page_title: Irondale, Bancroft and Ottawa Railway
section_title: CNoR takeover
hierarchical_section_title: Irondale, Bancroft and Ottawa Railway / History / CNoR takeover
caption_attribution_description: English: CNoR engine 1136 was built in 1913 and scrapped in July 1954. It kept its number after being taken over by CN in 1923. 1136 is seen on the IB&amp;O turntable at Irondale, still sporting the original CNoR livery.
context_page_description: The Irondale, Bancroft and Ottawa Railway was a short line railway in Central Ontario, Canada. The line was originally opened in 1878 as the Myles Branch Tramway, a horse-drawn wagonway connecting the Snowdon Iron Mine to the Victoria Railway a few miles away. The line was taken over by a group looking to build a northern extension of the Toronto and Nipissing Railway as the Toronto and Nipissing Eastern Extension Railway. This extension was never built; instead, the company rechartered as the IB&O and used the Tramway as the basis for a new line with the ultimate aim to connect Orillia to the Ottawa area.
  The Tramway initially ran east from Howland to Furnace Falls, and the IB&O began pushing further northeast through Irondale, Gooderham, Wilberforce and Harcourt, then turning east for Bancroft. Construction stopped at Baptiste Lake when the owner died in July 1899. The line was eventually purchased by Mackenzie and Mann in 1909, who connected it to the Central Ontario Railway outside Bancroft in July 1910. The IB&O leased the COR, and then both were merged with Mackenzie and Mann's Canadian Northern Railway in 1911.
context_section_description: The railway reached new mining areas just as it was being discovered that the ore had a high sulphur content, which made it difficult to refine. Combined with lower prices in the market, the railway found little profit in the iron business. By this time, woodcutting was reaching a peak in Ontario and the railway found considerable business servicing various sawmills that were springing up in the area.
  Pusey's death on 18 July 1899 left Lash as the executor of his estate. Lash was the General Manager of Bank of Commerce, who held most of the debt for the line, and was also a lawyer for Mackenzie and Mann's CNoR. He officially took over the IB&O in 1905. In April 1906 CNoR leased the COR, and soon made a bid for the IB&O as well. Lash urged all shareholders to accept, and CNoR took over operations of the IB&O on 16 October 1906.
  By this time, the COR had opened its line to Bancroft in December 1900, and was continuing north with its own plans to connect to Ottawa via the Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway. This made the original plans for the IB&O superfluous. CNoR provided the funding needed for the remaining 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from Mud Creek to York River, where the IB&O connected with the COR just north of Bancroft on 1 July 1910. The first through train ran the complete route on 12 September.
  Mackenzie and Mann purchased the IB&O outright, and then used it to lease the COR in 1910. In 1911, CNoR officially purchased the IB&O, putting both lines under the CNoR name. The IB&O had been cheaply built and was subject to constant derailments, so the CNoR began upgrading the line while limiting speeds along considerable lengths to only 15 miles per hour (24 km/h). In spite of this, the route was so much more direct that the passenger trip from Bancroft to Toronto was cut to a single day. In 1919, Myles Junction was renamed Howland Junction.
caption: CNoR engine 1136  being turned at Irondale. This engine kept its number after the CN takeover.
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