The Cobourg and Peterborough Railway (C&PRy) was one of the first railway lines to be built in Central Ontario, Canada. The line was initially considered in 1831 as a way to bring the products from the burgeoning area around Peterborough to markets on Lake Ontario through the port in the town of Cobourg. Before the railway the only means of travel was by stage coach lines between larger populated areas overland or by boat. A series of problems, including the Upper Canada Rebellion and the Panic of 1837, meant that construction did not begin until 1853, reaching Peterborough in 1854.
The line ran directly over Rice Lake on what was then the largest trestle bridge in the world. However, it was not the strongest, and the bridge was shifted due to ice only a few days after opening. Problems with ice continued to be a serious concern throughout the railway's history. A series of companies took over operations of the C&PRy, including a lease to the shareholders of the Port Hope, Lindsay & Beaverton Railway, who ran a competing line only a few miles away. The new operators surreptitiously sabotaged the bridge, causing it to collapse in 1861.
The southern portion of the line, below Rice Lake, had a second life from 1867 as part of the Cobourg, Peterborough & Marmora Railway & Mining Company. This was a network using the original C&P, a short run known as the Blairton Extension, and the Trent River between the two which was used to ship iron ore from the mines at Marmora to market. The line was successful for some time, until other lines pushed into the Marmora area, while the mines were running out of profitable ore. In 1886, the line was sold again to the Cobourg, Blairton and Marmora Railway & Mining Company, who operated it sporadically before selling it to the Grand Trunk Railway in 1893, who closed it in 1898. The rails were apparently shipped to France during World War I.
Given its early disappearance, unlike many historical railways the C&PRy route was not converted to rail trail use. Most evidence of the line has since disappeared, although remains of the trestle are still visible, and rise from the lake during periods of low water.
History
Growth of Central Ontario Most of Ontario was empty wilderness except for a few scattered settlements that formed primarily after the American Revolutionary War when then United Empire Loyalists were given land around the province, but mostly in Prince Edward County, near Kingston, Ontario.
In August 1825, Peter Robinson brought 2,024 Irish immigrants to Canada and decamped them at Cobourg in tents. The immigrants were moved north and started settlements across the area between Cobourg and Rice Lake. Over time the settlements extended northward past the lake, and the town of Peterborough formed in this newly opened area.
James Gray Bethune opens transport James Gray Bethune arrived in Cobourg in 1816 and started several enterprises before settling on running a combined general store and post office. He also became the local cashier for the Bank of Upper Canada.
By the late 1820s it was becoming clear that Peterborough was going to be a success, and there was a definite need to provide markets for the burgeoning lumber mills and farms springing up in the area. Port Hope was opening a port for this trade, but construction was hopelessly mired in local politics.
Bethune took advantage of this by building a small streamer on Rice Lake, the Pemedash, later known as the Otonabee. The Otonabee docked at the town of Sully (today known as Harwood) on the southern shore of the lake, and ran north through the Otonabee River to downtown Peterborough. To serve markets further north, a second steamer was built in Peterborough, sawn in half, and transported overland to Lake Chemong, where it ran as far north as Bobcaygeon.
For services north of Bobcaygeon, Bethune proposed building a lock system to bypass a set of rapids. Bethune spent liberally on construction, only to find it didn't have enough water to operate year-round. In 1834 directors of the Bank of Upper Canada arrived to check the books. Bethune appears to have staged a robbery to upset the investigation, and while nothing was proven, 9,000 pounds of loans were put on Bethune personally. Bethune attempted to sell everything he owned to pay the debt, but failed, and died impoverished in Rochester, New York a few years later.
Cobourg Rail Road Bethune's steamer network was hampered by the lack of any ability to reach Lake Ontario, a problem for any of the ports in the area. While Bethune was busy setting up the locks, he was also engaged with local businessmen in an effort to build a railway from the Sully dockyard to the port in Cobourg. Bethune was joined by E. Perry and George Strange Boulton, successful local businessmen. In 1831 the group hired F.P. Rubidge, also working on Bethune's lock system, to examine routes from Cobourg to Rice Lake. In 1832, Rubidge returned a proposed route running through several valleys from D'Arcy Street in Cobourg northward to the docks at Sully.
On 6 March 1834 the Cobourg Rail Road Company was chartered to build the line within set times, and given an initial grant of £10,000 to start the work. Stock subscriptions were slow in coming, perhaps due to Bethune's bankruptcy around this time. Additionally, in 1833 the provincial government hired Nicol Hugh Baird to examine the Trent River with hopes for opening it for navigation. This route would also connect to Rice Lake and therefore bypass a railway link, but was also added 77 miles to the route to Toronto, and would take some time to open. In fact, this section was not fully opened until the 1880s. In 1835 the company once again hired Rubidge, this time accompanied by Baird, to re-survey the route. They returned three potential routes, ending in the towns of Bewdley, Claverton (today known as Gore's Landing) and Sully.
