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
- Paul
