The ONR, Northern Ontario and Father's Day

Next weekend brings the true start of summer for me. I'll pick up my Uncle and head north to Temagami then by float plane to a remote lake for several days of fishing.

Northern (actually "near Northern") Ontario is a favourite place in the summer. I like the two-lane roads, the endless procession of trees/rocks/lakes you see along the way and the small towns that look modest but have an interesting history (Cobalt has a fascinating collection of buildings from its brief boom period in the 1930's).

There is also interest from the railroad side. At North Bay, the Ontario Northland Railway takes over from the CN line, taking the rail all the way up to Moosonee on James Bay with a few branch lines along the way to Rouyn, Hearst and the outskirts of Timmins. The ONR is a meat and potatoes railroad - paper, lumber, chemicals and metal products are its main commodities. No fancy intermodal trains or hyper-efficient unit trains for the ONR. They even run a mixed freight/passenger train to Moosonee with piggyback cars.

When we were kids, my Dad took us up to Cochrane and Nakina. That's what I call the "North". Nakina is about 24 hours north of Toronto and is where the road ends. Cochrane is slightly closer, but the same in terms of the road ending.

I've been through Nakina on the Canadian a few times:

2016

From a labour law nerd perspective, Nakina is interesting because of a court case/Royal Commission that came into play when CN ended its status as a Division Point (i.e. where train crews sign in and out of work) in the late '50s. The above photo was taken on my way to a labour law conference in Winnipeg.

I had a labour law brush with the ONR in 2001-2 as a junior lawyer. They were a client of my firm and I did document review/research related to a potential sale of the railroad (which never happened due to onerous labour contracts).

Cochrane is home of the Polar Bear Express running to Moosonee.

We went there in 1985(?) and rode the train:

And my Dad got us a visit to the engine cab (an FP7):

Really, really glad to have these photos and they seem especially appropriate to post today on Father's Day.

Because of all the time we spent in Northern Ontario growing up, the ONR is my second/third favourite railroad (Keeping in mind I work for a European railroad, the ONR probably gets bumped down to #3).

I took a northern Ontario drive in 2017 to check out the ONR.

Stopping in Temagami to catch Train 214 from Englehart to NB (sadly my video of the train is too large to upload):

And admire the station:

Before heading up to Englehart to check out the yard and display steam engine:

SD70

Pacific with "Elephant Ears"

Looping back to the start of this post, I come to 2015 for a favourite photo (albeit not of the best quality).

2015 was our first fly-in fishing trip out of Temagami. Our means of transport was a De Havilland Dash-2 (?) built in 1956 and still flying today (I'll see it next Saturday).