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Category: Heavy Industry

Coal Piles at Cobourg Harbour – c. 1955

Coal Piles at Cobourg Harbour – c. 1955

This is the scene some 120 years after Cobourg’s harbour was first created.  Lumber and iron ore had been its first major exports.  More recently imports came to […]
Diorama at Blairton Mine

Diorama at Blairton Mine

Volunteer George Parker has built and operates a 1/20 scale model of the Cobourg & Peterborough Railway in its various incarnations.  One of these was the line which […]
Cobourg and Peterborough Railway (1/20 Scale)

Cobourg and Peterborough Railway (1/20 Scale)

Text appears on screen:  “Scale model (1/20) of the Cobourg and Peterborough Railway as it passes by Cobourg Harbour” Voice over begins: The story – we have to […]
Iron Ore Route Map

Iron Ore Route Map

There had been American connections to the Cobourg & Peterborough Railway from the earliest days.  It was an American engineer who designed the Rice Lake bridge and an […]
Blairton Mine

Blairton Mine

The development of this mine by industrialists from Pittsburgh brought renewed life to the railway and, consequently, the harbour. The railway ore cars were commissioned from James Crossen […]
Rail Car Ferry Route Across Lake Ontario

Rail Car Ferry Route Across Lake Ontario

The site of present day Charlotte, just north of Rochester, New York, was first settled in 1792, just six years before the first settler arrived in Cobourg.  Charlotte […]
Rail Car Ferry Interior

Rail Car Ferry Interior

While the ferries were licensed to carry up to 1,000 deck passengers, Ontario No.1 had berths for only ninety.  Only a few of the wealthier passengers would have patronized […]
Ore Car Ferry Ontario No.1

Ore Car Ferry Ontario No.1

On January 6, 1924, Ontario No. 1 sailed from Port Charlotte and soon encountered a heavy gale with 20 foot swells and 75 knots of wind. After making […]