Bruce
Ballantyne
I've lived in the Ottawa area all my
life and
can recall the more active days of the railways in the Region in the
late 1950s and 60s. I can even recall the dying days of steam
having lived near CN's
Beachburg and CP's Prescott Subs in the Alta Vista area. In 1992,
I began a project to create an inventory of railway stations
across Canada regardless of present location or use. This has
culminated in the publishing of the Canadian Railway Station Guide
by the Bytown Railway Society. Consequently, I am continuing
to do research on stations, particularly in eastern Ontario and western
Quebec.
I am also interested in the
history of CP's
Maniwaki Sub for which I have done quite a bit of research, although
not too recently. This interest comes from many years spent at
the family cottage at Blue Sea Lake watching the passenger trains pass through the village of
Messines.
I enjoyed Colin's account of the
history of
the Thurso and Nation Valley Railway which has spurred my interest in
what can be found about other logging railways that were built up the
Ottawa River Valley (primarily, I think
in what is now Algonquin Park). This could make an interesting
and perhaps challenging research project. For example, there was
the McCauley Central near Barrys' Bay which was owned by JR Booth and
connected to his Ottawa Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway. There
were others farther west but I don't recall any names. Anyone
interested?
Derek Booth
Following the
publication of Quebec Central Railway in 2006 and the
revised and updated edition of Railways
of Southern Quebec, Volume II in
2008, I’m now working on a historical novel based on the daily diary of
a
Canadian soldier in World War I. While this is a major departure from
what I’ve
done before, the book does contain a good deal of railway history in
the form
of descriptions of train journeys in Canada,
England and France
during
and after the war. And it has given me a reason to log many rail miles
along
all of the routes concerned on both sides of the Atlantic.
Pat Brennan
I
am a dreamer. I dream about time travel back to an age when
the
railways were at their peak in the Ottawa area but more specifically
Aylmer, Quebec.
Since I haven't figured out a technical solution to time travel I
am
following the path of research and modelling of former
railways. I love
to talk to people who have experienced life on the rails, whether they
were passengers or workers on the railways. I also love to look at
pictures from days gone by and study the many changes that have taken
place over time. I am keen on actually setting foot on some of these
locations in order to imagine what life was like before my time.
This feeds into the modelling, currently in HO Scale, of past Aylmer
scenes when the train passed my house at least 4 times a day. Current
projects also include modelling a future rail line to Aylmer (and
perhaps beyond) from Gatineau, Hull and Ottawa.
P.S. some people call me the Aylmer Train Nut.
Colin Churcher
The railway scene in Ottawa has
changed
incredibly in the last 40
years or so. I came to Ottawa in 1968 after the changes had been
made and I have had great difficulty trying to undertand
how it used to be. I feel it is important to preserve information
on the part played by railways in Ottawa. To this end, I
have gone through the orders issued by the Board of Railway
Commissioners and its successors and picking out all orders related to
the railways in this area. This represents a very rich historical
record because just about everything the railways did was regulated (opening of lines, closure of stations
and lines, relations between railways, crossings etc). The Boards
issued about 160,000 orders between 1904 and 1988. I have also
complted a similar search for Orders in Council.
Eventually I will produce printouts showing this regulatory
history by line, by location and chronologically.
I have defined my study area as being
bounded by Waltham, Maniwaki, Marelan, Rigaud, Coteau, Cornwall,
Prescott, Brockville, Kingston, Tichborne, Sharbot Lake
and Whitney.
Other projects currently under
way are:
- a thorough review of the Merrilees photo collection
in the
National Archives (some 339,000 images).
- preparing a database of all pictures identified in my study
area.
- preparing a database of all railway plans found relating to the study
area.
- cataloguing the Aubrey Mattingly picture collection housed in the
Canada Science and Technolgy Museum.
- reviewing the local papers and
extracting all local items into a database.
