Irondale, Bancroft And Ottawa Railway

The Irondale, Bancroft and Ottawa Railway (IB&O) was a short line railway in Central Ontario, Canada. The line was originally opened in 1878 as the Myles Branch Tramway, a horse-drawn wagonway connecting the Snowdon Iron Mine to the Victoria Railway a few miles away. The line was taken over by a group looking to build a northern extension of the Toronto and Nipissing Railway (T&N) as the Toronto and Nipissing Eastern Extension Railway. This extension was never built; instead, the company rechartered as the IB&O and used the Tramway as the basis for a new line with the ultimate aim to connect Orillia to the Ottawa area.

The Tramway initially ran east from Howland to Furnace Falls, and the IB&O began pushing further northeast through Irondale, Gooderham, Wilberforce and Harcourt, then turning east for Bancroft. Construction stopped at Baptiste Lake when the owner died in July 1899. The line was eventually purchased by Mackenzie and Mann in 1909, who connected it to the Central Ontario Railway (COR) outside Bancroft in July 1910. The IB&O leased the COR, and then both were merged with Mackenzie and Mann's Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) in 1911.

CNoR's bankruptcy in 1916 led to the line ultimately becoming part of the Canadian National Railways (CN) in 1923. The route saw little use and was abandoned in March 1960, with the rails lifted by the end of July. Only a short section near Bancroft remained, operating as a spur on the COR serving a Domtar plant. The COR was abandoned in 1984. Due to its relatively early abandonment, the IB&O did not see conversion to rail trail, unlike the COR which is now a popular recreational trail. Some sections have been used for roads, but most of it has returned to bush, while some sections were sold to private owners.

History

Iron rush

Iron was first discovered at Blairton at the western end of Crowe Lake in 1816, but a mine was not constructed until 1820. An iron smelter was built at nearby Marmora, at the eastern end of the lake, and opened for service in 1823. At the time, the only form of transport was via the waterways to railheads some distance to the west, and this limited shipping to the summer months. The mine changed hands several times before falling into ruin in 1848.

A solution was provided by the Cobourg, Peterborough, and Marmora Rail and Mining Company, a reformed version of the Cobourg and Peterborough Railway which had previously gone bankrupt. In 1866 they constructed of railway from Blairton to the Trent River, using the ever extending Trent–Severn Waterway to move the ore by boat to their previous railhead on Rice Lake. This route required several off and on loadings, but was nevertheless successful, and by 1870 the Blairton mine was the largest in Ontario. The mine operated with decreasing output until 1883, when it filled in with water and the railway trestle was damaged by ice.

Railway rush

By this time several other mines had opened in the area, including the first gold mine at Eldorado in 1866. This led to another wave of prospecting further north, the discovery of new ore, and the need to ship to market. A small railway boom followed and lasted into the early 1870s as a number of companies started projects attempting to service the mines. Among the many attempts were the Central Ontario Railway out of Trenton, the Belleville and North Hastings Railway a short distance to the east of the COR, and the Bay of Quinte Railway further east.

Railways and colonization roads led easier access for prospectors, allowing them to strike out further into central Ontario. New finds were made outside the original Blairton area, areas that the new railways were not well suited to handle. W. Robinson and J.B. Campbell began what was a series of new sources of iron ore on their land near Devil's Creek. It was Campbell who discovered high-quality examples on land belonging to Robert Gibson, but the company formed to exploit this discovery was owned by Robinson and two people from Toronto named Shertis and Savigney. The company was named the Snowden Iron Mine Company and in time it was wholly owned to people associated with Toronto when Robinson sold his share to Henry Stark Howland who lived there. By 1874 the town was growing, with a post office and general store. At the time, everything travelled in and out by wagon on Monck Road.

