The Ontario and Quebec Railway (O&Q) was a railway located in southern and eastern

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, Canada. It was initially chartered in March 1881 by managers of the Canadian Pacific Railway to run between

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

and

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...

, where it would connect, via a short branch line, to the CPR-controlled

Brockville and Ottawa Railway The Brockville and Ottawa Railway (B&O) was an early railway in Upper Canada, today's Ontario. It ran north from the town of Brockville on the Saint Lawrence River to Sand Point on the Ottawa River. It was built primarily to serve the timber tr ...

. Construction began in 1882, and the line was completed in August 1884. Starting in 1883, CPR began using the O&Q to build a network in southern Ontario to compete with the

Grand Trunk Railway The Grand Trunk Railway (; french: Grand Tronc) was a railway system that operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and in the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The rail ...

. The O&Q leased the

Credit Valley Railway The Credit Valley Railway was a railway located in Ontario, Canada from Toronto to St. Thomas. Chartered in 1871 by Ontario railway magnate George Laidlaw, it operated as an independent company until 1883 when it was leased by the Ontario and Que ...

, Toronto Grey & Bruce, London Junction Railway and some sections of the

Canada Southern Railway The Canada Southern Railway , also known as CSR, was a railway in southwestern Ontario, Canada, founded on February 28, 1868 as the Erie and Niagara Extension Railway. Its name was changed to Canada Southern Railway on December 24, 1869. The 1868 ...

, building an extensive portfolio of routes. In August 1888 they provided a direct through route to

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

by leasing the

Atlantic and North-west Railway The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe and ...

and connecting it to the O&Q via an extension from Smiths Falls to the Quebec border. A final major extension was the West Ontario Pacific Railway (WORP), which connected the Credit Valley in

Woodstock Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock. Billed as "an Aq ...

Windsor Windsor may refer to: Places Australia * Windsor, New South Wales ** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area * Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland **Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...

and the US border. The WOPR opened in 1887, and was immediately leased to the O&Q. The western end of the O&Q currently forms the CPR mainline from Detroit and Windsor to Toronto, running through North Toronto and into the

CPR Toronto Yard CPR Toronto Yard is a facility located in northeast Toronto, Ontario, Canada, often incorrectly referred to as Agincourt Yard because it is located in Agincourt, a neighbourhood of Toronto. One of the largest marshalling yards in Canada (432 acr ...

in Agincourt. The route eastward remains in limited use through

Peterborough Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...

and on to Havelock where it serves several mines and quarries. However, most of the traffic between Toronto and Perth was redirected to a new CPR line running along the shoreline of

Lake Ontario Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border ...

, the Campbellford, Lake Ontario and Western Railway. This turns northeast at Kingston to meet the O&Q at Perth, where the original O&Q forms the rest of the CPR mainline to Montreal. The section from Glen Tay and Tweed was abandoned in 1971, and then from Tweed to Havelock in 1988. This section is now a portion of the

Trans Canada Trail The Trans Canada Trail, officially named The Great Trail between September 2016 and June 2021, is a cross- Canada system of greenways, waterways, and roadways that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic oceans. The trail exten ...

. The section from Toronto to Smiths Falls, now known as the Havelock Subdivision, has seen interest by

VIA Rail Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via, is a Canadian Crown corporation that is mandated to operate intercity passenger rail service in Canada. It receives an annual subsidy from Transport Canada to offset the cost of operating ...

for passenger service as their High Frequency Rail Project. The section from Perth to Quebec operates as the Winchester Subdivision, from Woodstock to London as the Galt Subdivision, and from London to Windsor as the Windsor Subdivision. The North Toronto Station, the main O&Q passenger station in Toronto, is now use as a flagship

LCBO The Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) is a Crown corporation that retails and distributes alcoholic beverages throughout the Canadian province of Ontario. It is accountable to the Legislative Assembly through the minister of finance. It wa ...

History

The railway had received a charter in 1881, authorizing it to building a railway line between

and

. It was effectively controlled by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), as 95% of the shares issued were held by persons connected with the CPR. Through the O&Q, the CPR created its railway network in southern and eastern Ontario: #it amalgamated with the

, which had also acquired a 999-year lease to a railway line from London Junction Railway. #CP sold to O&Q its line from Perth to Smiths Falls #O&Q leased from Toronto Grey & Bruce Railway for a term of 999 years its rail line running from Toronto northwest to Owen Sound and other points #O&Q purchased from

a part of its railway system in

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

thereby providing a connection to the province's railways #O&Q received authorization to amalgamate with the CVR, TG&B, A&NW or

, or acquire or lease any of their lines, in order to provide a through service between Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal #Parliament approved a preliminary agreement between the CPR and CVR, O&Q and A&NW to provide for the leasing of lines in order to provide for a through route between Montreal and St Thomas.

Lease of operations to CPR

The CPR formalized its association with the O&Q by obtaining a 999-year

lease A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

on it in 1884, expiring in 2883. By 1890, this lease gave the CPR an extensive network in Ontario and

, with lines reaching between

Quebec City Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the metropolitan area had a population of 839,311. It is t ...

and

Windsor, Ontario Windsor is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, on the south bank of the Detroit River directly across from Detroit, Michigan, United States. Geographically located within but administratively independent of Essex County, it is the southe ...

, as well as a line running from near Ottawa to a connection with the CPR at

Mattawa, Ontario Mattawa is a town in northeastern Ontario, Canada on Algonquin Nation land at the confluence of the Mattawa and Ottawa Rivers in Nipissing District. Mattawa means "Meeting of the Waters" in the Algonquin language. The first Europeans to pass thr ...

. The CPR never owned all of O&Q, a fact that caused legal problems when it attempted to sell off some O&Q

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

in Toronto that had become quite lucrative. However, the CPR won the court battle, which went to the Supreme Court of Canada. While O&Q and the TG&B had always been operated as part of the CPR network, they were finally amalgamated to form the St. Lawrence and Hudson Railway in 1998, as a consequence of a corporate reorganization undertaken by CP.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ontario Quebec Railway Canadian Pacific Railway subsidiaries Defunct Ontario railways Defunct Quebec railways Standard gauge railways in Canada