- working with others on the preparation of manuscript on the
Ottawa and New York Railway
(New York Central)
- preparing a manuscript on the history of the railways of the National
Capital Area
- completing a data base and then preparing a manuscript on industrial
locomotives in Canada other than BC (BC has already been covered by
Mervyn T. Green). This covers locomotives before 1990 (since
1990, the Canadian Trackside Guide by the Bytown Railway Society, is a
useful reference for industrials). Paul DelamereThe purpose of my mapping project is to offer the user a comprehensive
collection of geographically and historically accurate Canadian class 1
steam and diesel railway maps as well as all manner of
electromotive street and interurban systems. Also included are American
railroads within Ontario, independent railways and industrial tram
systems. With the technology that is avaliable today scale is no longer
an issue. This map is also fully useable in the field with the aid of a
mobile GPS that runs the .kml/.kmz file format. You must have Google
Earth, ARCGIS or ARC Globe on your computer before you can view our work.
Map files are avaliable free here:
Ontario - http://ontariomap.webs.com/
Quebec - http://quebecrailwaymap.webs.com/
All Canadian electric systems - www.cermc.webs.com
Raymond Farand
Bernie
Geiger
Areas that I have an interest in and
have
collected some information on include:
- Ottawa, Hull and Kingston
Streetcars
- Rail lines around Kingston
- the NYC line to Cornwall
- the "plank" railroad from the
nearby
quarry to Hogs Back used to build the canal/dam around 1829
- lines into and around the Uplands
Airport
I also have some experience with
the
National Air
Photo Library at 615 Booth St. which is an amazing source of aerial
photographs of much of Canada from the 1930's onwards. These
photos often show lines, rights of way, yards and railcars. In
some Ottawa series you can see the streetcars moving along the street
from frame to frame as the plane flew over!
Rene
Gourley
While I currently live in British Columbia, I had the good
fortune to
grow up in Ottawa,
which explains my interest in railways of the area. While
researching is, needless to say, difficult from this distance, I do
manage to steal the
odd day in archives or museums when I go home to visit my family. My
interest is focused on the Canada Atlantic Railway, its
subsidiaries and leased lines. I have been researching this line
since 1988 and have accumulated a reasonable, but by no means complete
body of information. I have put some of this on my home page at http://www.proto87.org
Chris Granger
I've been interested in railways since I was a
child. My earliest
memory of seeing a train was when I lived in Petawawa and my dad showed
me some military trains. I lived in Calgary for a number of years
and I can still remember watching the trains
run along Ninth Avenue and on CNR's Drumheller Sub. I returned
to my birthplace of Cornwall in 1981 and my interest in railways
continued to progress. I grew up watching the CNR spur activity
here
and my backyard was right beside the former NYC line to Ottawa.
As I matured, my curiosity in learning more about these lines
increased, but it wasn't until 1997 that I began to research thoroughly
on the
subjects. I began with my family tree where I found that I had
past relatives who were railroaders. From what I have learned,
various members of my family worked for/at:
-CNR: McGiveny Junction, NB (great-grandfather on father's side in the
late 1920s)
-CPR: Ottawa area (great-uncle on father's side)
-GTR: Aultsville (great-great-uncle on mother's
side, whom took employment a year later with...)
-O&NYR/NYC: Crysler, Newington, Cornwall Junction and Cornwall (on
mother's side, great-great-grandfather; great-great-uncle and
great-grandfather)
Needless to say, my main focus is on the NYC's Ottawa Division and I am
currently involved in extensive research with Colin Churcher and Tony
Burges, as well as help from Douglas Smith in hopes to publish a book.
Also involved on this subject is my work with Heritage Cornwall (the
city's LACAC) in raising of a swing wheel from the St. Lawrence River,
an artifact from the 1908 bridge/canal accident. One of the side
projects I am
involved in is expanding the extremely thin railway history files that
now exist in the Cornwall History Room. This will involve
railways as far west as the K&P, eastwards into Montreal, as far
north as the QMO&O and southwards into
the States to the Rutland's Ogdensburg line, all focussed on the
basic important dates and events as well as what remains today of
the lines encompassed in that area. I have also been writing
articles, one was printed in Branchline, while others have been and
continue to be featured on the Cornwall LACAC web site.
