VIA Rail will probably not stop in Kaladar Ontario

Kaladar Station Road today. We think VIA Rail will not stop in Kaladar!

VIA Rail will probably not stop in Kaladar Ontario

It was good news in the budget that VIA Rail has been given the green light to buy much needed new equipment. You can learn all about it on their page.

The other part of  the VIA Rail renewal is their misguided High Frequency Rail idea. This billion dollar boondoggle has VIA trains, travelling at 1975 era speeds, through sparsely populated areas on an abandoned Ontario-Quebec Railway line. (Toronto - Tweed - Peterborough to Ottawa). The idea is ridiculous and the business case and proposed route would be a cruel joke if we could see them.

Sadly taxpayers who would fund it, cannot comment or see the proposal before the Liberal government approves it.

 We at High Speed Rail Canada love rail history so it has been fun finding all the old station stops and following the winding route the line used to follow. It is now part of the Canada trail system.

Ironically one of our articles was on the challenges of a station stop at Sharbot Lake .  VIA has  announced they will stop at Sharbot Lake! We continued doing history articles on other possible stops on the line.

Today we want to introduce you to another stop on the old line, Kaladar Ontario. Kaladar, like others on this abandoned rail line,  was once a booming community.

Kaladar Station 1925

Kaladar Railway Station 1925

When the Canadian Pacific Railway came to Kaladar in 1884 the community grew as their were jobs in lumber and loading cars. The post office opened up in Kaladar.

A 1892 schedule showed the once a day Toronto Express train leaving Toronto at 8:45am, arriving in Kaladar at 2:00pm and arriving in Montreal at 7:55pm.

Then in 1915 when the CPR decided to move their main line down to the lakeshore the demise of this rail community began.

Hopefully VIA Rail's HFR plan will not be approved but if it is when going through Kaladar you will probably be able to see the auto wreckers and this housing unit below.

Housing unit you can see as you travel through Kaladar by train.