Jump to content

Ontario Northland Railway


BCT-3122-D800-10240

Recommended Posts

  • 2 years later...
2 hours ago, MCIBUS said:

Is there any way Ontario North Land Railway can make any trips into Ottawa? Or are there no tracks for it to come here?

Perhaps if they bought the Nylene spur between Arnprior and Ottawa, and the OVR between Sudbury and Mattawa, inclusive of Temiscaming, it could be done. Would be a matter of splicing the two together between Mattawa and Arnprior rather than rebuilding the entirety of the Chalk.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, MCI102A3 said:

Perhaps if they bought the Nylene spur between Arnprior and Ottawa, and the OVR between Sudbury and Mattawa, inclusive of Temiscaming, it could be done. Would be a matter of splicing the two together between Mattawa and Arnprior rather than rebuilding the entirety of the Chalk.

That would certainly be a waste of money. Ontario Northland currently operates a bus service between Ottawa-North Bay-Sudbury that's quite sufficient to handle any passenger traffic now.

https://www.ontarionorthland.ca/communications/schedules/2021/NEW/ONTCSched670-680-en.pdf

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, MCIBUS said:

Is there any way Ontario North Land Railway can make any trips into Ottawa? Or are there no tracks for it to come here?

The last rails in the Ottawa Valley were removed in 2013. The ROW remains between Mattawa and Smiths Falls, but the tracks are gone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • 5 months later...

Yep, they mostly operate freight service (I think mostly bulk commodities) now, and they interchange with CN at North Bay. There's a daily(?) CN interchange (trains 450/451) between the ONR in North Bay and Mac Yard. Historically the major customers were mines but I'm not sure this is true anymore. The provincial government has considered privatizing it on a few occasions but never went through with it.

Currently their only passenger service is a remote access service to Moosonee, which has no road access, but they once operated an intercity train service between Northeastern Ontario and Toronto, and yes this was completely separate from VIA. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Shaun said:

Are these EX AMTRAK units EX GO Units? Or where those scrapped?

That's a lot of extra axles for a 4? Car train.  

The coaches are ex-GO, the F40PHR is ex Amtrak 394.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, IRT_BMT_IND said:

Yep, they mostly operate freight service (I think mostly bulk commodities) now, and they interchange with CN at North Bay. There's a daily(?) CN interchange (trains 450/451) between the ONR in North Bay and Mac Yard. Historically the major customers were mines but I'm not sure this is true anymore. The provincial government has considered privatizing it on a few occasions but never went through with it.

Currently their only passenger service is a remote access service to Moosonee, which has no road access, but they once operated an intercity train service between Northeastern Ontario and Toronto, and yes this was completely separate from VIA. 

To add, they also interchange with CP in North Bay (OVR) and operate a sizeable remanufacturing and repair shop in North Bay. All the equipment in that consist would have been rebuilt/repainted in North Bay except for the NPCU/power car. They've previously refurbished GO equipment as well as other railways.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

I was deeply cynical about the ONTC "test run". Can anyone advise a good reason to have done it other than to have fresh pictures on Tory election literature, that CN's inspection RDC or similar couldn't have ascertained about the state of the track (especially given south of Washago the state of the track is hardly a mystery)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, dowlingm said:

I was deeply cynical about the ONTC "test run". Can anyone advise a good reason to have done it other than to have fresh pictures on Tory election literature, that CN's inspection RDC or similar couldn't have ascertained about the state of the track (especially given south of Washago the state of the track is hardly a mystery)

The claim is that they needed to run the train to ensure accurate train timings/schedules with what was being projected. They had already run a test from Cochrane to Washago several months previous to verify the performance of that section.

 

(Which is a bit curious, as Metrolinx has access to CN's Train Performance Calculator, and which they use to create their own schedules.)

 

To be fair, the track south of Washago was actually a mystery - CN had allowed that stretch to deteriorate somewhat, and passenger trains had been limited to a maximum of 40mph for some time. The ONR test train was originally scheduled to run several months earlier, but CN had required some time to get the track back up to snuff.


Dan

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/30/2021 at 9:02 AM, smallspy said:

The claim is that they needed to run the train to ensure accurate train timings/schedules with what was being projected. They had already run a test from Cochrane to Washago several months previous to verify the performance of that section.

 

(Which is a bit curious, as Metrolinx has access to CN's Train Performance Calculator, and which they use to create their own schedules.)

 

To be fair, the track south of Washago was actually a mystery - CN had allowed that stretch to deteriorate somewhat, and passenger trains had been limited to a maximum of 40mph for some time. The ONR test train was originally scheduled to run several months earlier, but CN had required some time to get the track back up to snuff.


Dan

That's good that they bothered to do that.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...
2 hours ago, Bus_Medic said:

For what it’s worth….

https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/ford-announces-75m-for-northlander-train-revival-1.5856159

3-6 year lead time?! 
This insults everyone’s intelligence.

And I'm guessing this will only happen IF the Conservatives manage to get back in? That's the pessimist in me talking.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...