The Panic of 1837 and following US recession caused by presidential meddling in the banking system made further subscriptions hard to come by. The Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837 added to the company's woes, and the efforts became moribund. Several attempts to restart construction through the Cobourg Rail Road Company were unsuccessful. The company secured an extension of three years on their building permit in 1836, but by the early 1840s work on the line had still not begun and the charter lapsed.
Cobourg Plank Road and Ferry Company With the railway line abandoned, the town again hired Baird in 1842 to survey the route for a plank road to Rice Lake. The newly formed government of The Canadas formed a Board of Works for these sorts of local improvements, and both Cobourg and Port Hope applied for permission to build a route, with Port Hope's plan winning approval. The Peterborough & Port Hope Railway (P&PH) was duly chartered in 1846.
Worried that business from north of the lake would bypass Cobourg, in the spring of 1846 the Cobourg Plank Road and Ferry Company was formed. With initial capital of £6,000, the company purchased 300,000 feet of three-inch wide planks, 12 or 13 feet long. The road was laid along the current route of Burnham Street to Gore's Landing, under the direction of William Weller, the "Stage Coach King", and Thomas Gore as supervisor.
The road proved almost unusable in spring and fall when wet weather made it unable to carry a load. Maintenance suffered, and by 1850 the road was almost unusable. Luckily for Cobourg business interests, the Port Hope efforts had failed, and competition to the plank road had never materialized.
Cobourg and Peterborough Railway
Soon after the road was rendered useless, a new group led by D'Arcy Boulton Jr. (G.S.'s and Peter Robinson's nephew) restarted efforts to build the railway. This time the plan was to push across Rice Lake and end in Peterborough, at that time a quickly growing industrial town. In the fall of 1850, Andrew Jeffrey was appointed to head a new committee to study the railway. Other members of the group included Boulton, the mayor Ebeneezer Perry, H. Ruttan and T. Dumble. In late 1851 Boulton claimed that a line would be operational in three years.
A new charter for the Cobourg & Peterborough Railway was granted on 10 December 1852, and the town purchased £25,000 of the stock. The engineering was initially offered Samuel Keefer who estimated the cost at £125,000, but could not take the job. It was then offered to Ira Spaulding, who recommended increasing the estimate to £151,000 in light of the costs of the bridge across Rice Lake. A construction contract was offered and picked up by Zimmerman & Balch, Samuel Zimmerman's firm, who signed the contract on 15 January 1853, and threw in £1,000 for good will.
Sod was turned by the new mayor's wife on 7 February 1853, at the corner of what is today the northeast corner of Spring Street and University Avenue (then Railway and Seminary). Work on the bridge started on March 3. Financial problems arose in 1854 with the advent of the Crimean War which created a labour shortage and wages rose to one dollar per twelve-hour day. James Crossen was contracted to build rolling stock, the start of a company that would long outlast the railway itself.
The line reached Harwood in May 1854, and citizens were offered a free ride on the line. Work on the bridge continued through the year. The bridge was the second largest civil engineering project in North America at the time, consisting of a series of trestles, 31 Burr Truss bridges, and a centre pivot draw bridge, extending for two and a half miles across the lake. However, to save money, Zimmerman did not fill in the pilings along the northern sections of the bridge, which were noticed in the spring of 1854 to have shifted due to ice.
The line was opened all the way to Peterborough on 29 December 1854, again with offers of a free ride the 28.5 mile length of the line. The line had only been running for three days when, on 1 January 1855, shifting ice on the lake pushed the bridge and it had to be closed for repairs. The bridge continued to be a serious problem throughout the railway's lifetime. John Fowler was brought in to replace Spaulding, and the bridge was gradually upgraded, starting with the construction of causeways in the shallower portions. Full service was restored in the spring, but by this time poor construction of the southern portions of the line was becoming evident as well.
In spite of any problems, the railway under Boulton's directorship proved extremely lucrative for all involved. Building lots in Harwood jumped from $3 to $400 an acre, and incomes from the line proved to be considerably higher the similar lines in the area.
Peterborough & Chemong Through the mid-1800s, what would become the Trent–Severn Waterway was slowly being constructed on the lakes north and west of Peterborough. It would not be complete through Peterborough until 1904, and as a complete waterway until 1920. Nevertheless, by the middle of the 19th century there was already considerable traffic on the canals, but no way to reach markets south or east. This led to the creation of a number of railways whose primary purpose was to act as endpoints for canal traffic to be carried to Toronto.
On 30 May 1855 the Peterborough & Chemong Lake Railway (P&CL) was chartered to connect to the canal system at Lake Chemong, northwest of Peterborough. By the summer of 1859 four miles had been completed from the east side of the Otonabee River across a bridge built between 1867 and 1871, where it crossed the Midland Railway of Canada's branch to Lakefield. A lack of further funding prevented further expansion northward, and the bridge was eventually closed in 1882.