Chris
Hall
My key areas of interest revolve around the Canadian
Northern Ontario
Railway, in particular the entirety of the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal line
including the former Federal terminals and the L'Orignal
Subdivision. Due to the early dates of abandonment of the various
lines and structures, information has been particularly hard to come
by, making
it all the more rewarding to find.
My research mainly includes the study of aerial
photographs (found
at the National Air Photo Library), survey plans, topographical maps
and employee timetables as well as some very basic archaeological
poking about in the bush looking for old foundations and
trackbeds.
There are several things that I have not yet found in
my on
again-off again pursuit that I eventually hope to come across. These
include plans and photographs of the Federal roundhouse, as well as
photographs of other stations and structures on the
Toronto-Deseronto and Ottawa-Hawkesbury stretches of the CNoR.
Beyond satisfying my own personal thirst for knowledge,
I hope to
bring to the group certain gems of information that would have
otherwise been left unnoticed. This will be accomplished by taking a
different angle and venturing into the "brave old world" of
survey plans and land ownership records. This should
be valuable in explaining the whats, whens and hows of major changes in
the railway landscape over the past few decades.
Scott
Harris
Steve
Hunter
I have been interested in local
railway history
since childhood, growing up along the CN Kingston Subdivision in
Brockville and spending my summers on Prince Edward Island in the old
family
home. My earliest memories are of steam locomotives being serviced,
thanks to my grandmother who wheeled me to the Brockville station in my
stroller almost every day. These vivid memories, reinforced by frequent
encounters with CN's excursion steamers and CN's Prince Edward Island
mixed trains and wayfreights, led me into a lifelong obsession with
rail preservation and history. I have volunteered with the BRS
steam crew, Smiths Falls Railway Museum, and train operations with the
Salem & Hillsborough Railway. My favourite research subject is the
Prince Edward Island Railway, but I am very interested in the CN's
former Brockville & Westport and Grand Trunk properties and
railroading in general.
Phil
Jago
My interests are the rail lines of
eastern
Ontario western Quebec - roughly in accordance with Colin Churcher.
- Of strong interest are the CPR
Brockville
Subdivision, the CPR Prescott Subdivision, the Brockville and Westport
Railway and the GTR/CNR trackage which was removed during the St.
LawrenceSeaway project.
- I have
secondary interest in the rail plant in and around Belleville,
GTR line relocations between Trenton and Toronto.
- I have
tertiary interest in the CNoR - especially the L'Orignal
Subdivision and would love to see examples (photos) of track plant from
the various stations on that pike.
Andrew
Jeanes 
My interest in railway history has led me into the perils
and pleasures
of graduate school. I'm currently completing an M.A. in
Canadian Studies at Carleton University, with a focus on Canadian
railway heritage. I'm interested in studying the effects of
railways on the landscape, in a purely geomorphological sense as well
as
in the obvious economic, social and political senses.
I've lived most of my life in Ottawa, but my interest in the
history of the city's railway lines often takes me to a place that
disappeared long before I was born, a place I can only experience
through old photos, documents and the shared recollections of those who
were there to see things firsthand.
My many current research interests include the development of Walkley
Yard, the history of railway station preservation in Canada, and
the history of passenger train service into and out of Ottawa
from the 1850s to the present day. In addition to the
Circle, I'm also a member of the CN Lines Special Interest Group, the
Ottawa Valley Associated Railroaders, and yes, the Ottawa Valley HOTrak
modular model railroad club.
David
Jeanes
My specific interest areas are
- Union Station, from its
building in 1912,
as Grand Trunk Central Station, to its closure in 1966.
- The 1960s railway relocation program,
particularly the excavation of the Dows Lake Tunnel and the rock cut to
Ottawa West.
- The CTC signalling system created in
1967.
