The railway arrives in Smiths Falls
In 1853, caught up in the excitement and foreseeing the benefits of a railway, the municipalities in the United Counties of Lanark and Renfrew secured land and agreed to underwrite the Brockville and Ottawa Railway Company (B&O) to the tune of £200,000.
The first phase of the railway started at Brockville and ran to Smiths Falls. It was to be continued to Arnprior and Pembroke, with several branch lines to Westport, Newboro, and Merrickville. Only a line to Perth was realized.
The inaugural run from Brockville to Smiths Falls began on a sub-zero February morning in 1859. Travelling at 15 mph, the wood-burning locomotive carrying two coaches filled with passengers took 2 ½ hours to reach Smiths Falls. The trip to Perth took another 7 hours because of a broken coupling and lack of water. Five years of construction took a heavy toll on the B&O: interest payments could not be met and refinancing had to be arranged.
The line was extended to Carleton Place in 1859 and reached the Ottawa River through Almonte, Arnprior, and Sand Point in 1864. B & O turned over the right to build from Arnprior to Pembroke to Canada Central Railway and the line was extended through Renfrew County in the 1870s. Both companies were united under Canadian Pacific Railway Company and linked in 1881 with the soon to be transcontinental network (1885).
Smiths Falls embraces a new age of industry
Smiths Falls became an incorporated village in January 1854, with a population of almost 1,000 residents. Maps from the 1860s show that most industry in Smiths Falls was centered along the Rideau Canal, with development concentrated north of the river and west of Elmsley Street.
Up until the arrival of the railway, the Rideau Canal was the major transportation route. The waterway was less than ideal since it could not be used for several months out of the year. The railway, in the minds of many, was far superior. In November 1858, The Rideau Gleaner, a local newspaper, wrote of the decline of the canal being “mainly attributed to the greater convenience both for travelling and traffic, furnished by means of railway communication”.
What was mainly an agricultural and mill town began to industrialize with the railway’s arrival. Local companies such as Frost & Wood and the Cossit Bros. – manufacturers of agricultural implements – quickly replaced gristmills and sawmills. A shift from the canal to the railway and from milling to manufacturing took place. In 1871, an Industrial Census of Canada reported only two of the top ten industries in Smiths Falls were mills. Two companies, Frost & Wood (1839) and Cossitt Bros. (1853) paid 69% of the wages in Smiths Falls. The sheer size and demand of their product required modern transportation. Because of the railway, both companies were able to reach national markets. Frost & Wood even had a spur line direct to the factory.
Smiths Falls was well on its way to becoming the industrial centre for Lanark County.
The Railway Metropolis of the Ottawa Valley
Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) was an amalgamation of many smaller railways across the country. The Canada Central Railway, formally the Brockville & Ottawa Railway and the Ontario-Quebec Railway became subsidiaries of CPR in 1881 with a 999-year lease. In 1885 Smiths Falls was chosen to be a division point on CPR’s mainline from Montreal to Toronto.
Land was needed to expand the new division point. The company purchased several lots from John McGill Chambers and his wife Mary Elizabeth for $2,000 in July 1886. A roundhouse and new depot building were soon constructed to replace the old Canada Central Railway buildings.
Geographically, Smiths Falls was a perfect choice as a divisional point with lines eventually running north, east, south, and west. At the time of construction between Montreal and Smiths Falls, the company looked to municipalities for financial assistance. After holding a public vote, Smiths Falls gave the CPR $25,000 and with completion of the main line in 1887, the future of the town seemed secure.
After a right-of-way dispute with Grand Trunk Railway was settled in 1898, all western traffic over CPR track went through Smiths Falls. Twenty-three trains ran through Smiths Falls on a daily basis. Growth of the CPR in Smiths Falls was rampant. By 1913, personnel located at Smiths Falls included a locomotive foreman, yard master, express office staff and the first Superintendant, J. R. Gilliland.
Smiths Falls comes of age
In 1912, a second railway, Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) completed construction of a station on the west side of town on William Street West. Beginning in 1914, CNoR’s local passenger service ran between Smiths Falls and Ottawa. A tri-weekly freight service ran between Ottawa and Belleville. Canadian National Railway (CNR) purchased the company in 1923.
By 1924, it is estimated that 1,600 people worked for the CPR in the Smiths Falls Division, with 1,200 living in Smiths Falls. The payroll was $1,500,000, most of it being spent in town.
The CPR yard on the east side of town, on Victoria Avenue occupied several acres with up to date buildings like the roundhouse (engine house), with its 22 stalls. Seven more would be added by the end of the decade. The Express Office, built in 1928 handled small shipments of freight including perishable items in separate insulated cars. Horses and livestock from local farms and even automobiles for individuals were shipped through this office.
