FREIGHT PAYS THE FREIGHT — UNLIKE UNVIABLE NORTHLANDER
LOIS COOPER | MuskokaTODAY.com
I am heartened by comments on the probability of the return of the Northlander from John Cooper (no relation): “Chances are somewhere between very slim, to none!”
He appears to have both feet on the ground.
With my 10 years experience running the Train Station in Gravenhurst from 1992-2002 (very successfully) here are some of my conclusions.
The passengers who did use the train were business class, had passes as part of their retirement packages or were travelling for medical treatment with the government picking up the tab.
Why? Because the fare was so expensive that regular citizens could not afford it.
And also as it was so time-consuming that those of us with busy lives could not afford the time.
The train was scheduled to take two hours to get to Union Station from Gravenhurst. It usually took 4 hours and sometimes much longer.
Why? Because freight trains have the right of way on the their train tracks over passenger trains.
Why? Because freight actually makes money — pays the freight so to speak.
I managed to make The Station financially sound because I had experience with bus and train ticket sales when I took it on and I was an experienced cook.
I ran the Heritage Lunchroom in the Station as well as the ticket agencies.
I had the good fortune to have some excellent staff.
To keep it viable at one point came to finding a way to get 25 cents more from most everyone entering the station. This came in the form of 25 cent mints at the cash register. (Think squiggly to survive.)
We worked 12-hour days and The Station was never closed one day during those 10 years. My family celebrated Christmas there closing for two hours mid-afternoon for a turkey dinner.
We scrubbed floors and toilets and anything that did not shine — either myself or my most trusted staff, Inge, most of the time.
It was a challenge in many ways and it took a lot of determination.
Orvil Hammond who had the ticket agency in Bracebridge for years told me: “You will love it and you will not believe the people you will meet. It is the people who make it so interesting.”
He was right the people were most interesting.
The disappointment came in the form of politicians.
I must thank one politician, former mayor John Klinck, for making a profitable, successful business untenable, which led to me taking on the management of MuskokaTODAY, reporting and editing for the next nine years. The greatest experience of my lifetime.
Back to the Northlander. It was a lost cause for years.
In 2001 it was given a reprieve after a march on Queen’s Park and public outcry. No politician had the grit to end it then.
Kudos to Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals, who put the loosing entity to bed.
Along comes Doug Ford promising the moon to a gullible electorate in order to gain power knowing full well the Northlander is a losing proposition.
The same Doug Ford who this year did not collect the $1billion owed to the taxpayers of Ontario by the owners of Hwy. 407.
Paul Webster wrote in the Star on Nov. 26, 2021: “The Ford government opted against pursuing approximately $1 billion in penalties from the owner of the 407 Express Toll Route when traffic levels fell below a contractual target during the pandemic. Internal documents obtained by the Star reveal months of negotiations between ministry officials and the private operator ended with the government not seeking compensation. Nor is there evidence that the government requested tolls be lowered to increase traffic volumes.”
If Ford was serious about running the Northlander again he could have used that billion dollars toward it.
It will take a billion and more considering the track upgrades, the negotiations with CN for the use of the track from North Bay to Toronto. Ontario Northland owns the tracks from North Bay to Cochrane.
People will not put bums in the seats as needed and I wrote that in a 2001 column in MuskokaToday.
The Ontario government quickly put tracks into Casino Rama the year it opened and ran GO Trains to the casino from Toronto. Not enough bums in the seats even on that route made the service very short-lived.
The Northlander will never be viable.
I liken it to longing for the days when the mail came in on the trains two or more times a day.
The publisher’s great grandfather ran lumber mills in Gravenhurst and in Huntsville. He and his wife wrote each other daily. Their daughters were at boarding school in Toronto. Their mother would write with instructions for the daughter to get the reply on a certain train back out of Toronto. Thus they got their replies either the same day or the next day. These letters survive in the museum in Huntsville.
The mail trains were miraculous in their day.
And that day has gone as surely as the day of train service from Muskoka to Toronto is gone for the foreseeable future.
Now buses … they can be viable. More on that next week.
December 5, 2021 @ 5:06 pm
Thanks Lois for your realistic view on returning to “the good old days” of rail travel. That bygone era is just a fanciful dream of the deluded public I’m afraid.