Designs on Peterborough

Fierce competition between the Lake Ontario port towns of Port Hope and neighbouring Cobourg drove development of transport through the area during the middle of the 19th century. The competition had started with the 1834 announcements of plans to run a railway from Cobourg to Peterborough, at that time a rapidly developing industrial town. The initial plans for the Cobourg and Peterborough Railway went nowhere due to a lack of funds, especially after the Panic of 1837.

The formation of the federal government and its ministry for development led to both Port Hope and Cobourg competing for funds to develop a line to Peterborough. The Cobourg line was designed to run across Rice Lake, and was therefore more risky than the Port Hope line that ran around the western end of the Lake. The Port Hope proposal was accepted, and The Peterborough and Port Hope Railway Company (P&PH) was officially chartered on 16 December 1846.

Cobourg responded by rapidly building a plank road near their original railway route, which was completed by the end of the year. Meanwhile, the Port Hope plans received no further funding, and eventually went moribund. Cobourg's plank road proved impassible in spring and fall, and by 1850 had fallen into disrepair. Plans for a railway from Cobourg once again surfaced, this time more successfully. Construction on the line started in 1853, and the new Cobourg and Peterborough Railway (C&P) reached Peterborough at the end of 1854.

Lindsay and Beaverton

With the route to Peterborough now being served by Cobourg, and their original plans having seen no development for six years, business interests in Port Hope looked further north for potential markets. They eventually selected the town of Lindsay due to its connection to the recently announced Trent-Severn Waterway, with a further expansion to the shores of Lake Simcoe.

The new railway received its charter on 18 December 1854 as The Port Hope, Lindsay and Beaverton Railway Company (PHL&B). Construction reached Lindsay in late 1857. By that time the Cobourg and Peterborough had proven to be unreliable due to its constantly failing bridge, and the Lindsay and Beaverton opened their Millbrook Branch to Peterborough in 1858. This was a serious threat to the C&P, who ousted their operator, D'Arcy Boulton Jr.

Boulton soon took out the operations lease on the Millbrook Branch along with two partners, Henry Covert and John Fowler. The next year the three presented a plan to lease operations of the C&P as well. As soon as this was completed, the new operators laid off the men working to finally fix the C&P bridge over Rice Lake, and later sabotaged it so that it eventually fell into the lake around 1861. The PHL&B now had exclusive access to Peterborough, which they retained for some time.

Further expansions were slow in coming. The line did not reach its planned terminus in Beaverton until 1 January 1871, and that same year the Millbrook Branch pushed north out of Peterborough to Lakefield, giving it access to the middle-area of the Trent waterway on Katchewanooka Lake. The competing Cobourg line started the similar Peterborough and Chemong Lake Railway in 1857, but this was not completed until 1891.

The Railway started the 1870s in good financial condition. In 1870 its receipts were $242,157 against expenses of $113,227, an Operating Ratio of 47%. By this time the company had plans for a much more ambitious expansion.

Midland Railway

On 24 December 1869 the company was re-chartered as The Midland Railway of Canada (MR) with plans to drive around Lake Simcoe and the head towards Midland to provide access to Georgian Bay. In 1872 Frank Shanly was awarded the contract for the new fifty-three mile section. There were unforeseen difficulties with the ground and a rapid increase in labour costs, which ruined Shanly. The Midland was financially strapped, could not afford to pay Shanly for the extras, and seized the contract back in February 1873.

At the same time the recession hit freight receipts which fell by 30% between 1872 and 1874. The first Midland Railway manager D’Arcy E. Boulton of Cobourg, Ontario was replaced by Adolf Hugel of Pittsburgh. Hugel invested money in steel rails and struggled to cut costs. In recognition of his efforts to improve the line, the British bondholders agreed in 1874 to lower the rate on their investments, and not to cash the interest coupons. The line eventually reached Orillia in 1873, Waubaushene in 1875 and Midland in 1879.

Net earnings and the ability to pay interest on the fixed debt declined sharply after 1875, the Midland was insolvent and the ownership of the line essentially passed to the bondholders. The Chairman of their Committee was Sir Henry Tyler of the Grand Trunk Railway and most of the other members were GTR nominees. George Albertus Cox, a prosperous insurance agent for Canada Life and several times Mayor of Peterborough, took over as President of the MR in August 1878.