Next Stop, Bracebridge: Constructive council spurs train revival

Muskoka town gets back on track

Politicians take up hammers, nails to rebuild station.

Ontario Northland restoring service after long absence.

Roberta Avery
Special to the Star

Bracebridge—This Muskoka town is back on the Ontario passenger train map after a decades-long absence, thanks to the construction efforts of its mayor and eight councillors, none of whom is a professional builder or renovator.

When they heard that Ontario Northland would resume daily passenger service if the local train station — demolished in 1972 — was rebuilt, they don't commission a new project. They strapped on their carpenters' aprons and went to work.

"Getting the train to stop again was really important for our community," Mayor Scott Northmore said yesterday as council members hung drywall, poured concrete and hammered nails in an urgent push to get the station finished by Monday, when the first train from Toronto is scheduled to stop.

Councillor Barry Young said they decided to build the 3.5-metre by 5-metre, one-storey structure themselves after receiving quotes of up to $800,000 for the job.

"That was outrageous," said Young, whoe estimates the final cost of the station will be about $26,000, thanks to some generous donations of materials.

Despite the builders' relative inexperience — one is a former resort manager and another owned a car dealership — most of the construction has gone according to plan, with only the roof a bit steeper than anticipated, said Young.

"When I was standing up there, I felt so close to God that I was hoping He was holding my hand."

The long-term plan calls for the station to be a temporary structure until a replica of the original built in 1885, which will include the Muskoka Rails Museum, is completed. A committee is hoping to raise $650,000 for that project.

In the meantime, Gord Ryan, director of passenger rail services for Ontario Northland, siad all that was required for the train to stop was a clean shelter that provides heat and light.

He said the added stop won't delay the existing passenger schedule much because the train already had to slow down going through the town of 14,000.

Once a thriving focal point of Bracebridge, with several trains a day bringing tourists to the Muskoka lodges, the train station eventually fell into disrepair and was boarded over in 1971. Passengers were then forced to wait across the road at the Albion Hotel.

Daily passenger service became less and less frequent, and by the end of the 1970s had all but disappeared, although it didn't officially end until 1990.

The Albion Hotel is a strip club and it's believed that VIA Rail, which used to operate the line, objected to the waiting area, said Cheryl Kelley, the town's director of economic development.

"It's not the most appropriate place to wait for a train," said Ryan.

For Deputy Mayor Al Taylor, who remembers riding the train to his grandparents' Bracebridge home from Niagara Falls as a boy more than half a century ago, it has been frustrating watching the train pass through on its way to North Bay without stopping.

"It was always so exciting to come on the train, so we're hoping to see families do that again," said Taylor, who remembers rich and glamorous passengers arriving at the station with piles of luggage, which would be loaded on to buses sent by the big Muskola lodges.

"It was quite a thing to see," said Taylor, 62, as he carried in a large sheet of drywall for the station ceiling.

It's hoped that cottage owners from Toronto will take the train, which leaves Union Station at 6:25 p.m. and arrives in Bracebridge at 8:50 p.m., to avoid the traffic on Highway 400 and Highway 11, said Kelley, who estimates the fare to be about $37 each way.

Southbound trains will leaves Bracebridge at 1:45 p.m. and arrive in Toronto at 4:20 p.m.

Councillor Patti Thompson is hoping the resorts and hotels will start sending trolleys again to pick up arriving customers.

"If we all work together on this, it could be a great boon to the community," said Thompson.

[Toronto Daily Star, Saturday May 16, 1953, p. 2]