross the Ottawa River.

The line today

Several portions of the line are still in use.

In Ottawa, O-Train Line 2 uses the original B&PR route north from Leitrim Station, following the route to the Chaudière Falls area, and ending at Bayview Station. Bayview is some distance to the west of the original Broad Street Station. The line originally curved to the east just south of Bayview Station, a route that can still be seen in the layout of roads and buildings in the area. Line 2 runs under the Canal where Dow's Lake narrows towards the canal again, whereas the spur formerly ran over it at a location just south of Dow's Lake. The original route can easily be seen as the smoothly curving line of trees just west of the Lake, running southeast out of Dow's Lake station and continuing through the Carleton University campus. Initially, the train only runs through sections between Bayview and Greenboro, sections between Greenboro and Leitrim were opened in January 2025.

In terms of serving the airport itself, a spur at Lester Road continues to be used to supply freight cars to the National Research Council buildings. O-Train Line 2 has also used this spur as a repair depot. An extension of this spur to allow the O-Train access to the main terminal has been considered on and off on many occasions. The rails currently continue south to the border of the airport lands at Leitrim Road. The second spur, near South Keys station and toward to Ottawa International Airport, was opened in 2025 for Line 4.

The newly-build section of Line 2, after Leitrim station, spun off from the original B&PR route and towards to west. Starting at Leitrim Road, the railbed forms the Osgoode Link Pathway, running south about 20 km. to the town of Osgoode. The railbed south of Osgoode to Kemptville, about 15 km away, is not currently part of the Pathway.

The line formerly became active again at a highway maintenance depot in Kemptville, and ran the short 2 km distance south to the CPR lines (the former Ontario and Quebec Railway), before being taken up during the summer of 2014. The town of Kemptville was formed, in part, in order to escape paying the bonuses for construction of the B&P promised by the town of Oxford Mills, a few kilometres to the southwest. The lines meet in a large Y junction, the former straight-line route across the CPR lines no longer evident. The rails continue south of the CPR, serving a large quarry about 1 km south of the lines on Beach Road, and then continuing another 5 km south to Oxford Station where they feed a highway maintenance depot.

The section from Chaudière Junction to Hurdman was previously used by both CPR's Sussex Sub, and CNR's Beachburg Sub ran beside it. The Beachburg Sub rails are still used, connecting to the Chaudière line at a new junction. A spur from the original alignment of the Chaudière Junction was used for a short time, but was pulled up some time between 1991 and 1999. The Beachburg Sub leads to the Ottawa Train Station, which took over passenger services for Ottawa in 1966. Leading east from this point is the Montreal & Ottawa Railway, now CPR's M&O Subdivision. Just south of the original Chaudière Junction is a new wye that leads to Walkley Yard, a new freight switching yard.

Bytown and Prescott Railway

History

Origins

Officers And Directors

See also

Further reading

External links

References

Selecting a route

Construction

Persistent rumour

Running the line

St. Lawrence and Ottawa

Part of the CPR

The line today

Historic Plaque