David
Knowles
My research interests range fairly
widely often
being sparked by the inquiries we receive. However, more specifically:
1. Historiography. i.e. the
history of
Canadian railway history.
2. The development of Canadian railway
management.
3. Ottawa Car Co. the manufacturer.
4. Main line electrification
5. The Bytown and Prescott Railway and
its
successors.
6. Railway heralds
Bill Linley
Bill
Linley began
photographing trains on the Quebec Central in 1959. Following a
move to Ottawa in September, 1959 Bill
attended Rideau
High School.
Bill began shooting colour slides in April, 1962 with a photograph of
the
Ottawa West Station. After meeting Bruce Chapman in 1963, Bill
began to
focus primarily on the CPR and particularly on the changes to railways
in the Ottawa
region which he
covered extensively until 1970. While taking courses in geography
at Carleton
University,
Bill worked as a message
router at the Sparks Street Office of Canadian Pacific Telegraphs and
subsequently as a CPR reservations clerk and ticket agent at Ottawa
Union and,
after July 1966, at the new Ottawa Station.
Bill made trips across Canada
in the late 1960’s trying to catch the last of traditional railway
operations
in PEI, NewfoundlandBritish Columbia.
Always a fan of MLW/Alco power, he pursued these engines far and wide
notably
the FPA-4s on VIA in the 1980’s.
Following graduation from Carleton
University in May,
1969, Bill began a 33 year career
in economic development with the governments of Canada, New
Brunswick and Nova
Scotia.
His career took him
across Canada
where he often managed to photograph trains in the off-hours.
Moves from Ottawa to Fredericton and
finally to Halifax
made it necessary for him to leave a position as secretary and director
of the
Bytown Railway Society. He filled the void by becoming a director
and
oft-times treasurer of church and volunteer organizations. For a doxen
years he owned CN van 79510 which continues to welcome guests as part of
the Train Station Inn in Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia. He is presently
the treasurer of the Orangedale Station Association which operates Nova
Scotia's oldest railway station.
Morning Sun Books published his first book: Canadian
Pacific in Colour: Volume
1 – Eastern Lines in 2003 and it has recently sold out. He has recently
released the sequel on CP’s Western Lines during the period 1948
through 1968
Future interests include other railway-themed books and
cataloguing thousands of his colour slides and digital images taken
over the
almost fifty years. His photos and writing have appeared
in a variety
of magazines in Canada
and internationally and his is keen to contribute to the work of others
engaged
in the preservation of railway and industrial heritage. In 2002
he
completed a brochure and contributed the text for an award-winning
website on
railway heritage for the Nova Scotia Railway Heritage Society of which
he was a
founding director. He has operated a
home-based business, Signal Graphics, for over thirty years that
deals in
quality Canadian books, DVD’s and images. He
and his wife, Marilynn, live in a heritage home in Port Lorne, Nova
Scotia on the Bay of Fundy near the Dominion Altantic Railway.
Rian
Manson
My
Name is Rian (pronounced Ryan) Manson. I have lived in Smiths Falls all
my life. I was fortunate to belong to a family of railroaders. The
stories and trips with my uncle to the CPR yard
in the late 80’s in my PJ's and slippers introduced the affairs of
iron
and steel into my blood. It was only a matter of time that I began
volunteering at the Smiths Falls Railway Museum and eventually met
Steve Hunter and Bob Moore who influenced me to start documenting my
railway interests. To simplify the aforementioned railway interests, I
have narrowed them into three categories:
1) Railways in Smiths Falls
(The entire spectrum) B&O, O&Q, and the CNoR, stories,
pictures, employees, unions, and train operations.
2) The Canadian
Northern (CNoR) in Canada, and the Canadian Northern Ontario Railway
(CNoOR). My CNoOR interest is the Smiths Falls Subdivision which is an
elusive line to research.
3) The Kingston & Pembroke Railway.
