The Bytown and Prescott Railway (B&PR) was a railway joining Ottawa (then called Bytown) with Prescott on the Saint Lawrence River, in the Province of Canada. The company was incorporated in 1850, and the first train ran from Prescott into Bytown on Christmas Day, 1854. The railway, Ottawa's first to outside markets, was initially used to ship lumber collected on the Ottawa River for further shipping along the St. Lawrence to markets in the United States and Montreal.
Bytown became Ottawa in 1855, and the railway changed its name to match, becoming the Ottawa and Prescott Railway (O&PR). The operating company went bankrupt and re-formed in 1866 as the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Railway. The line was eventually taken over in 1884 by Canadian Pacific Railway who used it as a link between Ottawa and their mainlines along the St. Lawrence. Other routes, notably the Canada Central Railway running only to the west, provided shorter runs to the Toronto area, and several direct routes to Montreal were already available. The Ottawa and Prescott saw decreasing use, and rails were eventually pulled up starting in 1966.
The railway's right of way parallels Highway 416 for much of its length, and is easily visible from the ground and air. It is particularly prominent where it passes under Highway 401 just west of the 416 terminus outside Prescott. Short portions in the Ottawa area remain in use for a variety of services, most notably O-Train Line 2.
History
Origins Bytowners had been promoting their town as the capital of Canada since the 1840s. At the time the town's only connections with the world were via dirt road, the Ottawa River to Montreal and the Rideau Waterway to Kingston. The Ottawa River was a major route for the shipping of logs from the interior of Upper Canada, especially the areas now part of Algonquin Park, to Quebec City where they were loaded on ships for sales in Europe.
The first mention of a rail link to the St. Lawrence River dates to 1848, Railways were developing in the United States at this point, and there were plans for a line to Ogdensburg, New York, directly opposite Prescott. There were also talks about a railway connecting Montréal to Toronto, which would form as the Grand Trunk Railway in 1852. It was expected these lines would pass along the north shore of the St. Lawrence, through Prescott.
Former Bytown mayor and cabinet minister Richard William Scott recalled that in early 1850, he and Edward McGillivray (Ottawa's second mayor) discussed the need for a rail connection of Bytown with the "contemplated trunk which was to unite Montreal and Toronto". This compelled Scott to prepare a petition asking for an act incorporating a company to construct a railway between Bytown and Prescott. The charter was obtained the following month in August 1850, and a meeting of the promoters was held in the Town Hall at the Lower Town Market, where Robert Bell, later to become secretary of the company, was meeting secretary. John McKinnon was chosen as president, and Walter Shanly was appointed engineer. Bell was the owner of what would become the Ottawa Citizen.
At the northern end of the proposed route, the natural location for the terminus would be just upstream of the Chaudière Falls, where logs could be loaded directly off the river onto trains. Only a few hundred meters upstream the river widened on the southern bank, forming a wide area of calm water with the small inlet of Nepean Bay in the southeastern corner. On the eastern side of the bay was a large area of flat land known as LeBreton Flats (now the name of the entire area), perfect for a railway yard. This area had originally been selected for the Rideau Canal, but a land swindle led to it being moved to a far less advantageous location downstream from the Chaudière Falls.
Initial purchases of stock were slow, far too small to pay for construction. Thomas McKay offered to buy a considerable proportion of the shares in exchange for moving the northern terminus to industrial land he owned in New Edinburgh, further down the Ottawa River. This location was not nearly as practical for logging, as it required logs to be formed into booms to transit a timber slide at the Chaudière Falls, moved only a few kilometres, and then un-boomed and hoisted up to the top of the hills near where the French embassy stands today.
Even with this infusion of cash there was not enough money; further funds were eventually raised from the towns along the proposed routes, which would be paid to the railway as a bonus on completion. These bonuses were highly controversial, as they were raised by local taxes. These bonuses were used by the Bytown government to take out loans: $60,000 in 1851 and $200,000 in 1853.
Selecting a route The endpoints of the railway were effectively selected before surveying began; the southern terminus would be at the docks in Prescott, while the northern end would be in New Edinburgh. Between these two points was considerable swampland, and Shanly had to wait until winter froze the ground to survey a route. With two assistants, Shanly walked out three possible routes in March 1851. A route through Kemptville was chosen. In September 1851, a contract to clear the land was offered to French & Co., and Shanly had already advertised for certain sections of the grading. Ground was broken with great fanfare on 9 October 1851, starting with a parade.
Construction In 1852, the company acquired land, ordered rails and other materials, and started to clear and grade the route. But it was slow work, and it was not until early 1854 that the route was prepared and various rivers and streams fully bridged by wooden trestles. The first half of the rail shipment had arrived in the fall of 1853 and the second in the spring of 1854.
