Cobourg and Peterborough Railway - The Wooden Causeway

The Wooden Causeway

The Cobourg and Peterborough Railway was the successor company that was incorporated in 1852, and had the railroad extended along a 5-kilometer (3.1 mi) single-tracked wooden trestle bridge across Rice Lake. Construction started in 1853, but was halted due to a cholera epidemic among the German immigrants who signed up to work at the construction sites. The bridge was constructed in the summer of 1854, was completed on November 19, and, opened for use on December 29, 1854. At the time, it was one of the longest trestle bridges in North America. The main bridge started in Harwood, Ontario and continued towards Tic Island, and consisted of a long trestle set on piles, with 33 truss spans (24 m each) and a 36 m swing section in the navigation between Tic island and the northern shore. The choice for using pure wood on the bridge was its low cost, and high abundance in nearby forests.

The railroad company did have one spur line at the time: the Peterborough & Chemong Lake Railway Company. This was established as an eventual extension of the Cobourg & Peterborough in 1857, while the first four miles (six kilometers) opened in 1859. The line was taken over by the GTR in March 1888 and extended the line the remaining four miles by July 1891.

Each year, massive ice dams would form on Rice Lake, and extensive repairs were needed to keep the bridge safe and operational. The bridge was even more vulnerable due to the construction contractors using simple wooden pilings instead of using crushed rock surrounding the wooden piles, which allowed them to shift when ice dammed up against the bridge, warping them. When the Prince of Wales visited in 1860, he was not allowed to cross the bridge due to fears it would collapse. By the winter of 1860–1861, the bridge was completely destroyed, along with the town of Cobourg's hopes of becoming a major Great Lakes port, and the rails were removed from the remaining portions of the bridge. The railroad had gone bankrupt in 1865. The town's citizens had raised over $1 million for the 48 kilometer long railroad, which was later merged into the Marmora Ironworks in August 1866.