"Push - Pull - Jerk" Trains Finally End Pontiac Run, Published 11 August 1959 Sing a Swan Song for the “Push Pull and Jerk”
‘Perhaps it would be more polite to announce that the Board of Transport Commissioners has given the Canadian Pacific Railway permission to abandon passenger service between Ottawa and Waltham, the Pontiac and Pacific Junction Line. ‘Trains have been operating on this line up
the Pontiac for almost 70 years. In a judgement handed down Monday and
signed by Rod Kerr, Chief Commissioner, the board agreed that the line was not
paying, and if the railroad chose, it might abandon passenger service after 30
day’s notice. Such notice is expected from the CPR within the next few
weeks.
‘Said the commission, in part: “The
dispelling of any doubt in the minds of the residents of the area as to the
future of the passenger service, the interests of the public generally and also
the interests of the railway company, requires a determination without further
delay. We are also mindful of the interests of the school children, some of whom
would depend upon the train service to attend school beginning again in about
one month’s time.
‘“ Weighing among other considerations the
patronage that has been given to the passenger service, our opinion is that the
economies that would result to the railway company by the discontinuance of the
service outweigh the convenience that would remain with the public by the
continuance of the service.”
‘The Board of Transport Commissioners has advised
that the discontinuance of the service “shall not take effect before 30 days’
notice of the discontinuance is given by the Canadian Pacific Railway.
‘Thus, an historic link is about to be
snapped. Easily, the most picturesque of all the lines out of Ottawa, the
old Pontiac and Pacific Junction Railway, soon metamorphosed on popular tongue
to the Push, Pull and Jerk.
‘The P. P. and J. remained, in name, long after it
got respectability by being purchased by the CPR. To begin with,it
started off, lobster-wise, by going its first mile backwards. The train
and its cars backed a mile or more over to Hull before it could straighten out
and head for the Pontiac.
‘The Push, Pull and Jerk was all of that, as it
wobbled to Aylmer, fought its way through to Quyon, then then hit those good
towns of “The Pontiac”, like Shawville, Campbell’s Bay and Fort Coulonge.
Then it panted its way through, finally, to the quaintly picturesque village of
Waltham, 79.8 miles from Ottawa Union Station.
‘Somewhere, after the CPR abandoned the old Broad
Street station, now only a memory down on The Flats, “The Pontiac” lost two of
its four trains, and operated as one train each way, daily except Sunday.
‘In its day, it carried shanty-men and servant
girls to town; it took back commercial travellers and farmers.
‘School kids clergymen and summer resorters, the old
Pontiac was all things to all people. Everything came slowly to the this
train. Closed vestibule coaches came late in the day; wooden coaches
lingered. Electric lights were a recent innovation. The Pontiac
never saw a parlor car; nobody can remember a dining car running up Shawville
way.
‘Now, the CPR is ready for the requiem and the
burial. Seventy year’s passenger railroading are expected to end next
month.
‘Express will be served on the way freight three
times a week, with highway trucks, being employed two other days. |