My
interest is the “Movers & Shakers” of the railway line and the
physical growth and decline of the railway. My purpose is to
eventually, perhaps put out a publication on Smiths Falls’ railway
heritage. I also have a motivation to educate our youth in the
importance of their railway cultural heritage.
Bob
Meldrum
I grew up
in a railway family in Stratford Ontario where Canadian
National had arguably its best steam locomotive repair shops. My great
uncle, both grandfathers, uncle, father, and cousin all worked in the
"shops". It was
assumed that I would join them but the
end of
steam came as I was in
high school. With a pass to ride trains, I was fortunate to
go with my Dad often for trips to such places as Toronto, Chicago,
New York, and Detroit. After graduating from the University of Toronto
in 1964 with a degree in mathematics, I became a computer programmer.
Some of my first work was with a transportation consultant in
Toronto. Some of that work was part of a study showing that GO Transit
was a good idea.
My main interest to this day is
travelling
on trains.
I have been fortunate to ride every railway line in Canada that has
passenger
service including the Quebec, North Shore, and Labrador. In other
years,
I have travelled
around the world to ride trains in
Europe,
Asia, Africa, and Australia. Photography was incidental to the thrill
of travel. A souvenir rather than a goal.
I came late to historical
research and have
only recently found myself becoming more interested in historic lines.
It was a thrill to find in a nineteen-forties "Railroad Magazine" in
the Bob Craig Memorial Library, that a line had actually been surveyed
from the area around Rouyn-Noranda to Maniwaki - a line that had the
potential to make "our" Maniwaki route as heavy-duty as the Quebec,
North Shore and Labrador. It is gems like this (often uncovered by
members of the Circle) that make this hobby so fascinating.
Bruce Morgan
I first arrived in Ottawa just as the Greber plan's
railway removal and relocation recommendations were implemented, and
was able to follow much of the subsequent decomposition of Ottawa as a
railway hub. In
my interest on railways in the Ottawa area, I have explored many
miles of the former Canadian Northern, NewYork Central, and
Ottawa, Arnprior & Perry Sound rights of-way, and
photographed many of their residual structures.
My training
as a civil engineer had aroused an interest in railway construction,
with particular interest in bridges, while a long time membership
in CRHA has encourage my historical interests in Canadian railways
generally, and in the Grand Trunk Pacific (which has also been a
modelling interest). Membership
in the ORHC allows me to refine and further develop these interests in
conjunction with others having related interests.
Bud Nelson
I am not an ex-railroader nor am I from a
railroading family. Nevertheless, I became interested in trains at the age of
four.
We lived in the Ontario Hydro colony at
Abitibi Canyon in Northern Ontario. The only way into the ‘Canyon’ was on the
Temiskaming & Northern Ontario (T&NO), to Fraserdale, on a train that
has since become the Polar Bear Express. Hopefully when you arrived at
Fraserdale, the “Hydro Train” was waiting for you. The train was simply a box
car and a heavyweight coach with a clerestory roof, wooden benches and a pot
bellied stove. The motive power was a very small Plymouth locomotive. It all
left a lasting impression on me to say the least.
While I am primarily a model railroader,
digging into the background of what I was modeling pushed me towards another
fascinating hobby, i.e. research into railway history. I have always lived
either along the ONR or in the Ottawa Valley, except for a few years in Alberta
while in the Military. My primary interests
are, Ottawa Valley, CPR and ONR.
My current interest is in the upper Ottawa
valley. Growing up in Mattawa Ontario, I always wondered why CPR had the
Temiskaming-sub running up the East shore of the Ottawa River to Angeliers
Quebec, there did not seem to be a strong reason for a branchline to be there.
When looking into the history of the line I discovered a number of historical
items I was not aware of when living in the area. It is now a passion to find
all I can about this line before it and the folks who worked on it disappear.
Currently only 40 miles remain of the original 124 miles.
My travels associated with work took me to
many places where I could rail-fan. Another area that caught my interest was an
abandoned line East of San Diego, the San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway.
The background of this line has become another passion to research.
