Last week, the Ontario government announced the completion of the North Bay Rail Bypass, a 982 metre track that will bypass the North Bay Rail Yard.
The bypass is aimed at improving safety, operational efficiency, and saving travellers time.
“People and businesses across the north have long awaited the return of the Northlander and that is why we are delivering on our promise to restore this vital transportation network that will propel northern economic growth,” said Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria last week.
“The completion of the North Bay Rail Bypass marks an important milestone in our government’s revitalization and restoration of the Northlander, and delivers on a promise to connect Nipissing families, workers, and industries with economic opportunities across the province” said Vic Fedeli, MPP for Nipissing. “We look forward to seeing the Northlander back in action, delivering the efficient, convenient, and affordable transportation that northern Ontario residents deserve.”
“Passenger rail is great! Many in Muskoka are looking forward to the return of the Northlander. I think it will have a great benefit both in terms of residents’ travel to TO and for tourism,” stated District of Muskoka Chair Jeff Lehman.
The Northlander will connect Toronto to Timmins with 16 planned stops along the way and a rail connection to Cochrane. In Cochrane, passengers will also be able to connect to the Polar Bear Express to Moosonee.
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Progress on bringing back the Ontario Northlander continues
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Do we have an approximate date when the service will start taking passenger’s?
Passenger train to Sault Ste Marie is a great help for tourism, family get-together and commuting. Hope Minister will look into this matter.
My Aunt worked as a telegraphist in Cobalt. She was at her post during the great fire. It’s been my lifelong ambition to ride the Northlander to celebrate her years of service.
I’ll be 93 this year and it looks like I will make my dream a reality. JC
I think they should bring passenger rail back to Thunder Bay, now that Grey Hound doesn’t go there any more. Nice way to travel.
I am certainly relieved to see some progress on this project, but less than a kilometre of track completed over several years is painfully slow and hardly impressive. In contrast, between 2021 and 2024, China built 10,000 km of dedicated high-speed rail lines for their new 400 km/h trains.
While Europe and Asia enjoy frequent, punctual, modern, and fast trains connecting both cities and towns today, we can look forward to hours of delays in makeshift shelters — stand-ins for neglected stations — as cargo trains with priority force passenger trains onto sidings and aging tracks slow journeys further.
We deserve a rail system that is properly funded to succeed, puts passengers first, meets world-class standards, and is completed much faster. Perhaps it would be wise for Doug Ford to seek assistance from the federal government during this time of investment in projects of national importance?
Look forward to the completion date! Having worked that train frequently from 1991-2010 as a brakeman, conductor AND engineer, it was always an exciting place to experience train travel. Now retired, the passenger experience is around the corner and happy to participate!
Attaboy Doug and gang. Another promise kept .Maybe some of those whiney serial speeders will take the train to avoid justice from those great speed reducing cameras !
When pasting, my paragraph spacing disappeared. Trying again here:
“efficient, convenient, and affordable”
“I think it will have a great benefit both in terms of residents’ travel to TO and for tourism,”
I hope the schedule will be convenient: get to the city in time to do business or make a travel connection. The draft timetable doesn’t accomplish this. It doesn’t run every day, and arrives too late.
Will it be efficient: running consistently on time? VIA Rail, running on another company’s (with separate priorities) tracks, is not a model for reliability. Is this the same situation?
Will it be affordable? The private automobile is the competition. What total price for a family to ride to the city?
Will it suit tourists? When one arrives in Huntsville, for example, with no public washroom or transit connection it might leave them feeling unwelcome.
It will be essential to make this a desirable transit service, so people think of it instead of the automobile, or you can have all the new train cars and wi-fi in the world and it will fail.
I hope it works. I will certainly try to use it, as I do now with what little public transit to the city we have. It ain’t easy and loses easily to the private auto competition.
Some very good and helpful news on the transit front: as of today Barrie has consolidated transit connections at the Allandale Terminal. For example Ontario Northland now stops at the GO train. Hurray!