Fenelon Falls’ Swing Railway Bridge – Past and Present

Boats and trains have a way of capturing imaginations. Generations of children grew up playing with toy trains and boats, and generations of adults worked very hard to advocate that south central Ontario could have railways and canals. The village of Fenelon Falls was incorporated in 1874, to allow the community to vote a bonus to attract the Victoria Railway (later renamed Midland, Grand Trunk, then CNR). Work began on the railway that August, and it opened to Kinmount on November 9, 1876, then Haliburton on November 26, 1878.

Much of the track was laid along the shores of waterbodies to reduce the amount of filling that needed to be done to keep the tracks to an acceptable grade. At Fenelon Falls, it crossed the Fenelon River at its mouth on Cameron Lake. At the time, the lakeshore was home to the Cameron Lake Foundry—having a railway connection would be convenient. The lakeshore (now Garnet Graham Park) was later home to the Napanee Mills Paper Company, Standard Chemical Company and a sawmill. There was a cascade above Fenelon Falls. There was a strong lobby to construct the Trent Valley Canal as a through shipping route linking Lake Huron with Lake Ontario, the government had yet to decide whether to build locks at Fenelon Falls (for a period of time each of the provincial and federal governments had jurisdiction). The 1876 bridge was a fixed railway bridge, constructed close to the top of the cascade above Fenelon Falls.

The railway was extremely important to the region. In this era, industries would move to have a railway connection. At Fenelon Falls, the original sawmill was located on the north shore (which became Fenelon Island after the canal was built), allowing exports by steamship. It was superseded by a mill on the south shore (now Sobeys) that could be served by the railway, which would save manually repiling all the lumber onto a railcar at Lindsay. Industries were created that never would have been viable without the railway—for instance exporting ice from Cameron Lake or quarried stone from Burnt River. In both cases, these bulky materials were harvested immediately beside the tracks. In that era, the railway was the fastest and most economical way for long distance travel and shipment.

Yet, local promoters also dreamed of being on a through waterway. Many of the strongest advocates were businessmen who would profit from the routes’ completion. Many of these entrepreneurs were the same people who were using the railway to ship goods for their business, and ought to have known that the railway had every economic advantage. The Welland Canal had already been built, so there was no realistic prospect that Great Lakes shipments would wind their way through the narrow Trent and Severn Rivers. Nevertheless, lobbyists continued to insist that the Trent Valley Canal was the best through waterway for commercial shipments. The politicians also ought to have known that the arguments were nonsense, but beginning with John A. Macdonald, they knew it was a way to buy votes—though at staggering costs to the public purse. During the 1878 election, he raised the possibility of further work on the waterway, then just before the 1882 election Tom Rubidge was commissioned to make surveys at Burleigh Falls, Buckhorn and Fenelon Falls. On the eve of the election the tenders were posted, and when Macdonald was re-elected, the contracts were let on October 27. He had parlayed this round of improvements into two electoral victories locally.

Anyone who expected that these announcements would mean that the lock would soon be functional was disappointed. The contractor completed the masonry work by 1885, but the lock gates were not installed until 1887, after an inexplicable delay of more than a season. On November 26, 1887 (after navigation would be closed for the season), William MacArthur was appointed lockmaster with an annual salary of $250. But boats could not use the locks because the river was blocked by a ridge of stone and the fixed railway bridge. So, though the federal government had spent $125,530 on the locks and was paying a lockmaster, it was only used by the pulp mill (which had since opened on the shore of Cameron Lake) to bring up logs from below.

In 1889, R.B. Rogers, the Superintending Engineer of the Trent Waterway, hired William Kennedy of Bobcaygeon to blast the stone obstruction out of the river bed. A strip 200 feet long and 60 feet wide was cleared that October. But still no boats could pass while the Midland Railway Company and the Federal Government litigated over who was responsible for building the new swing bridge. It was understood that if the bridge impeded a navigable waterway, the railway company was responsible for installing a swing. The Crown argued that the river had previously been navigable to the head of the falls and therefore the bridge rendered part of the river unnavigable. The company disagreed because there was scarcely any distance between the head of the cascade above the falls (now flooded by the dam above the falls) and the rail bridge.

The judge ultimately agreed with the railway that the Crown’s insistence that the river was navigable right to the precipice of the falls was nonsense. The government built a new swing railway bridge, which still swings open and closed once a year to facilitate winter traffic across the Fenelon River. It opened to traffic on December 26, 1893 (once again when it was too late for boats to pass that year), and A.W. Parkin’s Water Witch passed through the locks on May 12, 1894. In the meantime, the Anglo Saxon had sat at Fenelon Falls waiting to lock through, and by the time the works were operational, the ship was “a spectacle of ruin and decay,” so after removing the machinery, it was scuttled in Cameron Lake. Eleven and a half years had passed since the tender was let for the construction of the Fenelon Falls lock, but at long last, boats could pass from Sturgeon to Cameron Lake.           