At this point an odd dispute broke out between the railway and the Grand Trunk Telegraph Company, which had laid poles along the route. The railway sent out men to cut down the poles, claiming that the Telegraph did not obtain permission to use the lines. The outcome of this dispute is not recorded, but the telegraph was in operation when the railway opened.
Laying the rails began on 24 April 1854, starting in the Prescott yards.S. Robert Elliot's unpublished work on the Bytown and Prescott places the date on 1 May By May the main lines were being run. On 9 May the first steam locomotive for the line reached Ogdensburg. This was an 0-4-0 switcher, named "Oxford", that shipped across the river on the 19th, along with a number of gravel and lumber cars. On 21 June the railway carried its first official passengers between Prescott and Spencerville, at a price of three York Shillings each way. On 8 July two additional locomotives, freight 4-4-0's "St. Lawrence" and "Ottawa", together with several gravel cars, were brought over the river.
On 10 August the line reached Kemptville. Passenger service from Bytown opened at the end of the month, starting with a steamer ride down the Rideau Canal to Beckett's Landing, then a short distance by stage coach to the station in Kemptville. Regular service opened on 9 September. By 4 November the line had reached (South) Gloucester and the passenger route now started with a stage coach to what became Manotick Station. The line reached Billings Bridge on 2 December, and Montreal Road on the 16th. However, the bridge over the Rideau south of Green Island, from the eastern New Edinburgh side of the river to the downtown area, was not completed at this time.
The original (Bytown) Sussex Street Station, was located at what is today External Affairs' Lester B. Pearson Building. The station had opened in late December 1854 or early January 1855, although the trains did not yet reach this point. There were numerous spurs in the area, as well as across the river on the New Edinburgh side.Colin Churcher, "The Sussex Street Station, Ottawa" , Branchline, Bytown Railway Society, December 2004
The actual date of arrival of the first train is in doubt. There is considerable oral history stating that the St. Lawrence arrived at Sussex on Christmas Day 1854, with Robert Graham as engineer and Mike Mahar as fireman. However, there are also published accounts stating that the trains still stopped at Montreal Road on that same day, and passengers were carried to Sussex on horse drawn cabs. According to Scott, it wasn't until April 1855 that "the first train crossed the bridge over the Rideau River to the station at Sussex Street".
Persistent rumour One persistent rumour about the railway is that the company once again ran out of money just after reaching Billings, and the rest of the rails were initially laid as "snakeheads", wooden beams capped with iron. This was ostensibly done in order to reach the town in time for the Christmas Day opening. However, rails for the entire length of the line had already been bought and paid for, arriving months earlier. There is no reason for snakeheads to have been laid, and no documentary evidence from the era to back up the claim.
This particular story traces back to the 1894 book "Railways and Other Ways" by Myles Pennington. Other authors speculate that Pennington was actually referring to a wooden causeway of the same length far to the south of Ottawa."Rails for the Bytown and Prescott Railway" , Findings of the Circle, The Railways of Ottawa, 26 October 2003 Although the story was known to be false even at that time, it continues to be repeated in new works, as recently as Donald Wilson's book from 1984, "The Ontario and Quebec Railway".
Running the line In April, only a few months after the line opened, the bridge over the Rideau was damaged by ice and the station was cut off. It may be the re-opening of the bridge that Scott refers to as the "first train". The bridge continued to be a sore point for operations and suffered numerous closures. A second bridge was built over the winter of 1865-66 and the three masonry piers were rebuilt. The old bridge was removed before the spring run off in 1866. The new bridge also added a pedestrian walkway. A third wooden frame bridge was erected during the winter of 1874-1875 and opened on 2 April 1875.
One early source of income for the line was the construction of Parliament Hill. Stones for the buildings were quarried outside of Cleveland, Ohio, and shipped to Ottawa through Prescott on a scheduled train that ran every day for three years. On 7 May 1860 the Sussex station buildings caught fire, burning to the ground along with numerous freight cars.
St. Lawrence and Ottawa Following its completion, financial difficulties ensued leading to decisions for the raising to funds to pay the debts. City council had been indebted for $60,000 in 1851 and $200,000 in 1853. In 1865, the property of the company was foreclosed in a Toronto auction at a huge loss, and money invested by towns was lost.
The company re-formed as the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Railway in 1867. On 13 December 1871 the new company completed a spur that ran northwest from a location south of Billings Bridge christened "Chaudière Junction", to the new Broad Street Station close to the current City Center Ave and Albert St. This spur followed the original planned B&PR route quite closely, finally providing freight service upstream from the Chaudière Falls at Nepean Bay.
Part of the CPR