Tag Archives: News

Searchmont Station Sold to Preservation Group

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More news today out of Algoma country.

A group calling itself the Searchmont Station Preservation & Historical Society has announced this afternoon that they’ve reached an agreement with CN to purchase the former ACR station at Searchmont. Their hope is to rebuilt and restore the structure, although one of CN’s conditions is apparently that the structure be moved away from the tracks, so it won’t be in its original context, but the plan is to keep it the town of Searchmont.

Here’s a link to some additional information on the group’s blog on their website:

http://www.searchmontstation.com/1/post/2014/04/april-14-2014.html

Searchmont station was built in 1902, and is one of the oldest surviving structures on the ACR line. Originally, it was a much larger structure than today, with a larger express/freight section on the north side, and a smoking room in a round extension on the south end. Eventually both of the extensions were removed (the smoking room was damaged by fire early in the station’s history) and certainly by the 1940s the station looked much as it does today.

Here’s how Searchmont station looked in the summer of 2013, although heavy snow this winter has since brought down the overhanging roof over the platform:

IMG_5866

The station closed around 1994, and has been abandoned and neglected for 20 years. At some point, about 5-6 years ago, the interior was heavily vandalized and with several broken windows the interior has been largely exposed to the elements for the last decade, so the structure is in rather rough shape, so it will be quite a project to restore. Apparently the preservation society also hopes to rebuilt the original extensions, so this will be quite the renovation project.

ACR Passenger Service Operating Subsidy Extended to March 2015

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At a press conference in Sault Ste. Marie this morning, the federal Minister of Transport Lisa Raitt announced a one-year extension of the operating subsidy to CN for the Algoma Central regular passenger service, to the end of March 2015.

While there’s no guarantee that service will be extended beyond that, this at least provides local municipalities, tourism groups, camp operators and other interested parties time to investigate and evaluate options for this service, instead of receiving the sudden news that service will simply end within a few months, as happened when the (original) news of the cancellation at the end of March 2014 broke in early January (later extended to end of April 2014).

This is a promising step, but expect that the federal government will still want to try to offload this subsidy at the end of the extension period, so we’ll probably still see a lot of lobbying from local groups over the next year trying to save this train. So far the local political pressure seems to have been successful in procuring the extension, so we’ll continue to follow this with interest.

Transport Canada to make ACR Announcement on Monday

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Late Friday afternoon information was released that the federal Minister of Transport, Lisa Raitt, will be in Sault Ste. Marie on Monday morning to make an announcement related to the Algoma Central Railway service. A press conference is scheduled for 11:30 AM at the Sault Ste. Marie Civic Centre.

Expect a change to the current situation, although at this point what is going to be announced is still speculation. Most of the groups lobbying against the ACR passenger service cancellation have been pushing for at least a one-year extension while the economic impact and value of the service can be properly and publicly evaluated, instead of the way the subsidy was pulled suddenly with very short notice.

It would be unlikely for the federal Minister to make such a journey to simply announce that the cancellation will go ahead as planned on April 29, so it looks like some sort of extension may be in the cards here, but the details will have to wait until Monday.

Here’s an excerpt from a press release on Friday:

Transport Canada to make ACR announcement Monday

The Honourable Lisa Raitt, Minister of Transport, will be in Sault Ste. Marie on Monday to make an announcement regarding Algoma Central Railway passenger service.

Stakeholders and other interested parties are invited to attend the announcement, which is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. outside City Council Chambers on the third level of the Civic Centre.

ACR Regular Passenger Service to End This Spring

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Disappointing news out of Sault Ste. Marie this week for Algoma County. Apparently subsidies for the regular passenger service between Sault Ste. Marie and Hearst has been suddenly cut by the federal government, and as a result CN has announced that the passenger service to Hearst will be cancelled on March 31, 2014.

See news article here:

http://www.sootoday.com/content/news/details.asp?c=67653

Turns out it was a really good thing I was able to make my trip up to ride the train in October on short notice. Otherwise I may have missed my chance to ride it in good weather.

Cancellation of this service will have a negative effect on tourism and the many camps and cabin owners along the line, which are only accessible by the railway, with no other forms of access. Expect to see some heavy lobbying from local tourist outfitters, private camp/cabin owners and especially any larger resort/adventure camps along the line that would lose their entire livelihood by becoming inaccessible. However even if the communities rally around this service, the prospects don’t seem encouraging.

So, if you were ever planning on riding the Tour of the Line to Hearst, and haven’t yet had the chance, you’ve got about two months to book your trip before the chance might be lost forever.

Update: On Friday, February 14 CN announced a four week extension to April 29.