Ronald
Newby
A little background on my interest in
the Canada
Atlantic Railway system is as follows. It all started when my
wife bought me a book for christmas (many moons ago) called "Over
the Hills to Georgian Bay". I found this book to be an
interesting read as it also was about logging in Ontario (another
interest) and thought it would make an interesting subject to
model. The more I
found out about the line the more interested I became in it.
It has now turned into a project on its own. At
first my research was only in the OA& PS portion of the
line. It has now expanded into the entire Canada Atlantic
Railway and JR Booth other logging lines and JR Booth himself.
David
Page
I have been a career
railwayman since working as an engine wiper in the CP (then) Fort William
roundhouse in 1957. While at U of T in the 50s I met classmate Jim
Brown and
the two of us chased trains all over Ontario
at the end of steam....what a time!
My real working life
started at the QNS&L in 1961 where I was Railway Mechanical
Engineer,
dealing with new and old problems in the diesel shop in Sept Iles. After
eight years “in the bush” I
moved on to the CP and became Engineer of Motive Power – System, in
Windsor
Station. During this time I had the opportunity to do some offshore
consulting
for CP Consulting Services and in 1983 joined that firm. While the
travelling
was often onerous, I did get to see steam in places like Swaziland, Mozambique
and Zimbabwe, while
riding
trains in Gabon, Bangladesh, Kenya
and Tanzania.
Railwaymen have the same problems all over the world and so there is
always
common ground for discussion and easy introductions.
I closed out my
full-time career in the UK,
as Director Rail Services for EMD’s distributor there, and participated
in the
fast-paced, post-BR railway industry for some five years. I retired to
my
former hometown of Kingston
in 2001.
One of my favourite
railway history areas has always been railways on islands, and to this
end I
have studied both Bermuda Railway and the Jersey (Channel
Islands) Railways, on site and in depth. These two
long-gone
operations form a composite prototype for my live steam garden railway
here in Kingston.
I am a current member
of the BRS and have written several articles and supplied photos for
Branchline. My eastern Ontario
interests lie
in the K& P, and railway history around Kingston, where I am always happy to
investigate “new” findings and meet with like-minded people.
Dennis
Peters
For several years I have been
pursuing one
project that is national in scope but has very local aspects. I
am compiling a comprehensive listing of the nomenclature of Canadian
railways, be it the names given to the railways and their stations,
structures and sections of track (subdivisions or spurs, etc.) along
with
a chronology of such use.
In parallel, a table is also
developed for
each section of track so that the various mileages (location,
construction, relocation, subdivision, etc.) applied to each section
can be related to one another. All data is compiled in a very
large database at whose heart is a non-duplicative numbering system for
each distinct section of railway.
On the way, my research led me to
the
Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA), whose post-1904 collection of
some 3000 large plans was in substantial disarray and, for all
practical purposes, inaccessible. One of the aforementioned
diversions, therefore, was a four-year inventory and re-cataloguing
project that produced a
database
that will, in turn, yield a useful finding aid whenever
the plans are conveyed to the National Archives.
While working in the CTA's
basement, I came
across a handwritten, pre-1904 Railway Committee of Privy Council
register of railway plans that occasioned a second diversion --
transcribing it into yet another
database. I can't be entirely
certain,
but I expect that register holds the key to a collection of some 1800
old plans that somehow wound up at the Transportation Safety Board when
the latter was created some years ago. Although the plans have
been safely in the hands of the National Archives for many years, for
want of resources
, nothing has been done to make them
accessible
either. Hence, another diversion looms!
All of which brings me to my
second
point. The region we live in is heavy with public material about
railways, in government departments, libraries and archives and who
knows where else, but few people know where to find it. Because
this material is in our 'backyard', I believe Ottawa railway historians
share a responsibility to determine what is out
there and work to make it more accessible, much in the same way
that the genealogy community operates.
