[nfitz]

Air Canada ending service to North Bay effective 30 Jan 2026.

I wonder how much of this is the impact of the much improved road travel times since the expressway was opened. I wonder how the modal split has shifted in the last 30 years for North Bay to Toronto.

I don't think this bodes particularly well the Ontario Northland service. The Liberals killed the train to North Bay largely because ridership was so poor.

But now the government thinks that there's enough demand for rail, but not for planes?

Still, I have little desire to drive to North Bay on business - which indeed might drive me to the train - but I feel I'm the exception. Also, no need to go to North Bay - only through it; and there's still flights to points to further north.

 

[micheal_can]

I wonder how much of this is the impact of the much improved road travel times since the expressway was opened. I wonder how the modal split has shifted in the last 30 years for North Bay to Toronto.

I don't think this bodes particularly well the Ontario Northland service. The Liberals killed the train to North Bay largely because ridership was so poor.

But now the government thinks that there's enough demand for rail, but not for planes?

Still, I have little desire to drive to North Bay on business - which indeed might drive me to the train - but I feel I'm the exception. Also, no need to go to North Bay - only through it; and there's still flights to points to further north.

Part of the reason people didn't use the train is due to the schedule. The new schedule takes into the consideration of what is good for northerners. Time will tell if it is a success.

Maybe it is time that an airport in Northern ON, like Sudbury becomes a hub that all other major airports Northern ON fly to.

 

[lenaitch]

A 2002 track map shows the first section of the bypass north/west of the switch at MP 226.8 Newmarket Sub as CN but the more northerly end as ONR. I imagine CN may have conveyed that east end over to Old Callander Road (MP 226.44) to ONR - the first step in an abandonment is to offer track to another operating railway, so this transaction might have happened without any public notice.



The history on this relates to the move of the ONR station from the old location on the Alderdale Sub to the new station on the ONR, and the removal of signalling from the old CN-ON diamond, .

From a 1978 Employee Timetable:



No mention of the connecting track at all.

The 1963 ONR timetable cited below notes that trains were routed from the old CNR station along the south side of the ONR yard to a junction with the ONR at Staffend, which was roughly where the ONR Yard Office sits. A dual control switch at Stafend allowed passenger trains to leave and enter the ONR Temagami Sub. The other connecting track you noted was not part of the normal operating move for passenger trains. My own recollection dates to 1984 and that was still the operating pattern at that time.

By 1993, an old timetable tells me that the Alderdale Sub had been made a part of the Newmarket Sub with the connecting switch gaining a Station Name sign (Dykstra), and the connecting track identified as the default route, with switches lined for the connecting track. Operation on the old Alderdale line west of Dykstra was prohibited, but track was not yet torn up.

Whew. Thanks for sending me down the rabbit hole on a Sunday morning ;-)

Some interesting online source material

https://www.traingeek.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/1963-0428-Ontario-Northland-ETT-35-North-Bay-Division.pdf

https://www.traingeek.ca/files/19530628-northern-ontario-ett-6.pdf

https://cnrha.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/20050101-Great-Lakes-Timetable-59-Newmarket-Subdivision.pdf

- Paul

Sorry.

This is the 1965 map I referenced (if you place your cursor over any spot it will magnify it):

North Bay, Ontario. 1:25,000. Map Sheet 031L06D, ed. 1, 1965

This website is about the Ontario Council of University Libraries historical topographic maps digitization project.

ocul.on.ca

You learn something everyday - I learned from the map that Airport Rd. from Hwy 11 to the Airport/CFB used to be Hwy 123.

I wonder how much of this is the impact of the much improved road travel times since the expressway was opened. I wonder how the modal split has shifted in the last 30 years for North Bay to Toronto.

I don't think this bodes particularly well the Ontario Northland service. The Liberals killed the train to North Bay largely because ridership was so poor.

But now the government thinks that there's enough demand for rail, but not for planes?

Still, I have little desire to drive to North Bay on business - which indeed might drive me to the train - but I feel I'm the exception. Also, no need to go to North Bay - only through it; and there's still flights to points to further north.

I don't know. Passenger data would be instructive. Before moving up to North Bay, we had been coming up from the Penetang area for around 20 years. I found the improvement in our travel time was about half an hour over the former two-lane stretches that existed north of Huntsville.

Anecdotally, the most popular AC flights when there were three per day were the early morning and late night flights, with the mid-day being the least. After Covid, they returned with the single mid-day flight (when it wasn't cancelled outright). Returning service to North Bay (and other cities) was a condition of federal post-Covid funding. A suspicious person might conclude that it was intended to fail.

The proposed train schedule will have it arriving at Union at 1055 which will limit its value for making morning or evening connecting flights. There is a shuttle service but the times are about the same. They are adding a flight to Sudbury (Google says 1 1/2 hours but I think it's being generous) which is inconvenient, but at least not driving to Toronto.