Businessmen in Toronto were becoming interested in capturing some of this traffic for themselves, as well as providing transport for goods they were personally interested in. The first attempt was backed by William Gooderham, Sr., James Gooderham Wortss and Henry Pellatt, who chartered the Toronto and Nipissing Railway (T&N) in 1869 to build a narrow gauge line with the ultimate aim of reaching the Ottawa Valley. After opening as far as Uxbridge in 1871, the contractor walked away from the job, leaving the partially completed line to Coboconk. With the T&N stalled, in 1874, George Laidlaw, who had been instrumental in setting up the T&N, chartered the competing Victoria Railway with roughly the same goals. The Victoria likewise ran out of money after reaching Haliburton late in 1878.

Myles Branch Tramway

William Myles, "an Irish born coal dealer from Toronto", purchased a share of the Snowdon and began plans to build a railway connection to the Victoria, a little over from the smelters that had been built at Furnace Falls on the Irondale River in 1874. Myles started construction in 1876 using squared logs supporting horse drawn sledges.

Myles borrowed the required $60,000 from the Canadian Bank of Commerce, using the mines as security. The wagonway finally opened in 1878 as the Myles Branch Tramway. The interchange with the Victoria, about north of Kinmount, became known as Myles Junction. In 1878, Myles shipped 1000 tonnes of ore, and then abandoned the properties.

In 1879 Charles Pusey and his partner Ivatts purchased both the Snowdon and Howland's mines, only to have Ivatts leave for Europe a short time later. Pusey then formed a partnership with Howland, an influential Toronto businessman who had been a founding director of both the Canadian Bank of Commerce and the Imperial Bank of Canada. Both men were interested in railways, and became friends, and later family when Howland's son married Pusey's daughter.

To improve operations, Pusey and Howland chartered the Snowdon Branch Railway to upgrade the Tramway as a true railway. They eventually abandoned the mines and sold them to Parry and Mills from Chicago. Perry and Mills began construction of a pig iron upgrading furnace and then ran out of money, only to have much of it burn down in 1881. Pusey and Howland were able to purchase the remains and form the Toronto Iron Company.

IB&O

On 5 March 1880, Pusey and Howland chartered the Toronto and Nipissing Eastern Extension Railway, with the plan to complete the original T&L route at least as far as the Snowdon Branch and other local mines, and then extend to connect to the Canada Central Railway near Ottawa. However, a downturn in the iron market that year led to the plans being shelved. In the fall of 1881 the T&N began expansion plans of its own, surveying the rest of the route to Lake Nipissing. However, in December of that year the T&L amalgamated with the Midland Railway of Canada, ending any expansion plans. When the T&LEE shareholders met for the first time on 31 January 1883, nothing much happened.

On 25 March 1884, the two rechartered the line as the IB&O, this time planning to use the Snowdon Branch Railway as the basis for a new line running from Orillia to Ottawa, a distance of about , with options to build branches northeast to Sault Saint Marie and west-southwest to Brockville. This saw more favourable response from the shareholders, and in 1883 Pusey began surveying the route as far as Bancroft. Notices were placed in November 1884 for construction contacts for this section. A contract was signed with the Hudson Improvement Company on 15 February 1886.

In November 1886 the IB&O officially purchased the Myles Branch Tramway for $500 and a note for $22,000 due in 12 months. The Bank of Commerce mortgaged the property to the IB&O to provide funding to lay the rails. A $17,710 contract was placed with Cooper, Fairman & Co in Montreal to supply 56 pound rails, with $8,800 of that to be paid when they received their government subsidies after laying the first of rail. The line was opened in February 1887, including the original 6.75 miles of the Tramway, and an extension to Devil's Creek, which they rechristened Irondale, bringing it to a total of 10 miles. They began operations with two 4-4-0 locomotives purchased from the Grand Trunk Railway.

According to one story, the railway was required to reach the town of Gooderham by a certain date in 1886. However, they ran out of rails short of the goal. To solve the problem they loaded a train with ties and rails and started building off the existing endpoint, and then moving the train forward onto the new rails. The rails were then lifted behind the train and placed in front, allowing it to move forward again. In this leapfrog

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