Toronto and Nipissing Railway - Operation

Operation

Passenger and freight traffic on the Toronto and Nipissing Railway grew strongly at first, challenging the ability of the line to carry all that was offered. Lumber and firewood traffic always remained strong. The T&NR directors reacted promptly by buying substantial numbers of new locomotives and freight cars, but then the effects of poor grain harvests and the business recession of the mid-late 1870s weighed heavily on the line's ability to pay a return on the capital invested. Operating ratios (costs/receipts) were no worse than other small Ontario railways of the period, but substantially worse than those of large railways such as the GTR and CPR. The gross profit was barely equivalent to 5-6% on its outstanding bonds, which had been sold with a guaranteed return of 7-8%. This left nothing for the stockholders, or for renewals of equipment and trackage. The LSJR branch to Sutton and Lake Simcoe did not add an amount of traffic proportional to the cost of construction.

The typical passenger service consisted of two trains per day each way between Midland Junction (Lorneville) and Toronto; one of these trains extended to Coboconk; there was only one return trip each day from Sutton to Stouffville. The small narrow gauge engines were able to cope with normal winter weather, but there was no money for snow clearing after severe storms and Gooderham and Worts sometimes paid for this work in order to maintain their distillery fuel supplies. Sometimes it took a month to clear the line with manual labour. There were few public accidents, but a severe toll of industrial fatalities to the operating staff. The most dangerous job was Brakesman, with many young men being crippled or killed when walking along the tops of vehicles to manually screw down brakes, and when manually coupling cars using the highly dangerous link and pin couplers. The worst accident occurred when the boiler of the Fairlie engine Shedden (see illustration above) exploded at Stouffville on January 31, 1874 due to the safety valves being tied down to increase haulage power, killing three enginemen.