The Trent-Severn Waterway was finally completed in 1920, 87 years after construction began at Bobcaygeon. But it never became the through commercial waterway that had justified the $19,027,762 that had been spent on its construction—a staggering sum given the total federal revenues of the period. For a while, it was among the largest national expenditures. By 1920, steamships were becoming obsolete with the advent of gasoline launches and since then it has been primarily used for recreational boating. If the federal government had been honest with itself about how the waterway would be used, it would never have spent so much money on a recreational waterway. But, the Trent-Severn Waterway became a really important tourist attraction and it does serve through tour boats like the Kawartha Voyageur. For generations, countless people have enjoyed an ice cream cone at the Fenelon Dairy, now Slices and Scoops, while watching boats lock through Fenelon Falls. Today, it would be hard for many local residents to image Fenelon Falls without the Trent-Severn Waterway.

For many years, the railway swung the bridge when a boat needed to pass through. Though trains were very important to the local economy in the nineteenth century, with the advent of trucks and automobiles the iron horse became obsolete. It has been said that the Great Depression never ended for the railway. In 1880, the Victoria Railway’s train left Haliburton at 7:10 am, arrived in Lindsay at 11 am, then returned in the afternoon. Special trains could be commissioned for large events, but often there was just one train a day—and it came at a predictable time. Otherwise, pedestrians used the railway bridge—walking along the railway tracks was a common mode of transportation. Generations of kids enjoyed jumping off the train bridge—though the water just deep enough to allow boats to pass in the channel of navigation.

For the season of navigation, a bridge master was employed to swing the bridge as necessary, keeping the ledger listing every boat that the bridge was swung for (some smaller vessels did not need the bridge to be swung). In 1927, the bridge had to be swung 246 times (a boat making a round trip would be counted twice), which increased to 331 times in 1958. Many local residents fondly remember when the railway bridge was accessible to pedestrians in summer. The bridge master had a shelter on the north shore, in front of Maryboro Lodge. From the 1960s on, the Victoria Railway only carried freight, as necessary. After the McLaren’s Creek bridge burned in 1981, it was not worth rebuilding and the railway line was abandoned.

For generations, the railway bridge had been swung to accommodate one train a day, or even one train a week, plus a few hundred boats a year. In process, a much larger number of people benefitted, because they could just walk across the bridge. But nobody made the effort to track them, because for whatever reasons, pedestrians were never seen as being as important as (recreational) boats and trains. It is an odd fact about a piece of public infrastructure. Though it was built with public money, its use has never taken into account how it would benefit the most people.

After the Canadian National Railway decided to abandon the line, the railway bridge was swung open and just left for years as boats passed through the waterway. Neither the Trent-Severn Waterway, nor the Canadian National Railway would operate the bridge for the benefit of the public, though there is every reason to believe that the amount of traffic across the bridge would have far exceeded the amount of boat traffic through the Fenelon River. Victoria County acquired the rights to the railway easement, and many landowners hoped to acquire the easement passing through their properties. Particularly on waterfront lots, many would be more valuable without an easement passing through them.

Somerville Township had a very active snowmobile club, and in the 1990s worked to persuade County Council to turn the abandoned railway into a community multiuse trail, rather than selling it off to private landowners. Given that the alternative was to profit off land sales, the county was not going to invest in the improvements, so the Somerville and District Snowmobile Association (SADSA) had to finance initial improvements themselves, notably the McLaren’s Creek Bridge, which allowed the creation of the Victoria Rail Trail to proceed.

There was a snowmobile trail that came into town from the west, but you had to go across both bridges,” SADSA President Gerry Rintoul recalls. “At both ends, there was a turn that you couldn’t make without getting off and turning the snowmobile manually. People in cars did not really appreciate having to wait for that.” To provide a better way to cross the river, “We got permission from the municipality around 2000 to swing the bridge.”

“Once we had permission, we knew we had to do it quickly, before all the naysayers got in control.” It had been many years since the bridge had been swung, and it was certainly not as easy as it had once been. “When it was still a train bridge, there was a big wrench that just went around in circles. We used a big piece of haystack rope (that would have been used to lift hay in the mow of a barn) and a four-wheel drive truck. As we swung it shut, we lubricated it, and got it so that two people with the tool can swing the bridge.”

