Bytown and Prescott Railway

The Bytown and Prescott Railway (B&PR) was a railway joining Ottawa (then called Bytown) with Prescott on the Saint Lawrence River. The company was incorporated in 1850, and the first train ran from Prescott into Bytown on Christmas Day, 1854. The 84 km (52 mile) railway, Ottawa's first to outside markets, was initially used to ship lumber collected on the Ottawa River for further shipping along the St. Lawrence to markets in the United States and Montreal.

Bytown became Ottawa in 1855, and the railway changed its name to match, becoming the Ottawa and Prescott Railway (O&PR). The operating company went bankrupt and re-formed in 1866 as the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Railway. The line was eventually taken over in 1884 by Canadian Pacific Railway who used it as a link between Ottawa and their mainlines along the St. Lawrence. Other routes, notably the Canada Central Railway running only 20 km to the west, provided shorter runs to the Toronto area, and several direct routes to Montreal were already available. The Ottawa and Prescott saw decreasing use, and rails were eventually pulled up starting in 1966.

The railway's right of way parallels Highway 416 for much of its length, and is easily visible from the ground and air. It is particularly prominent where it passes under Highway 401 just west of the 416 terminus outside Prescott. Short portions in the Ottawa area remain in use for a variety of services, most notably the O-Train Trillium Line.

Bytowners had been promoting their town as the capital of Canada since the 1840s. At the time the town's only connections with the world were via dirt road, the Ottawa River to Montreal and the Rideau Waterway to Kingston. The Ottawa river was a major route for the shipping of logs from the interior of Upper Canada, especially the areas now part of Algonquin Park, to Quebec City where they were loaded on ships for sales in Europe.

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