Sharbot Lake group floating new railway plan

Aug 19, 2020

The Sharbot Lake Business Group and the Rural Frontenac Tourism Group have both sprung into existence over the last couple of years.

They developed out of some of the conversations that have taken place at semi-annual social gatherings of business people from Sharbot Lake and neighbouring communities, organised by Wayne and Alison Robinson and Bill and Rosemarie Bowick.

This past spring, an ongoing conversation among some of the business and tourism group activists about the potential for a VIA Rail passenger service, between Toronto and Ottawa coming through Sharbot Lake, became the subject of a Zoom-based set of meetings.

The VIA Rail line, tentatively called the Shining Waters Line, has been the subject of intermittent, and limited, communication from VIA over several years.

In 2017 a proposed map of the line, which included a station in Sharbot Lake, was released by VIA. There was speculation in the spring of 2019 that funding for the line would be included in the federal pre-election budget, but that was not the case. However, in June of last year, then Minister for Gender and Equality and International Development Maryam Monsef, who is the MP for Peterborough, announced $71 million in federal funding to complete the planning process for the Shining Waters line, over a two-year period. The projected cost of the new line is $4 billion ($6 billion for a fully electric line) in 2019 dollars.

Since that announcement took place, the Liberals were returned to power in the October 2019 election, but with a diminished mandate as a minority government, and COVID-19 hit a few months later. There has been nothing stated by VIA Rail about Shining Waters since the $71 million in funding was announced.

The Zoom group, now known as the Sharbot Lake Via Rail Station Committee, were concerned that the two ideas about VIA’s plans for the line as it passes through Sharbot Lake, that have been discussed thus far are both flawed. VIA officials have have been planning for the line to follow an identical route to the one that the former CN Rail line from Peterborough to Ottawa. That would mean passing through Sharbot Lake, limiting or entirely blocking access to the Sharbot Lake beach and the Sharbot Lake Family Health Team and passing within metres of many homes in the hamlet. The line would then run to Railway Heritage Park (across from the township office) stopping at a station located where the original Sharbot Lake rail station stood. The line would then cross Road 38 and heading east behind Granite Ridge Education Centre and head towards Highway 7. A bridge that allowed the former line to run under Road 38 was removed five years ago, thanks to a grant from the government of Ontario. A new mechanism for crossing the road would need to be built.

A second route has also been discussed locally as an alternative. It would see the station located south of the hamlet on Road 38 and Brewer Road, with the line then passing over the east basin of Sharbot Lake via a railway bridge system. This route would surely be unpopular with east basin cottage owners and others.

The VIA Rail Station Committee has come up with an alternative route that they are hoping to present to VIA.

The first part of the plan would see the rail line divert from the former line (now part of the Trans Canada Trail). The former line ducks south of Highway 7, at Westgate Road, as it runs west to east and then runs at the south end of both Big Clear and Bass lakes, before heading across the causeway, between the west and east basins of Sharbot Lake. The plan at the centre of the committee’s proposal is to have the line continue to straddle Highway 7, through (between?)Arden and Mountain Grove, all the way to Sharbot Lake, where a station would be located on or near Highway 7. The plan ties in with a proposal that Central Frontenac Council has endorsed, which calls for the Ontario Ministry of Transportation to create a Parkway (perhaps use the word, ’exit’, to make it more understandable to some) in the vicinity of Sharbot Lake, when Highway 7 is redeveloped into a 400 series highway sometime in the future.

“Central Frontenac Township’s forthcoming Official Plan will feature an innovative “Sharbot Lake Parkway” concept for the planned four-lane Highway 7 corridor. The Parkway will emphasize landscape and create a southern Rural Frontenac gateway through a prominent entrance to County Road 38 and Sharbot Lake village. The Parkway will also encompass the nearby intersection of Highway 7 and County Road 509, the northern gateway into Rural Frontenac.

We urge VIA Rail to route the High Frequency Rail line along the Highway 7 Corridor and work in conjunction with Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation to bring multiple modes of transportation into the Parkway concept. This is an obvious fit!” Via Rail submission (page 2)

The group has received the support of Chief Doreen Davis of the Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation.

“Recognizing their stewardship of Algonquin traditional territory, the Algonquins of Ontario (AOO) represented locally by the Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation, would also advocate for a transportation link that would enhance their economic development while protecting vulnerable ecological systems. At Crotch Lake, the AOO will soon be developing Whiteduck Provincial Park. It will be the second largest Provincial Park in Eastern Ontario after Algonquin.”

The submission has been presented as an information item to the Central Frontenac Township Economic Development Committee and is being passed around to members of the Sharbot Lake Property Owners Association and Central Frontenac Railway Heritage Museum Committee for comment.

Once that happens and a final document is prepared, it is unclear where it will go from there.

“We are hoping to get a hearing from VIA, but we do not have a contact at VIA at the moment,” said Ken Fisher of the committee.

Among its members, the committee includes: Sarah Carpenter, Ken Fisher, Fred Fowler, Joe Gallivan, Gary Giller, Victor Heese, Dennis Larocque, Wade Leonard, Dereck Redmond, Wayne Robinson, and Greg Rodgers.