Initially, there was some opposition to reopening the bridge to traffic, particularly from property owners along the trail. “There were guys blocking each end with their vehicles. But we had it ready to operate in about two days. We had agreed that we would open and close the bridge on a certain date. We hired a contractor to put the railing and decking on the bridge. In the last 10 or 15 years, [City of Kawartha Lakes] Parks and Rec [Department] has done a good job of looking after the bridge.”

On December 17, 2015 “someone tried to burn the bridge.” A fire, which was determined to be vandalism damaged the decking and railing at the south end of the bridge, but the fire department extinguished the blaze before the structure was compromised. Gerry was one of the volunteer fire fighters helping that night and he worried this might mean that it could no longer be used for snowmobiling. He commented on the effort that Ryan Smith made, he “hired a contractor and had it operational within two weeks.” Since then, the wooden handrail has been replaced with a galvanized guardrail.

More recently, accommodations have been made for ATVs to be directed onto the main street, which have proved satisfactory to ATVers. Kawartha ATV Association President Carolyn Richards remarks, “We are quite content using the route that the City has established, taking the main bridge through town. Have never had an incident.”

The Victoria Rail Trail has become tremendously popular. Today, there is far more traffic on the old railway than in the days when a train would pass once a day. But, no one knows exactly how much traffic there is, as Ryan Smyth, Manager of Parks and Recreation explains, “At this time, the City of Kawartha Lakes does not have an estimate of annual traffic or usage volumes for the Victoria Rail Trail.” Traffic through the Fenelon Falls Lock is tracked, and in 2025, 6,713 vessels passed through the Fenelon Falls lock. It is apparent that the Victoria Rail Trail accommodates far more traffic than the Trent-Severn Waterway.

While accommodations have been made for snowmobiles and ATVs, the City of Kawartha Lakes has not done the same for other trail users—even though it is clear they are far more numerous. The Fenelon Falls Swing Railway Bridge remains a piece of public infrastructure that is not employed in the way that would benefit the most people. As rail trail users arrive at Garnet Graham Park, there is signage for ATVs, but for other users there is just an abrupt break in the trail. “What is the point of having a rail trail with a gap in it, right where it is busiest, right in peak season?” one local resident asks. “You can get across in the river January but not during peak season. All day long you see people coming down the trail, but they can’t cross the bridge. It’s poor for visitors to the community, and unfortunate for local residents.”

When asked why a public asset is managed so a smaller number of boaters can be allowed through, rather than a much larger number of pedestrians, cyclists and other trail users, the City of Kawartha Lakes, who owns and operates the bridge, declined to answer. The Trent-Severn Waterway remarked: “Navigation on the Trent–Severn Waterway is a protected public right, and the Fenelon Falls Lock operates as part of a connected system that supports regional tourism well beyond Fenelon Falls.” Many people might find it odd that the federal government asserts that boating on the Fenelon River is a protected right, while at the same time, access to a family doctor is not (according to Health Canada).

While the federal government asserts the right of boaters to use the waterway, the needs of other users are not considered equally. The Trent-Severn Waterway explains, “Pedestrian and cyclist access across the river is also supported through nearby crossings.” There is one other crossing, the road bridges over the canal and waterfall on CKL Road 121, one of the busiest chokepoints for traffic in the region. Pedestrians are told they can walk to the other bridge, but is it safe for cyclists? Both the City of Kawartha Lakes and Trent-Severn Waterway were asked if it is safe for cyclists to cross this bridge, and both declined to answer. Yet, officially it is the crossing for cyclists that is “supported.”

Arthur Hornibrook, Past President of the Kawartha Cycling Club observes: “One of our significant issues is the lack of safe connection on the Victoria Rail Trail. It’s great in the winter for pedestrians and snowmobiles and would be good for cycling if it could be closed.”

A local cyclist, who crosses the bridge two or four times almost every day, elaborates: “I always feel a little nervous and I know my heartbeat rises as I pedal across, as quickly as possible, always a little afraid that I may be run over by an aggressive driver. Believe me, there are a lot of aggressive drivers out there, frustrated that the presence of a bicycle might slow them down by a couple of seconds.  I have been honked at, cursed at, and overtaken even as other vehicles were approaching from the opposite direction.  One day an angry driver yelled at me to get off the road and to ride on the sidewalk, despite the fact that signs say clearly that riding on the sidewalk is prohibited.  Regardless of whether I am driving my car or pedalling my bicycle, I am rightfully and legally allowed to use those bridges, but I do feel that, on my bicycle, I do so at my peril.” This senior citizen remarks that to be able to cross the bridge on the rail trail “would be a dream come true.” A teenager adds, “if I could, I would ride my bike across that railway bridge every day.”

