• Dec. 2010
• Nov. 2010
• Oct. 2010
• Mar. 2010
• Dec. 2008
• Oct. 2007
• May 2007
• Dec 2005
• Nov. 2001
• Winter 2010

History

Branchline Articles

Oct. 2010

Branchline - October 2010, Volume 49, Number 9

Cornwall Railways - A History Part One - Grand Trunk Railway

For 223 years the City of Cornwall has had a history of great interest for all sorts of historians, genealogists and architects. The humble beginnings of being refugees from the United States of America, our only crime was that we held a loyalty to England’s King George III, seems so surreal today when you see how we have grown. Our United Empire Loyalist beginnings is not something that any of us should forget, but as time passed we have built on our Loyalist heritage. Our growth into an industrial town with Courtaulds, the Cotton Mills, Howard Smith Paper Mill and other various chemical, wood and textile industries brought us into the 20^th Century and then the St. Lawrence Seaway & Power Project arrived, changing us into the Friendly Seaway City. The 1980s and 90s were hard for us though. Economic growth stalled for a time, our large industries closed and left us with smaller businesses. Curses of the Seaway as well as a changing economy forced us to change our way of thinking. We modernized, we adapted, we changed and to this day that change has reflected in our living. Historical buildings are not as abundant as they are in Prescott, Brockville and Kingston, whom are as old as Cornwall, but we remember and we educate others of our past.

Transportation is one of the key elements in a community’s growth. A town/village cannot grow into a city without having the ideal land to build on or available transportation methods. In the beginning of the 19^th Century, waterways were the most efficient methods to shipping goods. Cornwall though had a second major mode of the time, being situated smack dab on the Toronto-Montreal Road, a land route travelled by stage coaches between the two large cities. Cornwall was a great layover for travellers, as evident by the taverns and hotels that had existed as rest stops for horses and exhausted people. It was in the 1830s that construction of the Cornwall Canal would be a reality and that brought plenty of merchants, tourists and goods to the budding town. Eventually, the canal would be widened time and time again and soon a dry dock was made out of an older section of locks at the wharf. But of those modes of traffic, none was as momentous, as strange and unfamiliar as a railway.

The date was November 19, 1855. The last few months bore witness to a team of surveyors, land clearers, graders, track layers and ballast workers in Cornwall from Montreal and they worked their way across just outside the north edge of the town heading westward. This small, square mile town had no idea what was about to enter their corner of their world. Unsuspectedly, a strange, unfamiliar noise was heard throughout the town that November day. Cornwall citizens that lived along Ninth Street would of had a great full view of what was creating such a racket. It could be likened to a dragon from the days of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round. Arriving at the newly built limestone structure, on-lookers witnessed a smoke and steam puffing mechanical beast, hissing and boiling. Then when it was ready to move, it sounded off a high pitched whistle, which was proceeded by chugging and grinding of iron against iron. The beast moved, pulling behind it long cylinder type buildings on wheels. This new "modern" machine was like a living, breathing mythical being. It was the signal that the Grand Trunk Railway had opened from its temporary terminus at Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, through Cornwall, and on to Brockville, this being the first train to appear in the town at the limestone station that had sat at the end of Sydney on the north side of Ninth Street East.

A hard copy of our local newspaper for the actual account of this first trip has been lost to the sands of time. Hopefully one day a copy will be uncovered, but until then we can only imagine how Cornwall citizens viewed this goliath of a machine and the new mode of transportation that was presented before their doorsteps. Memories of the War of 1812 were still haunting in the minds of some of the people and a select few could remember arriving to this area in 1784. Seeing such a machine must have been quite a shock to them all, basically the first self propelling land vehicle to ever be used in Cornwall. The only way I could compare to that day with my own experience is when the Canadian Pacific Railway ran their #2816 steam engine through the United Counties a couple of years ago. I have been on steam operated trains before in Calgary (Heritage Park) as well as taken a wonderful ride on the Hull Chelsea Wakefield Steam Train, but neither can compare to the 2816 driving at full speed along the main line between Apple Hill and Green Valley. Was my awe inspired feeling the same as what the Cornwallites in 1855 had felt?

The arrival of the railway to Cornwall was first proposed in 1846 with the creation of the Montreal & Kingston Railroad. Railways were a very new mode of transportation for Canada and the Cornwall area had never seen a steam engine on rails before. Maybe a few might have seen those that were in operation in the Montreal area, but that would have been a rarity for here. A new Montreal & Kingston company was chartered on August 30, 1851 but that company would perish under the heels of a British backed company, the Canadian Main Line, which was founded on that day as well. This new company had a simple chore, to link the British Colonies from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes with a ribbon of steel. The company was split into two separate entities on November 10, 1852, of which the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada was charged with constructing a railway westwards from Montreal. Then while in mid-construction, the company, its sister company (the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada East), along with the Grand Junction Railroad, the Quebec & Richmond Railway, the Toronto & Guelph Railway and the only operating railway of this bunch, the St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad, all merged on July 15, 1853 to become the Grand Trunk Railway.

Originally the Grand Trunk was not even suppose to run into Cornwall. The primary plan was to have the railway pass through the area 3 to 5 miles north of the route it did end up building. That would have meant that the railway would have been somewhere between the Eamers Corners section of the city and St. Andrews West! The communities along the St. Lawrence River fought hard to change the company’s mind and were successful in bringing the proposed route closer to the north shore of the river. Despite the hardships of construction, mismanagement and declaring bankruptcy twice, the Grand Trunk began to operate through Cornwall on November 19, 1855 over broad gauge track.

