This is a scene of a recently pulled up section of what once was the Ottawa Valley Railway. It defies any sort of intelligent thinking from our politicians that they would allow this to happen because the Ottawa Valley Railway was the last remaining rail link between eastern and western Canada that bypassed Toronto and it also served an important Canadian military base. It would also be an important asset in any future commuter rail network between Ottawa and the Ottawa Valley and any future revival of passenger rail between eastern and western Canada through Ottawa. Any hopes for these future uses, not to mention future uses by industry, are now gone.

This section I photographed was originally built in 1864 as part of the Canada Central Railway. In 1881 it was taken over by Canadian Pacific. More recently, in 1996, Canadian Pacific leased the line to a short line operator that ran it as the Ottawa Valley Railway.

After I took this photo I helped myself to some discarded spikes before leaving.