May close stations on C.N.R. branch lines

On Friday, Oct. 16th, a couple of keen looking observers arrived in Alliston by the morning C.N.R. train going north and while the train was doing its yard work among the freight cars, these strangers took a look over the business section of Alliston and proceeded on their way north again when the train pulled out. They are said to have left the train and train a survey of all the villages up the line.

With the decision to employ but one man at each depot and the reduction of the staff here, the officials have taken another step in their endeavors to reduce the deficit which is known to be piling up every day the road operates. This was disclosed some two years ago when municipalities along the line protested against the reduction of the train service and the figures were produced for the inspection of those making overtures towards a continuance of the two trains a day schedule. Since that time railway officials have not hesitated to state that the situation on this branch is growing steadily worse.

Abandonment of the daily service and the substitution of a service to take care of the stock shipments once a week has been more than once mooted. The inconvenience of this would be not to the travelling public or the customers of the C.N.R. freight service, but to the whole population of most of the places touched by the road through the loss of their mail service, on which the people can now depend almost to the minute, in the summer season at any rate. Inquiry has been made as to the cost of forwarding the mails to Everett, Mansfield, Lisle and Glencairn from Alliston, and to a number of other points from New Lowell, Stayner and Collingwood, and the post office department no doubt knows what this service would cost in case the mail service were cut off the Beeton and Collingwood branch of the C.N.R.

There is another rumor current concerning a further economy which the railway people have in mind. This is to close a number of the stations along the line and among the ones mentioned are Everett, Glencairn, Airlie, Glen Huron and Duntroon. The argument is that with cars and trucks and roads in good condition eleven months of the year the people who have been using the depots it is proposed to close could without much inconvenience use the ones the management proposed to maintain. In the event of the depots at the points named being closed there would be no interruption in the mail service, as the dispatch of mails is a matter within which local agents have no duties. Tickets to passengers entraining at points where agents are not located could be purchased on the trains as at present.

That oft recurrent rumor of the desire of the C.P.R. to enter Collingwood is again heard. Some twenty years ago the C.P.R. made a survey from a point known in war time as Ypres into Collingwood and when this road went into Camp Borden it used part of that survey. In recent years, especially since the terminal elevator was built in Collingwood, there have been conjectures of that railway's intention to enter Collingwood. Here at Alliston there is a survey for a connecting link between the two lines and once the C.P.R. decided to take over the C.N.R. branch line and made the acquisition its trains could be operating in the course of two days. In C.P.R. circles it is believed the ultimate fate of the Beeton and Collingwood branch of the C.N.R.—Herald.

Railways: C.N.Rys., C.P.Ry.

Stations: Alliston, Alliston (CPR), Beeton, Collingwood, Duntroon, Glen Huron, Glencairn, Lisle, New Lowell, Stayner, Ypres (CPR)

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