Cornwall never did achieve any large status like being a divisional point, but for many years the city was a very active centre for the Grand Trunk. Businesses throughout the town began to use the rail cars as a means to ship out. After all, why ship out by the river when operation would be impossible during the winter and when it was in use, the vessels would sail at a much slower speed. And the road? Well, back before the invention of the automobile and level roadways, there was absolutely no comparison. The railway was THE way to ship goods. Cornwall was forever changed that chilly November day. In fact, when the Grand Trunk completed their line, transportation in Canada had changed forever.

Cornwall was not entirely unimportant to the Grand Trunk of course. It did become headquarters for switching in the area and had some substantial facilities. Aside from the beautiful limestone station, the company constructed wood and freight sheds, a machine shop, a watering facility and an engine house with a turntable. There was only one road crossing for many years, that of St. Andrew’s Road (now Pitt Street) and it was protected by an arm that was dropped by the crossing guard that was stationed in a shed by the tracks. The yard, from photographs that have been available, showed approximately five sidings that created a small yard for the town. The station building itself would have additions built onto it twice in the following years, giving it a distinctive look when you compared it to other similar stations along Grand Trunk’s main route. How many of them had two large red additions on their east sides?

The one thing I have come across often in my research was the reputation of the restaurant inside the station. It was magnificently ornate, redecorated periodically through the years and it became the finest place to eat for any station between Toronto and Montreal. Added to this piece of tidbit, Cornwall was served by a passenger train called the Moccasin, which ran daily back and forth from Brockville to Montreal since 1855. It became an important and sentimental service right up to the day it was cancelled in 1958, being the longest operated named train for the company.

Grand Trunk’s presence in Cornwall for many years was a monopoly and businesses found it a growing expense. Other companies came to the town, but the first was still the king of the rails. The company as a whole though would fall into hard times and eventually was purchased by the Canadian Government then merged into Canadian National Railways (CNR) on January 30, 1923. Initially Cornwall was an important shipping centre on the Kingston Subdivision, the present day designated name of the section of track from Toronto to Dorval, but as time would pass, so too did the railway’s customers.

In the 1950s, CNR was faced with the relocation of their main line in this area. The St. Lawrence Seaway & Power Project was in full swing and the creation of Lake St. Lawrence caused CNR to move their entire main line between the east end of Cornwall and Cardinal. On May 17, 1957, the new, more northern line was put into service and it featured a new post-war station, a steel water tank and a large freight shed, which were all at the end of Station Road in the city. Comparing these facilities to those that were once offered at the former stop at Sydney and Ninth Streets shows that the new one was a complete modernization for Cornwall services. Freights continued to pass by, but all shunting was done in a new yard east of McConnell Avenue. The last time the original line was used was on July 21^st of that year. From that point on, the GT line that branched off the new route to just east of Power Dam Drive was downgraded to a spur.

The fate of the original limestone station, freight shed and water tower was grim as everything was torn down in the 1960s but the land remained vacant until the late 1990s when Canadian Tire built a new store on the site. The new water tank at Station Road was taken down not long after being in use as the age of steam had passed soon after the relocation plan. The new freight building was also torn down as a victim of restructuring in the 1980s.

On January 12, 1977, CNR created VIA Rail Canada to handle their passenger service. By the following year, the Canadian Government separated VIA from its creator and had them operate all intercity passenger service. Although VIA has gone through several service cuts, "the Corridor" has been the bread and butter of the company due to its connections of Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. Cornwall has been lucky to still maintain a passenger stop, but it certainly is not like what it was. Not as many trains stop here, but the various consist through the years have been especially noteworthy to railfans. Especially the day of June 22, 1973 when the infamous Turbo train had broken down in the city.

CNR has gone through a few corporate name changes that the general public were not aware of. Going to CN Rail, then CN North America, it is like the name has gone full circle as today it is known simply as Canadian National Railway, no plural anymore. Cornwall had seen more changes physically than a name change. The original Grand Trunk main line was slowly abandoned through the years. The first part to go was between Pitt and Sydney Streets in 1971 when CNR relaid rails on the abandoned New York Central line in the west end from their new main line, eliminating the need of cross-town trackage. The original main would further be taken out from Pitt Street to the corner of Ninth and York Streets and a much larger abandonment occurred just over fifteen years ago when the section from that end of track was taken out to the west side of Brookdale Avenue, converting part of the line into a widened and extended Ninth Street. The late 90s saw a few feet of track taken out after an accident caused alcohol to leak from a tanker.

The east end of Cornwall went through some changes too. The old main line was taken up from Sydney to Adolphus where a spur to a cement plant was. Then the track was pushed back some more to Marlborough, then to McConnell and finally to just east of the former diamond with the Canadian Pacific Railway. A new loading/unloading yard was constructed on Marleau Avenue, but it never saw the traffic it was meant for. After it was completed, the industries that it was built for had closed in the city. CNR did manage to find a few customers from time to time, even used it themselves for the RoadRailer service, but not one of them maintained a long term use.

The spur lines in Cornwall have gone through many changes too, but this will be covered in Part 2. To date, the spurs are slowly disappearing one line at a time when a business closes. With Domtar’s closure and planned redevelopment, this will result in more abandonments. One thing is constant thankfully, CNR will not be disappearing from Cornwall. The main line is here to stay.

References:

Canadian National Railways Vol. 1 & 2 by G.R. Stevens (1960 & 1962)

Lines of Country by Christopher Andreae (1997)

The Railways of Cornwall by Maurice Lafontaine (2000)

Various Cornwall newspapers