However, by the 1930s, the automobile began to compete with the railway. By car Smiths Falls was now only 2 ½ hours from Ottawa and 1 ½ hours from Kingston and the St. Lawrence River. Cars and trucks provided freedom for travelers that fixed train schedules could not.
To stay competitive the railway had to modernize. As a result, CPR and CNR began to market train travel as an “experience”, rather than an efficient way to travel from point A to point B. Suddenly the world was at the town’s doorstep.
CPR Railway Station
The first railway building appeared in Smiths Falls when the Brockville & Ottawa Railway Company built a small depot off the corner of Daniel and Winnifred Streets in 1863.
When Smiths Falls became the Eastern Division point, a new yard facility and station building replaced the older out of date structures. Using the same construction materials as all other CPR train stations – limestone foundation, brick exterior, plenty of large windows, waiting room, and a restaurant – construction began in March 1887. By August the train station was opened for passengers.
The railway yard was also expanding. A tea warehouse was constructed sometime before 1898. The structure was a one-storey frame building measuring 35’ x 250’ and stood between the station and freight shed. Tea shipped from companies in China and Japan by CPR steamers was loaded in Vancouver onto CPR cars and transported to Smiths Falls. From here, tea was sent all over Canada and the United States. The warehouse is reported to have held 30,000 packages of tea; secured by rope there was barely any room to walk an aisle. It was said that on account of the tea trade, the only other place known outside of China and Japan for tea was Smiths Falls. A 1900, CPR report stated that was necessary to double the size of the tea storehouse at a cost of $11,000 to accommodate the tea trade from the Orient.
A 1916 property value sheet listed 46 buildings at the Smiths Falls yard, with 29 built between 1903 and 1914. The last renovation to the building before WWII was an addition of an umbrella roof in 1929.
In 1945, major renovations to the exterior and interior of the train station took place at a cost of $55,000. The entire building was extended at either end, new bay windows were installed in the main waiting room and a brighter more modern appearance ensured a comfortable wait for passengers. The train station restaurant was equipped with new sandwich and soda counters and dining tables were reduced, allowing more standing room for passengers ‘on the go’. The second floor also received an overhaul with the addition of eight bedrooms, two sitting rooms and two washrooms. The restaurant was not only popular with train travellers, many Smiths Falls residents would eat there on Saturdays after a night out and on Sundays after church. It was the only restaurant open 24 hours, seven days a week in the town. The station closed permanently in 2011.
CNR Station
Construction of the Canadian Northern train station began in 1911 with an official opening in 1912. The building was intended to serve as a model of the railway’s high architectural standards and to draw passenger traffic away from the long-established Canadian Pacific Railway located on the east side of the town. The train station featured a decorative turret, an expansive main waiting room, an adjoining men’s smoking room, a ladies’ waiting room, a carriage portico, and an express office. This grand design, however, was not consistent with the relatively small population of the town at the time and it failed to have much of an effect on the monopoly CPR held in passenger and freight service in Smiths Falls.
In 1918, the Canadian Northern Railway went bankrupt and in 1923, Canadian National Railways took over. Traffic through the station included passengers enroute to Toronto and Ottawa as well as mail and express shipments. However passenger and freight traffic was never heavy and the last passenger train through the station was in 1979. The station was abandoned shortly after.
Word got out CNR was looking to demolish the building. In 1983, a group of community-minded citizens, led by Bill LeSerf, acquired the building in the hopes of establishing a railway museum. In 1985, work began on cleaning out the building and renovating the ladies’ waiting room. In 1989, major work began on the main waiting room and the baggage room with the old rotted wooden floor being torn out. In 1992, work began on restoring the ceiling and decorative plaster scrollwork around the edges of the ceiling.
In 1992, the old asphalt platform was removed and replaced with a new wooden platform of BC fir. By 1993, the restoration work on the station was completed.
Canadian Northern Railway – The Forgotten Transcontinental Railway of Canada
The Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) was born from the amalgamation of 5 small railways in Manitoba and Western Ontario. Between 1898 and 1918, the railway became the third largest railway in Canada and under the command of Sir William Mackenzie and Sir Donald Mann, the CNoR became one of the most influential corporations in Canadian history.
The secret of the Canadian Northern success was to acquire bankrupt railway charters, their land grants and bond guarantees, with construction of these rail lines being done by Mackenzie and Mann’s own contracting company. Starting in 1909, the Canadian Northern started expanding from Manitoba into Eastern Canada.
