32 C O N T E X T 9 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 MARGO TEASDALE Saving Ontario’s railway stations Canada’s Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act has been highly successful, although many historic stations that do not meet the national criteria remain vulnerable. I left my office inToronto as a conservation officer with the Ministry of Culture in 1991 on a high note. Parks Canada (the Canadian equivalent to English Heritage) had persuaded the government to pass a unique piece of legislation protecting a group of special buildings I had been working to save. The Heritage Railway Station Protection Act, proclaimed in 1990, is the first act of its kind intended to designate and protect a building type that is significant in symbolising the national history of settling and developing the country. The railways connected Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, bringing civilisation with them. The Station Protection Act represents the government’s acknowledgement of the intense public interest in railway heritage. The opening of the first public railways in England during the 1820s heralded a railway mania that spread from the UK into the USA and Europe during the following decades. In British North America, by comparison, secure investments in railways were not possible initially because of the small population and poor economic base. When the Guarantee Act was passed in 1949, it made Ontario and Quebec railway securities safe and attractive ventures for foreign capital. At that time the railways were becoming essential, as inexpensive transportation was needed for settlers taking up land claims in the remote, unsettled areas of Canada West and the north. Modes of transport by horse, boat, sleigh and carriage, often in severe winter conditions, were becoming increasingly difficult over long journeys. Debates raged over selecting the correct gauge and securing the lines away from American threats in the event of hostilities arising again. Delegations from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick wanted to link the Maritimes with the Canadas by rail, but routes along the St Lawrence were considered too vulnerable to American takeover. In the end, arguments for building the line parallel with the St Lawrence won out. A fortuitous meeting between Francis Hincks, the Canadian inspector general, andWilliam Jackson of the railway engineering firm of Peto, Brassey and Betts in England, resulted in an agreement that would finance the first united Canadian railway. In return for the construction contract, Jackson promised to float any stock issued by the new railway in England and to build British North America a first-class, privately owned English railway. The Grand Trunk Railway remains as one of Canada’s most important, despite its many failings, as it linked all of pre-confederation Canada and became the backbone of Canadian National Railways. Several railway companies followed the formation of the GTR, most notably the Canadian Pacific Railway which built the rail line west across the prairies from West Fort William to the coast at Vancouver. The great building campaigns of the Canadian railway companies produced a vast estate of railway stations and associated buildings, bridges and tunnels in four major phases. Building campaigns coincided Barry’s Bay, OttawaValley, a redundant Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway station painted in the classic railway yellow ochre and oxblood colours.The land for the station was offered for free by the local lumber baron, who asked for compensation after most of his water was used for the steam engines of the OAP (Photo: Ron Brown-OHF Collection).
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