Ontario Northland Railway
Ontario Northland Railway is the railway connecting North Bay, Ontario, on the Canadian Pacific Railway, through Cochrane, Ontario, with Moosonee, on the south shore of James Bay.
Construction of the railway began in 1904, under the name Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway. It became the Ontario Northland in 1946.
It was originally started to develop the Lake Timiskaming and Lake Nipissing areas, but it soon became a major factor in the economic growth of the province. After decades of hard construction through the Canadian Shield it reached James Bay in 1932. While blasting the route through the shield, geologists discovered vast deposits of valuable minerals such as gold, copper and nickel. Their further exploration and exploitation gave rise to the mining stock activities in the Toronto Stock Exchange and were instrumental in fueling the economic boom which made Toronto surpass Montreal in size and become the largest metropolis of Canada. The railway also made it possible to exploit the vast timber resources of northern Ontario, adding yet another industrial sector to the province, and feeding more riches directly into Toronto.
The railway is still operated today by the Ontario Northland Transport Commission, which also runs various other transport enterprises, including a bus coach services along the Toronto-North Bay-Timmins-Hearst and Toronto-Sudbury-Timmins corridors, and a telephone and telecommunications company. The commission is an agency of the Ontario government and is used to promote development in northern Ontario.
Ontario Northland is best known for the daily Polar Bear Express train which runs from Cochrane to Moosonee, bringing tourists as well as essential supplies to this remote northern town, which cannot be reached by road. The "Express" part of the name is something of a joke, because the train will happily stop along its route to pick up or drop off canoeing parties.