Many other cyclists worry about personal safety while crossing Fenelon Falls’ busy bridge. Another cyclist, who has been involved in an accident on the bridge, but was not seriously injured, remarks, “crossing the Fenelon Falls bridge is the absolute worst part of the Victoria Rail Trail. I try to avoid it, but every time I have to do it, I feel like I am risking my life. There are just too many cars and not enough space for cyclists. It seems like the government does not take the safety of cyclists seriously. Are they waiting for someone to die?”

It is not only cyclists that have to cross the bridge, but seniors in scooters. Fenelon Falls has assisted living buildings for seniors on both sides of the river, and residents need to cross the bridge to access vital services. As one local senior observes, “it is not safe for scooters to cross that bridge!” Another local resident adds, “Garnet Graham Park is designed for accessibility, but how does someone living in the FAILA building get there with a scooter? How do they get to their dentist? Having the railway bridge open would make the whole village so much more accessible.”

A regular park user remarks, “there are issues with parking congestion around Garnet Graham Park, and most people who live on the south side of town drive across the main street bridge to access it. If the railway bridge was useable in the summer, they could just walk across the bridge. I think the bridge should be crossable year-round for cyclists, dog walkers and pedestrians. This is a very busy park for dog walkers.”

“I believe that bridge should be operating,” says local resident Chris Handley. “It’s a shame to see such a beautiful, and valuable piece of infrastructure sit unused. It serves as a vital link in the winter. Then it is closed to traffic in the summer when it would be most used. It would be a great way to keep cyclists out of the congestions of the road crossing, and to make the rail trail functional for pedestrians. How many people would love to walk out there and watch the boats navigate the river? It would be such an incredible tourist attraction, and it would make active transportation practical for our community.”

Many local residents commented on what a great attraction it would be to have the bridge swing again, including Fenelon Falls Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Marylee Boston: “If the bridge was operating, lots of people would enjoy watching it swing. It would be a tourist attraction, just like the locks. There are always people watching the locks operate. It is definitely important for access to the community in the winter. It needs to allow boats to come through, and for other forms transportation to be able to cross it, both are important to Fenelon Falls.” A local business owner adds, “it would be such a phenomenal tourist attraction. It is a Fenelon Falls! It’s an 1893 railway bridge that still works! How cool is that?!”

When asked about the potential of the bridge operating, the Trent-Severn Waterway and City of Kawartha Lakes agree that operating the bridge would be the municipality’s responsibility. The Trent-Severn Waterway remarked: “Operating a swing bridge that safely accommodates both marine navigation and pedestrian or cycling traffic would require significant engineering upgrades, new safety systems, dedicated staffing, and ongoing maintenance, along with regulatory and heritage approvals. As the bridge is owned and operated by the City of Kawartha Lakes, questions related to feasibility and operation are best directed to the bridge owner.” So, why doesn’t the City of Kawartha Lakes operate the bridge? When asked, “Has any consideration been given to having the Fenelon Falls Swing Railway bridge open to traffic in the summer?”—the City declined to answer.

The Fenelon Falls Swing Railway Bridge was discussed with four engineers—though no detailed study was made for the purposes of this story. All agreed that they saw no reason why the bridge could not be operated more regularly. One was particularly interested in how special it is to have an 1893 swing railway bridge that still operates—and what a unique specimen it is.

Because the City of Kawartha Lakes will not comment, the reason why it does not operate the bridge is not known. If the cost of staffing is the stumbling block, the engineers discussed the possibility that it could function as a fixed bridge. The Trent-Severn Waterway was asked if there is a minimum clearance for boats passing under a fixed bridge, but did not answer. However, the bottom of the decking on the Fenelon Falls railway bridge is about 50 inches higher than the clearance under the Lindsay Street Bridge that is directly in front of the Lindsay Lock. Two of the engineers suggested that a fixed span could be constructed that would have more clearance than the Lindsay bridge, to facilitate traffic across the bridge and boats passing underneath. One engineer suggested that to provide much more clearance, and preserve the historic swing bridge, an arch could be constructed. Will the day come when the City of Kawartha Lakes decides to make this crossing functional year-round?

In the meantime, in the busy summer months, when Garnet Graham Park is constantly hopping and the Victoria Rail Trail is at its busiest, Fenelon Falls’ swing railway bridge continues to play a prominent role in local culture—as a diving board for local kids, as it has been for generations. “It’s a community asset that could be used for so much more,” remarks a village resident. Instead of having the bridge serve the community as a whole, local youth swim across the canal, climb up the bridge, and jump into the water. Did you see that backflip?