Twenty-five years ago, a dream was realized, with the opening of the North Bay Heritage Railway and Carousel at the city's waterfront.
In celebration of its longevity, a diesel engine professionally painted by Ontario Northland employees in the company’s original colours, was unveiled.
“What’s great about the paint shop is they do spectacular work. We’ve always painted our engines just with paint brushes and canned paint, and so to have it done professionally just the way they’ve done it, is spectacular,” said Dr. Rod Johnston, chair of the Heritage Railway Company board.
“The other thing that’s neat is in the early 50’s, the ONR was one of the early adopters to get into diesel engines. This is a copy of the diesel engine that put the steam engines out of work. So this is the first colour that they had and it was very ultra-modern and very new in design. It’s kind of neat to have it as our historical train. We’ve got the first train that came to North Bay, the Lucy Dalton in miniature, and now we have the first diesel engine that the ONR had. I think that’s pretty exciting.”
Ontario Northland president and CEO Corina Moore credits ONR employee Corey Farnsworth for bringing the idea to her, but Farnsworth says the real credit goes to his young son Elliott.
“We rode the train here and he asked me why there wasn’t an ONR train. I told him I didn’t know and told him to ask Corina Moore. We were at the soccer field one day, and he went up to her and asked her, and here we are. She made it happen.”
"I thought it was a great idea,” said Moore.
“I made a call that night to Dennis Higgs, (vice-president rail mechanical and remanufacturing) and the next morning we started talking about it and made plans to do it during their off-season. It all came together very quickly," said Moore.
"Obviously the whole paint shop is proud of their work, and a lot of them are here today to see their work being shared with the community. A lot of times the community doesn't see the work that we do in the shop, it just gets shipped back to the customer on our own railway. I'm really proud for them. I think there's a lot of employees and parents and grandparents that have been involved with this train for many, many years. To be able to connect the dots is really a proud moment for us."
Johnston credits volunteer Colin Vezina, for helping to make it all come together. Vezina is one of only 11 volunteers left from the original 33.
“When she contacted Colin Vezina, he followed through and the next thing I knew, Bartlett’s towing offered to move the train to the ONR for free, and low and behold, it was going to happen.”
Young Elliott Farnsworth joined his father and other ONR staff, volunteers and local politicians for the inaugural ride on the train following the official reveal.
“I’m super excited. It was fun,” said the younger Farnsworth.
Johnston also took time to thank the volunteers who have devoted so much of their time over the past 25 years to keep the tourist attraction up and running.
“These guys have all been here all along. When we started I thought we’d have volunteers for a couple years and then we’d have to start hiring students or something for the summer. But here it is 25 years later, and we have as many as 200 people out for the volunteer dinner in September. It’s unbelievable to me that we can still operate with volunteers. We’re pretty darn lucky, and I’m pleased we can represent the ONR for the first time in 25 years.”
Work is also being done to convert a car to make it wheelchair accessible. The goal is to have it operational for Canada Day.
“The way we’ve done it is we’ve lifted them out of their wheelchairs and put them on these little seats, but it just doesn’t work very well,” said Johnston.
“One of the volunteers offered to pay to have one of the cars modified, so that’s been done. It’s going to carry either one scooter or two electric wheelchairs. We’ve had it certified now by an engineer. It needs to be painted yet, but we hope to have it running July 1st, so that’s exciting.”
