EPISODE 93 ALGOMA CENTRAL…RAILWAY TO NOWHERE
“GOT THE DISAPPEARING RAILROAD BLUES” (Guthrie)
alan skeoch
August 2020
Early in the summer of 1964 I was offered a job deep in a forgotten part of Ontario.
The only way in and out was on the ACR…the Algoma Central Railway. A railway
that goes nowhere really.
The ACR runs from Sault St. Marie northward to Hearst where it connects with the
CPR transcontinental. It is a railway of broken dreams. The first builder only managed
to construct 58 miles of rail before going bankrupt. Others completed the full 297 miles
but no one ever made money. Today the ACR is a ghost line only going as far
as the mysterious Agawa canyon as a tourist adventure.
There are people living along the line. Not many. Maybe fewer and fewer. The ACR
is a rail line that links fishing camps. Today, August 11, 2020, I am not sure if the
ACR even reaches these lonely human outposts. The current owner, CNR, has
threatened to shut the whole line down unless the federal government pitches in
and bankrolls the line.
In 1964, my destination was Mile 71 on the ACR. A fishing camp from which we were
launching a mining exploration venture. “Paradise Lodge”
The mist unusual characteristic of the ACR was its public service to people like us…prospectors…
and others who hoped to catch a few fish. There was no scheduled series of stops.
In 1964, If we wanted a ride on the ACR, we stood in the middle of the track and waved
a white flag or red flag or old set of handlebar underwear or big bug net. The huge train would stop.
There is nothing lonelier that the sound of the ACR in a wilderness where the only answer is a wolf howl.
Might I suggest you listen to Willie NeLson singing Arlo Guthrie’s THE CITY OF NEW OLREANS
…”the disappearing railroad blues”
Arlo Guthrie – The City Of New Orleans Lyrics
from album: Hobo’s Lullaby (1972)
alan skeoch
PS Our next stories are framed by the ACR…that was 1964 when the line was privately
owned for a few years. In 1965 it was sold and its survival was a question. A slow and sad decline ensued.