Canadian Railroads > Huron Central on the Brink Again

Parent Gennesee and Wyoming has announced the Huron Central will be shutfown by December of 2020.The Ontario Provincial government is attempting to provide a subsidy to keep the railroad operating.This has happened before and closure has been avoided.Carlodings have declined some 60% over the years and is presently around 16,000 per year..Shown below is the Sault Saint Marie switch job in front of the yard office.If shutdown because of circuitous rail routing it is estimated most of the traffic from the Sault would go by truck and the Domtar plant at Espanla would be all truck.My apologies if has been posted elsewhere on TO.Bill Webb

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That seems like a fairly healthy car count. How many miles is this railroad?

I can't imagine the Canadian government would allow this railroad to fold, although a lot of stuff has happened recently that I could not have imagined.

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The Huron Central is 173 miles of trackage and extends from Sudbury to Sault Ste Marie,Ontario with a spur to Espanola Domtar.Bill Webb

spider1319 Wrote:
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> The Huron Central is 173 miles of trackage and
> extends from Sudbury to Sault Ste Marie,Ontario
> with a spur to Espanola Domtar.Bill Webb

That's the problem with this RR.  173 miles and very little on line traffic.  A few summers ago I caught a train at McKerrow ready to go down the spur to Domtar at Espanola.  They had to separate the 6 axle unit from the 4 axle because no 6 axle units were permitted on the spur.  I asked the engineer who was nearing retirement age about the fate of the RR because G&W was threatening to close it back then.  He said it was just G&W trying to get more funding from the Provincial government.  I worried about his young female conductor though.  Two photos taken on 7/21/18 at (smokey) McKerrow, ON.

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