Midland Railway of Canada

Midland Railway of Canada
Locale	Ontario, Canada
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)

The Midland Railway of Canada was a historical Canadian railway which ran from Port Hope, Ontario to Midland on Georgian Bay.

Early days

This railway was originally conceived as a rail link between Port Hope and Peterborough and the company was originally named The Peterborough and Port Hope Railway Company, chartered December 16, 1846. Six years elapsed and nothing was done about it. On December 18, 1854, a new charter was issued for a line of railway from Port Hope to Lindsay, with hopes of eventually extending to Lake Simcoe. It was named The Port Hope, Lindsay and Beaverton Railway Company.

Expansion

Although it would be quite some time before the rails were pushed beyond Lindsay, more than a year before the line opened to Beaverton, January 1, 1871, the road planned a more ambitious expansion to the waters of Georgian Bay, renaming the road The Midland Railway of Canada, on December 24, 1869.

Financial matters

The Midland Railway had started the 1870s in good financial condition. In 1870 its receipts were $242,157 against expenses of $113,227, an Operating Ratio of 47%. In 1872 Frank Shanly was awarded a contract to build a fifty-three mile extension from Beaverton to a terminus on Georgian Bay at Midland. There were unforeseen difficulties with the ground and a rapid increase in labour costs, which ruined Shanly. The Midland was financially strapped, could not afford to pay Shanly for the extras, and seized the contract back in February 1873. At the same time the recession hit freight receipts which fell by 30% between 1872 and 1874. The first Midland Railway manager D’Arcy E. Boulton of Cobourg, Ontario was replaced by Adolf Hugel of Pittsburgh. Hugel invested money in steel rails and struggled to cut costs. In recognition of his efforts to improve the line the British bondholders agreed in 1874 to lower the rate on their investments, and not to cash the interest coupons.

Net earnings and the ability to pay interest on the fixed debt declined sharply after 1875, the Midland was insolvent and the ownership of the line essentially passed to the bondholders. The Chairman of their Committee was Sir Henry Tyler of the Grand Trunk Railway and most of the other members were GTR nominees. When George Albertus Cox, a prosperous insurance agent for Canada Life and several times Mayor of Peterborough, took over as President of the MR in August 1878 it was soon apparent that here was a character with a natural affinity for making money who would shake things up. He vowed on his first day with Canada Life that he would become its President, which he did in 1900, and his insurance branch in Peterborough was soon doing half the company’s business.

Merger

The Midland (144 route miles) was surrounded by railways which also were not making money:

• The Grand Junction Railway of Canada (90 route miles)
• The Belleville and North Hastings Railway (15 route miles)
• The Victoria Railway (56 route miles)
• The Whitby, Port Perry and Lindsay Railway (46½ route miles)
• The Toronto and Nipissing Railway (114 route miles of 3' 6" gauge)

Cox first floated a proposal to purchase the Toronto and Nipissing Railway in July 1881 in order to gain the supreme prize of direct Midland Railway access to Toronto. Negotiations continued throughout the Fall and Winter when the shareholders and bondholders were presented with a proposal for ‘Approving an agreement between the Toronto and Nipissing Railway Company; the Whitby, Port Perry and Lindsay Company, the Victoria Railway Company, the Toronto and Ottawa Railway Company; the Grand Junction Railway Company and the Midland Railway Company for the purpose of consolidating said companies into one company, under the name of the Midland Railway of Canada.’

The T&NR and the Midland Railway had always maintained good relations and since it was certain that the T&NR could not long survive in its present form, work commenced during the negotiations to lay a third rail from Midland Junction to Scarborough Junction. The first through passenger train from Peterborough to Toronto ran on December 15 1881. An Act enabling the merger came into force on Saturday April 1 1882 and on that day the first official trains of the new Midland Railway of Canada travelled the system. On January 1 1884 the GTR finally consolidated its hold on the Midland group of companies by leasing them; full ownership was obtained in 1893. It was eventually absorbed into the Canadian National Railway system.

References

• "Narrow Gauge Through the Bush - Ontario's Toronto Grey & Bruce and Toronto & Nipissing Railways"; Rod Clarke; pub. Beaumont and Clarke, with the Credit Valley Railway Company, Streetsville, Ontario, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9784406-0-2
• "The Narrow Gauge For Us - The Story of the Toronto and Nipissing Railway"; Charles Cooper; pub. The Boston Mills Press; Erin, Ontario, 1982.
• "Narrow Gauge Railways of Canada"; Omer Lavallee; pub. Railfair, Montreal, 1972.
• "Narrow Gauge Railways of Canada"; Omer Lavallee, expanded and revised by Ronald S Ritchie; pub. Fitzhenry and Whiteside, Markham, Ontario, 2005.

External links

• 'The Narrow Gauge for Us' Charles Cooper's Railway Pages
• 'Narrow Gauge Through the Bush' Charles Cooper's Railway Pages