The Nipissing Central Railway (NCR), sometimes known as the Temiskaming Streetcar Line, is a former

interurban The Interurban (or radial railway in Europe and Canada) is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 ...

streetcar A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport a ...

system connecting New Liskeard, Haileybury and

Cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, p ...

on the western bank of Lake Temiskaming in northern

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

from 1910 to 1935. As the line had a federal charter, the operating company continues to be used to operate the Ontario Northland Railway freight spur line between Swastika, Ontario and

Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec Rouyn-Noranda ( 2021 population 42,313) is a city on Osisko Lake in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region of Quebec, Canada. The city of Rouyn-Noranda is a coextensive with a territory equivalent to a regional county municipality (TE) and census ...

, avoiding the need to re-charter either end in its respective provinces.

History

In 1902 the Ontario government chartered the

Temiskaming & Northern Ontario Railway The Ontario Northland Railway is a Canadian railway operated by the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, a provincial Crown agency of the government of Ontario. Originally built to develop the Lake Timiskaming and Lake Nipissing area ...

(T&NO) to connect the towns of New Liskeard and Haileybury on Lake Temiskaming to North Bay on Lake Nipissing. During construction,

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

ore was discovered near the Mile 103 post, just southwest of Haileybury. The Cobalt Silver Rush followed, leading to the incorporation of the town of Cobalt in 1906, and a swelling population reaching 10 to 15,000 by 1911. As the population of all of the towns grew, the need for better transportation between them also grew. The Nipissing Central Railway was granted a federal (Dominion) charter on 12 April 1907, and opened the first portion of the line between Cobalt and Haileybury on 30 April 1910. The route followed King Street out of Cobalt, turning onto the city streets of what is today's North Cobalt (the outskirts of Haileybury) and turning downtown before ending at Main Street in Haileybury. The line was purchased by the T&NO on 20 June 1911. An extension along Lake Timiskaming to New Liskeard opened on 1 November 1912, ending at Whitewood Avenue. In 1914, an existing spur line on the T&NO to Kerr Lake was electrified and joined to the NCR. This section was abandoned in 1924. Interurban operations on the NCR ended on 9 February 1935. When the T&NO built a spur line between Swastika and Rouyn-Noranda, they operated it under the charter of the NCR, thereby avoiding problems with crossing the provincial border (the T&NO was incorporated in Ontario). The company exists to this day as the operator of the T&NO spur. The construction of the line was the subject of a legal challenge, ''The Attorney-General of Quebec v. The Nipissing Central Railway Company and another''; it was decided in favour of the railway by the Privy Council in London in 1926

References

"The Rise and Fall of a Mining Camp"
Cobalt Mining Legacy
"Argentite Ghost Town"
Ontario Abandoned Places * George Hilton and John Due
"The Electric Interurban Railways in America"
Stanford University Press, 2000, p. 420 {{DEFAULTSORT:Nipissing Central Railway Ontario railways Quebec railways Street railways in Ontario Interurban railways in Ontario Rail transport in Timiskaming District

Temiskaming Timiskaming is a word from the Algonquin ''Temikami'' or ''Temikaming'', from ''tim'' meaning "deep" and ''kami'' meaning "open waters". Alternate spellings include: Temiskaming, Témiscaming, Témiscamingue. The word Temagami comes from the same ro ...

Railway companies established in 1907 Ontario Northland Railway Electric railways in Canada

History

See also

References