Sydenham residents want to bring rail cars back to the trails

Jeff Green | Sep 20, 2019

Sydenham’s Matt Trousdale has an idea and he is casting about to see if it has legs.

Trousdale heard a couple of weeks ago that some rail cars from Upper Canada Village are being “divested of” by the St. Lawrence Parks Commission. The commission is accepting proposals from interested parties with a preference for those that are prepared to take on most or all of the rolling stock that makes up the display. They include a locomotive, a baggage/refrigeration car and a passenger car.

He thought the collection of cars may have a future use as features at the trailheads on the K&P trail in Harrowsmith and Verona, and somewhere in Sydenham along the Cat Trail as well. His first thought is to use them as tourist information booths.

He appears before Frontenac County Council this week to see if her can get a letter of support to go along with a submission to the Parks commission, which is due in early October.

“I’ll see if they are interested in supporting this,” he said, “and I will follow up with South Frontenac Township as well. I figured the tourism promotion aspect of the project may appeal to Frontenac County as a whole. It seemed like a logical place to start.”

Trousdale said that he knows there will be a cost to moving the rail cars, but he thinks a bigger hurdle may be the cost of refurbishing them to an appealing state for public use, and the eventual upkeep and operational costs if they are to become public assets in Frontenac County.

“I wouldn’t ask the county to pay for everything, but I would like to see some sort of commitment to look at finances if they see some value in tourist booths, or something other use. I think of it as an interesting opportunity and would like to see if others are interested as well” he said.

The Morrisburg Leader reported on July 22nd that the decision to divest came about after the Parks Commission commissioned a consultants report on the cost of restoration of the century old artifacts, which was pegged at $1.1 million.

“While the SLPC [Saint Lawrence Parks Commission] would like to see the train remain in this location, unfortunately, the costs for restoration are simply beyond what can be reasonably invested in this asset,” said SLPC chair Bob Runciman in a release from early July.

The SLPC have published a list of requirements for expressions of interest for any group seeking to acquire the artifact. A bid from Frontenac County for use on trails fits a number of those criteria since they would be maintained in public use and would remain in Eastern Ontario.

There are a couple of gaps, however, which will need to be addressed by October 4, the closing date for expressions of interest. Among the gaps are a budget for the entire project and proof of funding support.

Although the estimated restoration costs for all three of the assets is high, the Parks Commission appears to recognise that a new owner will not necessarily take it all on. The commission only wants to know if a prospective new owner intends to carry out a restoration, indicating they are open to entertaining submissions from prospective owners who will only partially restore the rail cars.

When he appeared before Frontenac County Council on September 18, Trousdale made it clear that he is not suggesting that the rail cars be restored if they come to Frontenac County.

“I would consider putting up a roof over them to protect them, painting them, that sort of thing. The idea of bringing them back up to museum quality is not what we are looking at.”

He did estimate that the cost of moving the collection will cost up to $30,000.

South Frontenac Mayor Ron Vandewal said that it might be possible to get a contractor to cover the cost of moving the rail cars as a contribution to the project.

“We have some large contractors who do a lot of work for South Frontenac who may be interested,” he said.

Frontenac County Council agreed to prepare a letter expressing their support in principle for the project, and invited Trousdale to make a submission for financial support to the 2010 budget provided if the application that is due on October 4 is successful.

(This article was updated from the version which appeared in the print version of the Frontenac News on September 19 in order to include the response at Frontenac County Council on September 18)