Moreover, resources available to
custodians
of these materials have been cut back, leaving many of them in need of
various forms of assistance. One result of the cutbacks is that a lot
of the older material is being taken off shelves and perhaps disposed
of. Since we all benefit from being able to access this material,
as a way of giving something back, perhaps we should be considering how
we can help out and, in the process, ensure that this material remains
available.
My third point flows from the
first
two. There are almost innumerable applications to my project and
I don't reasonably expect to be able to develop even a fraction of them
in my lifetime. In addition, as long as railways exist, new data
will continue to be generated and updating will always be an issue.
Since my data exists in an
electronic
format, it
will be feasible for someone else to pick up wherever and whenever I
have left off, or to find ways of combining my data with that of
others. Just publishing what I have learned is
no longer enough, because the greater value of what I (and
others) are assembling lies in the interpretive uses to which
it can be put.
With that in mind, I have been
giving much
thought to what would be an appropriate place to 'house' my research
and, more particularly, to whom it could be entrusted so that it will
have the best possible chance of continuing to be built upon. I
still don't have a lot of firm answers, but I
do have a sense that getting together with a number of individuals who
share a common interest may shed some light on what is likely to be the
toughest of all railway history issues to resolve.
"Railway
Bob"
I'm interested in the history of Railways of Eastern
Ontario . My
website address is
http://www.railway.bob.com
I am interested in the history of the small railway
lines in
Eastern Ontario - before they were swallowed up by
Canadian National or Canadian Pacific. My objective is to have a
site that not only informs but also entertains. This includes
lots of historical photos and maps of the specific railway lines,
timetables, the shares and
bonds that they issued. My
personal goals are two-fold - to learn about railway history
and to learn about Internet technology. For the moment, I am
concentrating on the Brockville & Westport, and to a lesser extent,
on
the Brockville and Ottawa, the Bytown and Prescott. We'll add
more railway lines to our website as time and motivation permits.
Railways have played a large role in the creation of
Canada.
Uncovering this history is lots of fun and exciting. If it
wasn't, I wouldn't be doing it. Each discovery answers a question
about who, when, and why. But it also raises more questions -
like who were the promoters, why did the line go bankrupt? I've
had fun travelling the highways and byways
of Eastern Ontario visiting local libraries and museums, talking to the
people who remember when they took the train to go to school. I'
ve been fortunate in obtaining a lot of information from these people
and from the official sources like the National Archives and the
Archives of Ontario. So, our objective is to arrange this material in a
way that will tell the story of our local railway lines,
and publish it on the Internet so that others can share in my enjoyment
of the history of the Railways of Eastern Ontario.
Bill Seabrooke
My first love of the railways started with my now long gone grandfather
taking me, along with two other brothers to watch the trains at the now,
no more, Ottawa West Station along Scott St. every Sunday, when I was probably
somewhere under 5 years of age. I received my first train set around 8
years of age and have been collecting trains, track, etc. of various scales/gauges
ever since. I now primarily model in O & G scale. I came across the
Ottawa Railway History Circle website within the last year and thought that I would
love to be a part of it. I don't have much history to add to the current
membership knowledge, but I do enjoy learning about the history of the Ottawa valley as I have
lived right here in Ottawa for all my life and wasn't aware of all
that rich history. I also enjoy getting together with the History Circle group at the luncheon's.
Doug
Smith
Like most
of the crowd, I grew up near a rail line (well actually
two - CN and CP served my home town). Almost everyday my
father received express shipments on the Maritime Express and until
I started school, I often went with him. Out of these trips came a
fascination which remains to the present with passenger trains and
their equipment and railway stations.
I also am very interested in the
reasons why
things happen - most rail historians are nuts and bolts type, i.e. a
rail line was built to town X in 18xx or a locomotive was delivered in
19xx. I am much more interested in why the railway went to town
X, the changes in technology which made the locomotive purchase a good
thing, and why the railway choose to make the purchase.
Given the interest in passenger
trains, my
side interest in interurban lines is probably understandable.
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Have actively studied Ottawa railway history,
usually through the publication of articles, books or presentations, or;
