It’s hard to describe how happy I am now that Canadian Pacific is officially tearing up the rail line between Smith’s Falls and Mattawa. I live about 100 feet from one of the seven crossings in Carleton Place. By law, engineers have to blow their horn three times at each crossing, resulting in a minimum of twenty-one per train. A few engineers wouldn’t stop blowing all the way through town. It took me five years to be able to sleep through the night when we first moved here. Sitting out in the backyard in summer was interrupted every few hours by these blasts that would sometimes go for ten minutes or longer.
The trains were a noisy, smelly, traffic-blocking inconvenience that produced almost no economic benefit to our town.
To all you town councillors fighting for retention of operations, you won’t be getting my vote next election. Using it for light rail? Give me a break. The bus company has a hard enough time staying in business. And to Mr. Miasek, ‘minimal outcry’? There wasn’t any outcry, except from self-serving politicians. If there were viable business interests out there, I’m sure that in two years they could have put a plan together.
Goodbye OVR, goodbye CP!
Definitely won’t miss you.
R Rowden, Carleton Place