page_title: Port Whitby and Port Perry Railway
section_title: Route
hierarchical_section_title: Port Whitby and Port Perry Railway / Route
caption_attribution_description: English: This map of southern Ontario shows the route of the mainline and planned expansions of the Northern Railway of Canada. The mainline is in black and also indicates the main stations on the route. The original route ran from Toronto to Barrie at Allendale Junction and then turned west and northwest for Collingwood. The second branch, labelled "Muskoka Branch", was the "Toronto, Simcoe and Muskoka Junction Railway" expansion from 1869. At the end of the line in Collingwood, a white outline shows the route to Meaford, labelled "North Grey Branch" on this map, but officially known as the "North Grey Railway". Similar unlabelled light outlines at the end in Gravenhurst shows the planned northern expansion as the "Northern and Pacific Junction Railway", which ultimately ran to North Bay. The lines in red are the main focus of this particular map. Competing with the Hamilton &amp; North Western (H&amp;NW, thin black line just to the left of the red ones) led the Northern to propose several new routes to open up other markets in Simcoe County. The "North Simcoe Railway" would split off just north of Allendale and connect to the port town of Penatanguishene. The "South Simcoe Junction Railway", labelled "South Extension of North Simcoe", would compete with the H&amp;NW through southern Simcoe County. Ultimately the H&amp;NW won the contest and funds were raised by Simcoe to help pay for its construction. The Northern abandoned the South Simcoe section and moved the terminus of the North Simcoe to a point some distance west, closer to Angus, not far from the point where the South Simcoe crosses the mainline on this map. Southern sections between Allendale and Toronto remain in use as GO Transit's Barrie line. The section from Allendale to Collingwood is officially in use, but the rails are heavily overgrown. The rest of the routes in the southern Ontario area have been turned over to rail trail use, especially the North Grey, now a major tourist pathway. The section from Allendale to Gravenhurst is largely unused, while north of there it forms the CN mainline, connecting to an extension of the Ontario Northland Railway at Gravenhurst. The map shows many other routes and expansions as well. Of note is the "Lake Simcoe Junction Railway" just west of the Northern mainline outside of Toronto. This was one of several routes that planned to take advantage of the ports on Lake Simcoe that connected to the Trent-Severn Canal, greatly reducing the distance travelled by train.
context_page_description: The Port Whitby and Port Perry Railway was a former railway running from Whitby to Port Perry, running north–south about 50 km east of Toronto. It was built to connect local grain and logging interests with the railway mainlines on the shores of Lake Ontario. It was later extended northeast to Lindsay, becoming the Whitby, Port Perry and Lindsay Railway.
  The railway was never very successful, as the original engineering was considered sub-par and reliability was poor from the start. It earned the nickname "The Nip 'n Tuck", a euphemism for something considered unreliable. The last train ran in 1939, a specially commissioned passenger train, and the rails were pulled up in 1941 to feed wartime steel production.
context_section_description: The PW&PP ran almost due north from a dock at Port Whitby to its own two-storey station in Whitby, then a meandering northward path through the Oak Ridges Moraine with stations at Brooklin, Myrtle, south of Manchester, south of Prince Albert and finally running northeast into Port Perry. The WPP&L extension to Lindsay ran northward adding stations at Seagrave, Sonya, and Manilla Junction (between Manilla and Cresswell), and then turned sharply east through Mariposa and Ops, before joining the Midland Railway southwest of Lindsay. In Lindsay, the WPP&L joined with the Victoria Railway at Union Station. When the competing T&N stated north out of Uxbridge in 1883, a connecting spur was added to the WPP&L, running southeast from Manilla to meet the T&N just outside Blackwater at a location known as Blackwater Junction.
  The section from Port Perry to Manilla Junction was abandoned in 1937, directing traffic from Lindsay along the spur to the T&N at Blackwater Junction, which led more directly to Toronto. The rest of the line south from Port Perry was pulled up shortly thereafter in 1941. The section from Lindsay to Blackwater remained in operation until 1991. The main station in Port Perry was later moved from its original position on the lakeshore at Palmer Park to a nearby intersection at 158 Water Street (rear building near Queen Street and Water Street). The original site location was under development by Shopper's Drug Mart, and the town councilors demanded that any development must incorporate the station.
  Although the last portions of the main railbed were removed in 1941, most of the route can be seen in aerial and satellite photography to this day. It is particularly prominent as it runs northwest out of Port Perry before turning northeast towards Lindsay. A small portion of the former railbed forms Old Rail Line street in Port Perry, just north of the final location of the station. The section from Blackwater to Lindsay, remaining in active use until the 1990s, now for a major part of the Beaver River Wetland Trail, and forms a portion of the Trans Canada Trail.
caption: A rather simplified version of the PW&PP route appears near the lower right of this map. This was drawn prior to its extension to Lindsay.
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